The following graphic is the first incarnation of a virtual reality industry ecosystem supergraphic. It represents more than 150 different companies which provide head mounted display and related hardware, production equipment and software, VR apps, research, and technical and other services, organized into 22 categories across 11 major sectors.
The 2015 Virtual Reality Ecosystem Map comes with a caveat: the graphic is not comprehensive. It is a sample, albeit a large one, of the many different kinds of virtual reality companies operating today. There are many more companies — indeed, entire categories — that were not included, merely due to the constraints of time and space. The pace of change in this field is breathtaking.
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COMMENTARY: VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) are exciting – Google Glass coming and going, Facebook’s $2 billion for Oculus, Google’s $542 million into Magic Leap, Microsoft’s HoloLens and the launch of the Samsung Gear VR headset into the mainstream market. There are amazing early stage platforms and apps, but VR/AR in 2015 feels a bit like the smartphone market before the iPhone. We’re waiting for someone to say “One more thing…” in a way that has everyone thinking “so that’s where the market’s going!”
A pure quantitative analysis of the VR/AR market today is challenging, because there’s not much of a track record to analyze yet. We’ll discuss methodology below, but Digi-Capital’s new Augmented/Virtual Reality Report 2015 is based on how VR/AR could grow new markets and cannibalize existing ones after the market really gets going from next year.
AR is from Mars, VR is from Venus
VR and AR headsets both provide stereo 3D high definition video and audio, but there’s a big difference. VR is closed and fully immersive, while AR is open and partly immersive – you can see through and around it. Where VR puts users inside virtual worlds, immersing them, AR puts virtual things into users’ real worlds, augmenting them.
You might think this distinction is splitting hairs, but that difference could give AR the edge over not just VR, but the entire smartphone and tablet market. There are major implications for Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others.
Where’s the beef?
VR is great for games and 3D films – that’s what it was designed for. However it is primarily a living room, office or seated experience, as you might bump into things if you walked down the street wearing a closed headset. Still a great technology with a ready and waiting user base of tens of millions amongst console, PC and MMO gamers, those who prefer 3D to 2D films, as well as niche enterprise users (e.g. medical, military, education). This has attracted a growing apps/games ecosystem around early players like Unity, Valve, Razer and others.
AR is great fun for games, but maybe not as much fun as VR when true immersion is required – think mobile versus console games. But that possible weakness for gamers is exactly why AR has the potential to play the same role in our lives as mobile phones with hundreds of millions of users. You could wear it anywhere, doing anything (well maybe not some things – that wouldn’t be polite like the consumer criticism received by Google Glass). Where VR is like wearing a console on your face (Oculus), AR is like wearing a transparent mobile phone on it (Magic Leap, HoloLens).
Eye phone
AR could play a similar role to mobile across sectors, as well as a host of uses nobody has thought of yet. The sort of things you might do with AR include aCommerce (yup, we just invented a new cousin to eCommerce and mCommerce), voice calls, web browsing, film/TV streaming (in plain old 2D as well as 3D), enterprise apps, advertising, consumer apps, games and theme park rides. So while games feature prominently in most AR demos, they are only one of a multitude of potential uses for AR. See full analysis by sector here.
Real Dollars
Digi-Capital forecasts that the virtual and augmented reality industries will hit $150B in annual revenues by 2020, with AR taking the lion’s share at $120 billion.
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CB Insights reports that investments in virtual and augmented reality companies have seen their most active quarter in 2015, with over 40 deals (and $240M invested) in the first six months of the year.
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ABI Research projects that 43 million virtual reality devices will ship by 2020:
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Courtesy of an article titled 2015 Virtual Reality Ecosystem Map appearing in Greenlight VR and an article dated August 11, 2015 appearing in Greenlight VR and an article dated April 2015 appearing in Digi-Capital
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