Oculus: “AR is Not Compelling Enough Yet”

Augmented reality gaming has so far failed to fully capture the imaginations of its audience, claims Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe.

Despite Sony’s high expectations of VR and AR peripherals like Sony’s Project Morpheus, Oculus Rift and Microsoft’s HoloLens, Iribe has said that the technology has not yet made a massive mark in the minds of the consumer.

Speaking to MCV Iribe said that people’s reactions to augmented reality demonstrations are generally quite positive about the future of AR, while also being somewhat reserved about the current state of the technology.

“The reaction from most people leaving AR demos is not ‘I want to buy that as a soon as I can’, it’s ‘I can see the potential of where it is going – one day’. That day has not come yet,” he said. The wholesale market for such products is not quite formed yet either.

Iribe described Oculus’s proprietary controller, the Oculus Touch, as ‘ready for consumers’ and that it isn’t hyped up by marketing videos. The Touch is ready to use now, and is something that customers want to see more of, he said.

In contrast, the augmented reality HoloLens device is “not compelling enough for mass-market consumers yet,” he said. Iribe suggests that AR devices like HoloLens will be aimed more at the professional and enterprise markets, although he notes that this could change at any time.

Oculus became famous through their Kickstarted product, the Oculus Rift. This is a virtual reality, head-mounted display unit which allows users to enjoy highly immersive, 3D gaming environments.

HoloLens is Microsoft’s augmented reality smart glasses project, which creates an interactive user interface projected over the real world. Rumours suggest that HoloLens will be released some time in 2016.

It is still only early days for AR technology. Both consumers and developers remain positive that augmented reality’s presence in the industry will only improve, although it will clearly need some time to establish its presence.

Related Topics: Augmented reality, Brendan Iribe, HoloLens, Oculus

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