Coming out as an undisputed leader in the current VR headset wars, Sony and its PlayStation VR emerged as a market leader in its field outranking HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. However, VR gaming might not be the ticket for any VR producing company to set focus on to soar to greater heights.
Many industry pundits, however, predict that killer game apps for the Playstation VR or any other VR producing outfit are not tied to games alone. They say that movies would be the prime reason people would buy a VR headset.
Back in September Sony's boss Andrew House said VR is the future, DigitalSpy reported. Nevertheless, his vision centers mainly on game development for the Sony PlayStation 4 and its future incarnations. What the industry needs is to provide killer apps that would entice people to switch to VR.
According to DailyStar, they feel sorry for Sony Playstation for they believe that the future of virtual reality is video, not gaming. Though admitting that Sony's PlayStation VR is already on track with its immense sales, their long-term belief is that a mega hit will be on the lines of film and video.
Already leader of the pack with is massive install base, Sony's PlayStation VR might just benefit from this instead of being felt sorry for. Ahead of DailyStar's report, Sony is currently preparing an update to its own video player to support new formats for the PlayStation VR.
Sony will soon distribute a patch to PlayStation 4's Media Player app to version 2.50 that will introduce support for 360-degree videos and photos that you can view using the PlayStation VR headset.
Paul Jackson, Principal Analyst at Ovum states that video content offers a universal appeal and easier to create than games. He adds once VR videos are monetized, it will quickly eclipse any expenditures set on VR games. The immersive nature of VR would place companies such as Netflix to dominance by producing content that puts the viewer in the center of it all.
We already have a sampling of what is to come, if indeed VR veers its immersive head towards video content, Oculus Rift came out with a CG video entitled "Lost" that was previewed at Sundance last year, unfortunately, it is still not made to view in 360 degrees, but it's a start. Now the only way for VR movie content to work is to figure out how to convey a tale in a 360-degree VR setting.
