Once they make it a really great experience, I'll bet most games go 3D.
But for other things ... not so much.
What sort of company do you work for, for what purpose are your customers getting VR training, and what are they (or their companies, if applicable) paying?
> VR probably won't have a place in every home, just as TV [...] I think the market can ultimate be as big as [that technology] however.
Nobody needs training to watch a TV.
> Nobody needs training to watch a TV.
I'm not sure what your point is here. Training/education is one big application of VR, entertainment is another. TV is also used for training/education as well as entertainment. Using VR doesn't require much more training than using a TV, although you don't find many adults who don't already know how to use a TV.
Alright, so people who are already quite unlike most of the rest of the general population, and doing things in a work environment rather than at home.
> I'm not sure what your point is here. Training/education is one big application of VR
I'm not disputing that, but we're all talking about general uptake by the wider population, not niche uses. Andreessen is talking about the mass market, given the assertion that (apparently) only 99% of people live in uninteresting places where VR would apparently spice our lives up.
> Using VR doesn't require much more training than using a TV
I don't think there were ever seven figure companies (weird flex, but okay) teaching people how to tune a TV.
You turn the TV on, you watch it. Couldn't be simpler.
Television was an easy sell. Radio you could see? Great.
Smartphones and tablets were an easy sell. Computers you could put in your pocket? Computers that even your nana and grandad could operate? Brilliant.
VR? I don't know what the sales pitch would be that someone in Best Buy could give to a technologically illiterate person, at least without that conversation devolving into a bunch of technobabble and an offer to come do some training in an environment and social context likely to be completely unlike where the customer would be likely to use theirs.
Like television, VR sells itself.
If someone has never seen television before, you don't need to draw up a sales pitch to convince them that it can enrich their life. You just need to have a television on display tuned to an action movie and that person can see for their self. It immediately entertains.
Same with VR. Ever seen VR on display in the wild? People, young and old, are naturally drawn to it. It immediately fascinates people.
Your post makes it seem like you would've poo-pooed computers and video games because keyboards and gaming controllers are too complicated. Yet the VR interface is much simpler than those. Watch a tech-illiterate person strap on VR for the first time. The first thing they do is look down at their hands and wave them around.
Like the person seeing an action movie on television for the first time, they don't need a sales rep to tell them how this might be entertaining.
It's sort of a smell-o-vision situation.
Indeed, because they can see a television. They enjoy it immediately. They don't have to put on a headset, they don't have to engage in sensory deprivation, they don't need to think about software, they don't need to think about use cases.
The point I'm making is that TV was a bogus analogy.
> Your post makes it seem like you would've poo-pooed computers and video games because keyboards and gaming controllers are too complicated
Not at all. Game controllers don't require me to take myself out of my environment to enjoy them.
> Watch a tech-illiterate person strap on VR for the first time. The first thing they do is look down at their hands and wave them around.
They then say "wow, this is cool, I wish I had one". They don't say "I want to buy one of these and put it in my living room". To think they do is, again, that disconnect between Silicon Valley and ordinary people in full force; that because we think it might be cool, somehow we know everybody wants it, and we'll happily ignore all the reasons why people don't or, more condescendingly, dismiss them and anybody who mentions them.
Such hubris should be the lesson of Google Glass and Snap.
N=1, but after I experienced a high-quality VR headset and got to play VR a game alone for a while, my reaction was "wow, this is cool, I'm sure as hell gonna get one of these". Then I realized I'll have to also upgrade my desktop for this, and decided this needs to be actually budgeted. Such is the adult life. You may want to buy something, but there are more important expenses too. VR is still expensive, especially if one doesn't have a gaming rig at home. But it's getting there. It starts to pop up in bars and cafes, and in richer houses.
(Also, getting used to VR took exactly 0 seconds for me, and I can't imagine it's because my subconsciousness is tech-savvy. Good VR already feels natural.)
Hmm no. My grandad had worked out the video recorder, my nan not so much. She has a dumb phone, but never turns it on, nor charges it.
Agree with your final paragraph. Wonder if 'Surround' cinema would work as a marketing term?
VR probably won't have a place in every home, just as TV or Alexa type devices don't have a place in my home. I think the market can ultimately be as big as those technologies however.