Former EA CEO and current chief executive of Unity Technologies John Riccitello has made a startling prediction: that VR’s sales this year will hit a “gap of disappointment.”
He discusses forecasts by what he sees as the “smartphone adoption model.” The original iPhone and the other smartphones released around it were “well-executed,” while he sees current VR devices as not having the hardware to make it yet. As well, the technology is way to expensive to gain mass-market appeal.
“The truth this year is that from a hardware and a software perspective, it’s a masking tape and twine year. These things are barely making it to the shelf. They’re barely making it to the consumer. They do magical things. I’m a giant bull on the long-term opportunities for VR and AR. But these revenue forecasts for the early years—they’re going to miss their numbers in 2016 by 80 percent. They’ll miss them again in 2017 by 60 percent or more.”
“[VR is] going to recover, but all of you out there, if you can, play down this year’s numbers,” Riccitiello suggested. “They aren’t going to happen.”
What do you think about VR? Do you think it’ll have a mediocre first year, or will it live up to investor’s current expectations? Sound off in the comments!