The Virtual Reality Industry

Virtual Reality (VR) as term is almost more than a decade old, but still this is not reached to lots of human hands may be possible reason as cost and different connectors for each device driven market. This is further taken to next step in application world with Augmented Reality (AR) and this is collectivity knowns as eXtended Reality (XR). The presence of these breakthrough technologies began to be felt far away from the fields of gaming and entertainment, where they first became popular.

May be it is unreal to believe but it is virtually real. It started with video games in 1980’s and today turned into a sophisticated medium with a practical potion in future. It is used by marketers for following:

• To show purpose of brand and product more clearly and effectively

• To engage the consumers entirely in the product or brand

• To excite the consumers by creating standalone placement

• To demonstrate how a product can be blend into consumers lifestyle and make them want to incorporate somehow

The VR industry as a whole is growing at a fast pace, with the market size of consumer virtual reality hardware and software projected to increase from 6.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2019 to more than 16 billion U.S. dollars by 2022.

Analysis

With global spending on XR technology is forecast to increase by 78.5% next year compared to this year, both technologies will be key trends to watch out for in 2020. We are likely to see a whole load of exciting new hardware offering even greater immersion and realism, as well as innovative use cases as industry gets to grips with what it can do.

Although games made the headlines in recent years thanks to Pokemon Go and Facebook's Oculus Rift, the potential to boost productivity and safety using XR makes it an attractive proposition for industry. VR can be used to simulate working in dangerous environments or with expensive, easily damaged tools and equipment, without any of the risks. AR, on the other hand, can be used to relay essential information directly to the user about whatever happens to be in front of them – reducing the time spent by engineers, technicians, or maintenance staff referring to manuals and looking up information online while on the job.

The potential uses for these technologies in healthcare are obvious, and over 2020 we can expect to see many of these use cases transition from trials and pilots and gradually into general use. Virtual reality has already been adopted in therapy, where it is used to treat patients with phobias and anxiety disorders.

The adoption of AR in healthcare is forecast to grow even more quickly – with the value of the market increasing by 38% annually until 2025.

VR gaming and VR video make up the largest consumer use cases for VR technology, with 20.8 billion U.S. dollars expected to be spent in 2023 on these areas alone. However, experts have suggested that the benefits of VR will have an impact upon industry too, with improvements to efficiency a real possibility. As a result, by 2023 it is expected that industrial usage will be three times larger than that of consumers.

Possibly the most anticipated breakthrough will be Apple’s forthcoming 8K combined VR/AR glasses that will not be tethered to a computer or phone. The consumer tech giant is hoping that it will be the one to break XR into the mainstream with a high-end but affordable device, in the same way it did with the iPhone.

Nevertheless, as the technology improves further, there is no doubt that the use cases of extended reality (XR) technologies, including VR, will widen and develop as businesses realize the full potential.       

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