One of the issues with virtual reality is that expectations have been overset massively with TV shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation, which promised an artificial reality indistinguishable from reality. VR failed. It didn 't have to -- there is a pattern to bringing out successful technology that is repeatable. You create a complete experience regardless of cost, then cost-reduce it. That way, you have a model for where you need to go. Sadly, the more common path is to try to hit an aggressive price point first and deliver a crippled experience. The coming movie Ready Player One showcases the eventual goal for VR as an uncompromised platform: a meshing of technology and the human experience so that the user can 't perceive the difference. …show more content…
You can sustain a higher valuation and higher margins than product-focused companies. What strikes me as strange is that Apple seems to be shifting to a product-focused model, which is why it has been having issues with an increasing number of products and why it had to pull the HomePod. So, while there is a successful approach and one company that has used it successfully, that one company seems to be drifting away from the model, which won 't end well. Wrapping Up Watch Ready Player One or read the book (it is a really good read), and you 'll get a sense for what is coming and how far we must go to get there. We 'll hope the dystopian world that it projects isn 't coming as well, but the eventual future of VR is amazing. We could get to an acceptable product sooner -- but if the industry continues to toss out poor experiences regardless of price, the path will be far longer than it needs to be. I thought there was hope once I heard Apple was going to enter the segment, but its own drift to become a product-focused company and the failure of its HomePod doesn 't bode well for that outcome. You 'd figure it would be easy to be customer-centric -- but sadly, it isn 't. That is why so many of these efforts fail so