Five major problems hindering the booming VR market

According to foreign media reports, virtual reality (VR) is not a new technology, but recently it has become a hot commodity pursued by major technology companies such as Facebook, Google, HTC and Sony. As these companies frequently exert their strength in the VR market, the technology has gradually become the mainstream of the market, but in order to truly gain a foothold in the ever-changing technology market, virtual reality still has many difficulties to overcome.

Here are five of the biggest challenges facing VR:

price

Ordinary consumers are most sensitive to price, and price is the unspeakable pain of VR devices. Take the industry's most powerful Oculus Rift for example, its pre-sale price has reached $599, and users will also need to buy Touch controllers for it in the future.

Market research firms say that 60% of Internet users believe the upper limit of their acceptable price for VR devices is $400, and an overwhelming majority of users believe that the price of such devices should be maintained at $200-400.

In addition, with Oculus Rift, you have to buy a high-end gaming PC, which is even more expensive. It is estimated that if you want to play Oculus Rift, you have to spend at least $1,500 (about 9,750 yuan). Of course, there are low-priced products on the VR market, such as Samsung's Gear VR, which costs only $99. Google's Cradboard system is even cheaper, at only $15, but both of them may not even reach the passing line in the so-called immersive experience, and you have to pair them with a smartphone.

PC performance is a bit struggling

The second big hurdle weighing on VR is PC performance. After all, the resources required for VR games are incomparable to those of ordinary games.

Well-known graphics card manufacturer Nvidia said that only 1% of PCs on the market this year can run VR games smoothly. Although Dell, Alienware and Asus have launched PCs optimized for Oculus, these products are rare and their prices are all above $950.

As for Apple, whose prices have always been high-end, the founder of Oculus directly poured cold water on it, saying: "When Apple can make a really good computer, Oculus will support Mac." In fact, Mac performs quite well in daily applications, and many large applications can run smoothly. Therefore, the real reason is not with the PC. It can only be said that VR devices have too demanding performance requirements.

Too slow to spread

Low penetration is also a major problem that plagues VR. Even Zuckerberg, who has always been a fan of VR, had to admit in an interview: "The VR market is growing too slowly. I don't know how long it will take to build a real ecosystem. It will take five or ten years, but it may also take 15-20 years."

If you think Zuckerberg is too pessimistic, you are wrong. It took eight years for smartphones, which are now available in everyone's hands, to gain 10% of the market share in the United States.

VR content is too closed

Like home game consoles, most of the content on VR devices is exclusive. What is used on Oculus may not be available to other companies. This strategy may have a small impact on the growth of VR, but it is very unfair to users. If they want a complete VR experience, they have to buy multiple sets of VR equipment. Such a strategy is absolutely harmful to the early promotion of VR.

Poor comfort level

This may be a bit nitpicking, but it is true that there are too many cables on high-end VR devices, which is definitely a minus for user experience. The founder of Oculus complained on Twitter: "Various tangled cables are a hurdle that the VR industry cannot avoid, and this factor also determines that mobile VR will succeed earlier than PC VR."