Hypergrid Business has an article by Maria Korolov titled: Google takes strong early lead in VR. She points out that Google is catering more toward streaming VR than toward game play.

Catwa Nicki Static Female Mesh Head

Her article also links to a review of the best under US$100 headsets.

Seems the Vive is incompatible with most other headsets as it has its own platform. That is disappointing. Unless it offers something exceptional to users the high price and incompatibility will eventually eliminate it from the market place.

Google is following the Microsoft model of providing developers support and not charging them fees to use their platform. The result is hundreds are developing for Google and the Play Store has over a 1,000 VR apps. Google is following Apple’s idea of putting Google Cardboard into schools with something like a million units.

China is going all out in VR development. Maria points out we don’t hear much about that in the West, but the number are apparently amazing. They expect to have sold 11 million headsets in Chana by end 2016. China: 1.3 billion as of 2013. So, less than 1% of population. But, it is Communist China.

Google’s next step in VR is a project named Daydream. While Google Cardboard is the low quality VR headset and apps, Daydream is planned to step up the quality. Google should then be comparable to Samsung’s Gear VR.

Maria points out that people replace desktop computer about every 5 years. Smart phones are replaced every couple of years. The take away is that phones have a faster tech update cycle. Meaning we will see phones improving quickly.

While I think it will be some time before we Second Life or Sansar on a smart phone, we will see lots of low quality VR games and high quality VR moves coming to phones.