Wednesday, October 18, 2017

The Future of Entertainment and Virtual Reality

A growing topic in the entertainment industry is virtual reality. Virtual reality users can experience inaccessible or dangerous locations from the safety of their couch. Over the past several years the availability of virtual reality headsets has been expanding with no signs of decreasing interest. Beginning in 2016, Facebook, Google, Sony, HTC, and Samsung have all invested heavily to create and launch their own virtual reality headsets. These major companies are also focusing on developing new uses for this technology to increase their sales.

As time progresses, virtual reality will be implemented more prevalently into social media, video games, movies and many other areas of entertainment. In both virtual reality video games and movies, the goal is for the users to develop more emotional attachments to the characters and settings by giving them a first-person perspective. Virtual reality movies increase user interaction in an area of entertainment that has previously only been observable from one viewpoint. Eventually when virtual reality has been integrated into social media, users will have a completely new way of sharing their experiences with their network.

One of the downsides of current virtual reality products is the high price, however these prices will drop as society adapts to this new trend. Current state of the art virtual reality headsets can cost close to $1000. Product prices will decrease when virtual reality components become cheaper and the products are more accessible to the public. Additionally, virtual reality investments are risky since there is a limited market and many new developments are being made. Once the demand for virtual reality devices and software increases, these investments are predicted to become much more stable.

The video below from Bloomberg shows an interview with one of the creators of the virtual reality modeling language. During this interview, Toni Parisi discusses how virtual reality is in the early adoption phase and that there is expected to be rapid growth of virtual reality within the next few years. By 2020, virtual reality is predicted to face an “eight-fold growth” to become a multi-billion dollar industry.


1. Maughan, T. (2016, July). Virtual Reality: The hype, the problems and the promise. BBC. Retrieved from Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160729-virtual-reality-the-hype-the-problems-and-the-promise

3 comments:

  1. Steffan, I really appreciate you posting this. This is one of the coolest and most innovative recent technologies. I have a cousin who is 12 years old and he loves is Play Station virtual reality gaming system. It is very interesting that virtual reality is taking over in the video game, movie and social media markets. Also I was reading about how virtual reality is a new way of exercising and you can even train is certain sports with your virtual reality head set on in an open space like a park or a football field. Have you ever personally tested a virtual reality device? Do you really think its worth 1000 dollars? Also Do you think that this is a new wave of technology that could really take over the current systems out there right now? I would really like to hear your opinion on this topic.

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  2. Hi Steffan, for one of my other classes, I am also doing a research on virtual reality. After, I read your post, I agree on a lot of of topics. You said that one of the downfalls is the high cost of the headsets. I believe there's more costs than just headsets. Many households right now do not have computers that can even run virtual reality. Virtual reality requires at least an very high end performance CPU and GPU. The costs for those components are at least $1,000.

    I agree with you that the demand just isn't there but personally, I don't think that's why the VR headsets are so expensive. I think virtual reality is a recent innovation and the costs for developing, designing, and creating virtual reality software is very expensive. The costs for VR is too high so I think that's why the price is also very high. What do you think about the such high prices of virtual reality. If virtual reality was cheaper, would more people buy it?

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  3. Thank you both for your responses. Personally, I have never used a virtual reality device before. I think it would be a cool experience and adds more value to the specific type of entertainment. I would be most interested in trying virtual reality during exercise. This could also bring watching sports to the next level. I believe that as virtual reality becomes more popular, the price will decrease and it's widespread use will increase. I do think the high price is something that is holding people back from making the purchases. I agree that there are many other costs associated with virtual reality outside just the headset. It will be interesting to see how all this changes over the next decade.

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