Is VR the Next 3-D TV? Yes and No.

I remember many years ago when people in the electronics industry were convinced that 3-D TV was going to be the next big thing in consumer technology.  Obviously, in retrospect, it wasn’t.Now people are using 3-D TV as an analogy to explain why people won’t care about VR:is the VR hype justified, or just another 3-D TV?Remember 3-D TV?  Why 2016 Won’t be the Year of VRI always felt that 3-D TV didn’t deliver value to consumers.  It actually made the experience of watching TV worse.  Not only were glasses required, it changed the character of a movie by allowing the viewer to wander in three dimensions around a scene, not just two.  Good moviemakers control focal plane and framing, and 3-D takes away from that.  When you’re immersed in a TV show or a movie, you’re already mentally in a 3-D world.  Adding physical 3-D to the viewing experience only complicated everything, instead of making it simpler.If you’ve only tried a seated Oculus or GearVR experience, then the “VR is just like 3-D TV” analogy is a reasonable one (by seated, I mean fixed in one place, whether sitting or standing).  But the analogy completely falls apart if you try the “room-scale” HTC/Valve Vive VR system.  When you hold controllers that accurately represent your hands’ positions in virtual reality - as well as a system that allows you to physically walk around - the entire experience goes from being a fun science experiment (like 3-D TV) to an utterly compelling, immersive consumer experience.I’ve seen the difference first-hand at Shasta Ventures.  We’ve set up a VR lab at our San Francisco offices, where we introduce first-timers to Oculus and to the HTC Vive.  The response to the seated Oculus setup?  “That’s kinda neat.”  The response to the HTC Vive?  “Wow.  Wow.  Wow.”Of course, the HTC Vive’s “room-scale VR” is only compelling with the right software - software and content that makes the most of positioning technology.  The right software allows for exploration and expression, not just consumption.  Pure seated “consumptive” experiences are better suited to traditional TV screens - they’re just a one-time parlor trick in VR.  They’re a lot like 3-D TV.  It’s a unique new experience, but they make the experience worse, not better.  If it made movies better, people would be wearing GearVR to watch movies on plane flights rather than their iPads.But TV screens can’t recreate truly interactive, expressive experiences the same way that “room-scale VR” can.  Put differently, exploration and shooter games in VR, where you move your arms and walk around are compelling.  Seated “movie playback” experiences, where you’re trapped reliving someone else’s experiences, are neat demos but about as compelling as 3-D TV.Don’t believe me?  That’s probably because you haven’t tried a game like Survios’ “Raw Data” on an HTC Vive yet.  We’ve put dozens of people into the Vive system at Shasta, and now I wish my kids weren’t in that group.  My 11 and 12 year old kids keep begging me to use the Vive again and again.  (They’ve tried Oculus and GearVR and couldn’t care less)Summary?  Is seated VR like 3-D TV?  Yes, it’s a fair analogy.  But “room-scale”, or active VR?  Absolutely not.  “Room-scale VR” is the next big platform, and it’s arriving faster than most people realize.