Well, there was plenty of news over the last two weeks, so we have some solid issues for you, although there are few events at this time of year. One I will be attending is Siggraph. This is a show I have put into every budget for years, but has always somehow got squeezed out. After SID, my good friend Dr. Jon Peddie and Kathleen Maher of Jon Peddie Research persuaded me (I think a bottle of something red might have been involved!) to try to make the effort this year and I will be attending.
One of the topics that keeps recurring, especially in MDM, is that many analysts are saying that VR is failing and will go the way of 3D on TV. I don’t (yet) completely buy into this, partly because I really couldn’t imagine VR becoming that everybody did, all the time, anyway. However, the current mood made me think of that analysts’ perrenial chart – the Gartner ‘hype curve’. Now, we analysts usually hate acknowledging any good idea from a competitive firm, but Gartner really nailed this one, and the hype curve really does come up time and again.
For those that haven’t seen it before, I’ll explain it very briefly. If you know it, skip this paragraph. The hype curve indicates that every idea or product goes through an initial period when only insider know of it and then it becomes the talk of the technocracy (think blockchain) and hits a peak of huge claims about the universality of the technology and the myriad benefits it will bring. Then the technology or idea drops into the trough of despondency when practical considerations start to dominate – technologies often get to a ‘chicken and egg’ situation, where there are devices but no content or, less often, content but no devices and sometimes neither as content will arrive when there is a population of devices, but the devices can’t get into the market as there is no content! As practical issues get solved, salespeople work out who really wants it and needs it and compelling use cases develop, then the technology slowly creeps up to the plateau of productivity.
It seems to me that VR is in that trough of despondency at the moment. There are a lot of issues still to be solved in terms of resolution, processor power, cost of goggles etc. Once these are solved, we should continue to slowly grind our way up towards the plateau of productivity. Personally, I dislike wearing the goggles and cannot imagine wanting to go near them during the recent hot weather. However, there are some very compelling applications that really don’ work well suing other technologies. On that basis, a small market can develop that may, eventually, drive tje technology to be good enough and cheap enough to be a realistic proposition for volume consumers.
However, there is nothing to guarantee that the technology will ever make the progress needed to get out of the trough. Some, like 3D TV get into the trough and never get out!
Bob
Gartner hype curve
