As is the case with all new technology that eventually reaches retail, whether it becomes the next must-have device or a dead one that slowly disappears from memory depends almost entirely on whether consumers adopt it as an essential piece of gear, and whether said technology is supported by an enticing range of both first and third-party products.
Virtual Reality has the very real potential to be the next big thing for all parties involved, but is it still lacking that killer app that drives consumers into a buying frenzy? Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment president David Haddad certainly thinks there’s still room for such a thing to emerge. Speaking to GamesBeat (via VideoGamer), he said:
It’s mostly a personal observation, but if you look at platforms and how they scale and when they scale — broadly, for me, VR is a platform, even though there are several pieces to it – they ultimately all have some piece of defining content. The Xbox had Halo. The Wii had Wii Sports. HBO had the Sopranos that propelled them.
With that said, Haddad has high hopes for the platform, believing it still has plenty of time to grow and that Warner “just want to be in the space learning.” Of course, the company already has a stake in the fledgling platform, having announced Batman: Arkham VR at E3 last week.
Hopefully this holiday we’ll see more of that defining content. But given that we’re in the early stages with this, we’ll see it evolve.
It’s clearly early days for VR, but it’s a place where, particularly with beloved brands like Arkham and studios like Rocksteady, we just want to be in the space learning. It’s hard to report in the business of it, the return on investment and all that stuff. But it was an easy decision to put one of our greatest gaming brands with one of our greatest studios against this effort.
With the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift already in the hands of consumers, many early adopters already have access to Virtual Reality gaming, but it won’t be until Sony’s PlayStation VR launches in October that we’ll truly see how much potential it has going forward.
There’s certainly no shortage of VR-enabled games on their way throughout this year and next, but what else is in store? The future is certainly looking bright.
