Let’s take a break from the metaverse excitement and see what happened to the virtual reality/augmented reality (VR-AR) craze that swept the world a few years ago when people began to use wearable headgear to experience real-world events in three dimensions (3D).
AR-VR headsets were formerly commonplace in India’s malls and public spaces, and oval-shaped VR stations encouraged children to wear head-mounted devices (HMDs) to explore various immersive worlds, such as automobile racing or jungle terror.
However, the initial enthusiasm faded rapidly, and most VR outlets closed down in the last two years of the pandemic.’
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During the same time span, smartphone adoption surged, with more than 500 million users in India alone. Despite having arrived on the market six-seven years ago, mass-scale AR-VR impact is yet to be seen — both on the consumer and enterprise fronts — though things have started to pick up.
According to IDC, the global market for AR/VR headsets surged by 92.1 percent year over year in 2021, with shipments reaching 11.2 million units.
“AR headsets continue to represent a small fraction of the entire AR/VR headset market, and the volumes we do see are virtually exclusively on the commercial side of the industry,” Tom Mainelli, group vice president, Device & Consumer Research at IDC, said.
“We don’t anticipate this frothy behavior to impact headset shipments any time soon,” says Metaverse, “but we don’t expect this frothy behavior to harm headset volumes any time soon.”
Meanwhile, reports of users experiencing mental exhaustion, headaches/eye strain, nausea, and other health difficulties when wearing virtual reality headsets have surfaced.
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Metaverse is now being marketed as a next-level deep dive into the world of immersive experiences, in the ‘hybrid normal,’ which will see your virtual avatars traversing numerous settings such as corporate meetings, and beach sunbathing, and mall shopping, all of which are designed to mirror real life.
Despite the global hype, the metaverse, which is the Internet’s 3D experience layer, is not yet here, according to J.P. Gownder, VP, principal analyst, Forrester.
“In the short term, the buzz around the metaverse has exceeded public interest. It will take several years to build the metaverse. Because of a lack of interoperability and mobility of experiences, the metaverse does not yet exist “IANS spoke with Gownder.
To become a reality, the metaverse must provide an immersive experience of interoperable and interconnected settings delivered via a variety of devices, ranging from smartphones to VR headsets to yet-to-be-conceived form factors.
“Some metaverse precursor technologies will be adopted by the enterprise segment before the mass market of consumers,” Gownder said.
