At the start of the year I listed some predictions of what would happen within the world of xR this year. Let’s take a midway quick review of those to tally up progress, starting with predictions #1–10.
Prediction #1: Oculus will release the Oculus Go in early 2018, offering an all-in-one 3DoF mobile VR and controller unit at low cost. It will sell well.
+++ OK so I slightly cheated with this one as we were developing a launch title, so I knew when it was scheduled for release but it actually ended up being later than expected, and just squeaked in as “early 2018”, having released in early May, 2018. In terms of sales, it’s unclear at present but analysts have stated 100,000+ units sold in the first month and reports of the Chinese launch units selling out within minutes. Available online direct from oculus.com and at retail in the US at launch, it took a couple of months for UK and wider EU retail to catch-up. The Oculus Business edition is slated for pre-orders and release in mid-July.
Prediction #2: Magic Leap will release the Magic Leap One Creator Edition in small numbers to select developers mid-2018. Specs will be only slightly better than current offerings by Microsoft Hololens or Meta 2.0 but the 6DoF input controller will add a level of interactivity and user control.
? ? ? Status of release still currently unknown other than planned for 2018. Some new videos have emerged showing the headset in closer detail but still lacking in-depth specifications and capabilities. Bonus: random video of TV presenter apparently wearing a device to present World Cup footage
Prediction #3: Microsoft will announce details of the successor to the current Hololens beta device, significantly improving the specifications and capabilities of the hardware, for release in 2019.
? ? ? Speculation around the new device has started to appear, in regards to chipsets and potential announcement windows but this is all currently rumour mill material and nothing official yet.
Prediction #4: One major VR hardware manufacturer will realign focus to AR hardware devices, announcing a release at the end of 2018.
_-_ -_ Well there’s still time? The thinking around this is that Google seems to have all but lost interest in Daydream and is concentrating much more on AR.
Prediction #5: Rumours and details of the Apple AR device will continue to grow although nothing concrete or official will be announced this year.
+++ Rumours and speculation continues to occur with current release date of 2020 being mooted.
Prediction #6: ARKit and ARCore-based mobile games will struggle to gain momentum at any considerable scale beyond the popular brands of Pokemon GO and Harry Potter.
+++ Name one really successful AR game release to date?
Prediction #7: Oculus will announce a VR tracked hardware add-on similar to the HTC Vive Tracker.
_-_-_ Assumed greater popularity of Vive Tracker would push this, although Tracker 2.0 exists now alongside the interim bump in capabilities released alongside the HTC Vive Pro and new base stations. However Oculus (& Vive) were both absent from recent large events so all news is likely to be saved for Oculus Connect 5 later this year.
Prediction #8: Steam / Valve Tracker 2.0 will become widely available.
+++ And it did. Sort of. If you pay £1,500 for the Vive Pro Enterprise Full bundle.
Prediction #9: Sony PlayStation VR will continue to dominate hardware sales and marketshare over Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, with at least another 1M units sold by mid-2018.
+++ Whilst there are still no official numbers for Rift or Vive, Sony seem bullish on hitting that 3M units mark, but we are now mid-2018 and this hasn’t been announced yet. However it should be noted that VR HMD sales are down 30% on last year and PS VR titles were entirely absent from Sony’s E3 presser (although 15 titles were available on their booth). Sony have also said that PS VR sales were lower than expected.
Prediction #10: Neither Oculus nor Vive will officially announce sale figures of their respective VR hardware devices.
+++ See above
So that’s pt.1 done. Only a couple of duff predictions there but I fear pt.2 will feature more! What do you think of the year 2018 and xR so far?
