Closing out the Samsung Developer Conference today was a keynote address from Unity CEO John Riccitiello. In it, he makes five predictions about the future of virtual and augmented reality, covering how the industry is going to grow and how the technology will be adopted over time.
Riccitiello's first point was about the industry's growth, referring to 2016 as a "ductape and twine year", in reference to the first generation of VR hardware still, in some way, resembling hacked together devices that could see technical and aesthetic improvements over subsequent generations. He refers to a "gap of disappointment" regarding the excessively high VR market predictions, and the actual time it will take to meet them, but that the industry will still survive during this gap.
His second point covered how the industry won't solely focus on Games. Riccitiello sees VR and AR as an opportunity to build a new collective language, in the same way film and now videogames have done. He continues:
"It's such a huge difference in AR and VR because the director can’t assume. How do you tell a story when you don’t know where the viewer will be looking?"
Riccitiello's fourth and fifth points cover the near and far future. He refers to Unity's upcoming VR Scene Editor, a method of developing VR content while in VR, as the standard creation format going forward. And, finally:
"I believe that we will be hanging out in the metaverse, in the oasis."
I don't give a large CRP about creppy VR. Hahaha. I avoid all games where VR word is mentioned.
Honestly don't care about VR whatsoever, especially in gaming. AR could be useful for many things, but at least for now...meh.