资源描述
1Virtual realityAugmented realityHype? Or serious business? Virtual realityAugmented realityHype? Or serious business?2Virtual realityAugmented realityHype? Or serious business?Table of contents 1 Introduction 2 What is virtual, mixed & augmented reality?2.1 Virtual, mixed & augmented reality2.2 The emerging value chain 2.3 Users and developers 3 International market 3.1 Forecast report 3.2 How did the VR market perform in 2016? 3.3 How did the AR market perform in 2016? 4 Market research 4.1 Research veri cation 4.2 Users 4.3 Developers 4.4 Market needs5 Conclusion ColophonReferences 34458910121518182123262830313Virtual realityAugmented realityHype? Or serious business?v1 IntroductionWe conducted this survey for the rst time in 2016 to answer the following question: is Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) an exaggerated hype or a business with real potential? Today, one year later, we want to know how the market has developed since then. And if we compare the two polls, what can we say about the future potential of VR/AR?To answer these questions, we doubled the number of respondents to more than 600 and distributed the questionnaire with the assistance of seven other organizations: Mikrocentrum, iTanks, Oost NV, Brainport Industries, VRDays Europe, VRBase Amsterdam and Innovation Quarter. This years market research was conducted by interviewing 613 respondents who are developers or users of AR or VR. Like last year, the respondents are mainly active in the engineering, manufacturing and industry sectors. We included participants from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany to create an international perspective. This report is structured as follows. After the introduction we provide a general explanation of the VR/AR market and its current status. Then we analyze the international market by comparing last years forecasts with the actual results, we discuss the outcome of our own market survey and we conclude this report by circling back to our original question: is VR/AR hype or serious business?I wish you a pleasant reading. If you have additional questions or require more information, please contact me at csanderinkbom.nl, on Twitter (sanderink) or LinkedIn (coensanderink).On behalf of the participating partners, Coen SanderinkBusiness DeveloperBrabant Development Agency (BOM)Virtual realityAugmented realityHype? Or serious business?42 WHAT IS VIRTUAL, MIXED & AUGMENTED REALITY?Virtual reality (VR) is about simulating a reality based on 3D-models within a computer. Mixed reality (MR) concerns the amalgamation of the actual world with a virtual one. Augmented reality (AR) is adding information to the actual world. This additional information can be presented to the user by means of a smartphone, tablet, beamer, pair of smart glasses or a head-mounted display (HMD). Visual 1 Virtual, mixed and augmented reality.Development of the rst VR-glasses started in the 1960s. At the end of the 1990s, games and new devices like Nintendos Virtual Boy gave the appearance of a breakthrough in VR. Eventually, technical constraints like weight, inadequate graphics and a shortage of available content hindered development. In the past few years, advancements, especially in smartphone technology, have raised expectations for an actual breakthrough in VR/AR. It is widely expected that virtual and augmented reality may cause a revolution in technology. At the very least, these technologies will lead to new branches and new ways to work and communicate. Within companies, departments at the end of a process like services will come into direct contact with departments at the beginning of the process like research and development. For example, some companies use VR/AR to train their service technicians in maintaining machines that are still in development (see the Oc / Canon user case on page 7). One aspect that always plays a role in adoption processes is the so-called horseless carriage syndromeSome say the adoption of VR and AR technologies can be compared to the emergence of the Internet and the smartphone. One aspect that always plays a role in adoption processes, is the so-called horseless carriage syndrome. In other words, when people are faced with new innovations, they revert to older more familiar technology applications. For example, the rst automobiles looked like carriages and the rst websites were similar to brochures. Only as time progresses, people can fully grasp the possibilities and unique applications of new technologies.5Virtual realityAugmented realityHype? Or serious business?The horseless carriage syndrome o ers opportunities to rst movers since they already experiment with these technologies and they can more quickly understand the potential for new products and services.“I think there is a world market for about ve computers.” - Thomas J. Watson Jr of IBM, 1943VR and AR technologies enable new ways of interaction and communication. People can enter environments that do not exist in the real world, but at the same time interact with them. Additionally, information and interaction can be added to an actual environment, making it richer by doing so.The current status of the VR/AR market resembles the Internet around 1995.In 2016, the rst headsets like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive were shipped to consumers worldwide. At this point, it can be argued that the international VR/AR market resembles the Internet around 1995. A lack of available and compelling content is a reminder that VR/AR is still an undeveloped market.2.2 THE EMERGING VALUE CHAINFirst movers are known for exploring the added value and business cases of new technologies. When the Internet and smartphone emerged, we learned that the value chain can be separated into three segments: infrastructure, tools & platforms and content. If all the segments are developed and optimized, added value is created for the end-user. If we analyze these developments by using the Internet and the smartphone as examples, we can better understand the required developments for the VR/AR value chain. “Study the past if you would de ne the future.” - ConfuciusInfrastructureInfrastructure is the hardware required to use the technology. The rst Internet pages consisted of text because the available bandwidth and computer power were limited. The eventual increase of bandwidth and computer power made it possible to develop more attractive content with pictures and movies. The costs of the infrastructure decreased and became accessible for more people. In 2016, the rst consumer versions of VR/AR hardware were released. The hardware and peripherals needed to interact with the virtual world will evolve rapidly in the coming years based on technological improvements and experiences when using the hardware and available content. Virtual realityAugmented realityHype? Or serious business?6Visual 2 The value chain of VR/AR.Tools & Platforms The tools & platforms available to develop content are limited at the start of every new technology area. For example, developers needed to know HTML and Javascript to build the rst webpages. Editor tools made the coding more e cient, but still the creation of websites was labor intensive and only a few people had the necessary skills. We see the same parallel with VR and AR. Despite the availability of tools like Unity creating content is labor intensive and requires extensive coding knowledge. The result is expensive content. Nowadays, creating content on the Internet is easy and everyone, from a child to a grandma, can be a content creator on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. These applications provide tools for mobile devices to quickly establish a website or pro le and share photos and videos. No coding knowledge is required and the creation of content is (almost) free. It is likely that new platforms for VR and AR will emerge or current platforms like Facebook, YouTube and WearVR will evolve. This change will make the creation of VR content easier and cheaper. Content In the rst half of the 1990s, only a limited number of people had access to the Internet, which had a few niches. For consumers, access was expensive and the available content of limited value. We currently see the same problem with VR and AR. The stores of Oculus and HTC Vive feature limited content. The stores give an impression of VR and AR and what it can do, but the added value is still limited. 7Virtual realityAugmented realityHype? Or serious business?User caseOc / Canon provides “blended” training to service technicians where virtual and mixed reality training is an important component. The training is developed for engineers to service machines that are still in development. “Realistic” virtual reality training on a machine that isnt real is a strong business case. It makes it possible to train engineers without a ecting the availability of expensive machines that are already operational. It also creates time to market advantages because business processes, like product development and product training, can be conducted in parallel, instead of sequential.Bene ts:- Reduces need for expensive “real” training device - Available 24/7 and unlimited numbers worldwide - Higher e ciency by assembling or disassembling (rebuild a total machine from its parts with one click) - Impossible to damage virtual machine parts- Creates new insights because of easy access to all machine parts and the possibility to have di erent views that are impossible in “reality”An additional aspect of VR and AR technology is the perception of a “fun” component. In some situations, training at a location is not possible because of safety issues or availability. With the use of mixed reality, training at a location is possible with a realistic dimension.Also, the number of people able to view the content is limited because of the lack of available infrastructure. This small audience makes a business case more di cult. Companies like Facebook have said they are investing heavily in content to make it cheaper and more accessible to a large group of people.“The magic of virtual reality software is this feeling of presence, the feeling youre really there with another person or in another place” - Mark ZuckerbergThe available content is limited for businesses as well as for consumers. A big di erence for businesses is that the content has to be tailored more speci cally to them. Most companies have 3-dimensional designs of their machines, but bringing these models into a world of VR and AR is still time consuming and expensive.Virtual realityAugmented realityHype? Or serious business?82.3 Users and Developers The value chain shown in Visual 2 on page 6 will be used during this research to understand market developments. Augmented reality will have a broader application than virtual reality, given its ability to add useful information to an actual environment like operationsTo analyze the value chain, we distinguish users (the demand side) and developers (the supply side). Users can deploy virtual and augmented reality in many applications such as training, maintenance, assemblage, production, logistics, leisure and healthcare. Augmented reality will have a broader application than virtual reality given its ability to add useful information to an actual environment like operations. Signi cant markets are expected to develop for VR and AR applications in entertainment, healthcare and engineering. Developers of VR and AR applications are involved in creating infrastructure, tools & platforms and content. The infrastructure sector is a global market with large players like Oculus and HTC that focus both on businesses and consumers. The developers we surveyed for last years report focused more on creating content for the (international) B2B market. In the process, they also developed tools & platforms, mostly for internal use to increase their own e ciency.Developer case BlueTea, a Dutch-based software company, developed VirtualStudio to make 3D-models smart. Starting with an interactive 3D model, the multifunctional toolbox VirtualStudio easily helps develop virtual training and simulates processes for learning or teaching purposes.9Virtual realityAugmented realityHype? Or serious business?3 International marketIn last years report, we compared the forecasts from Goldman Sachs, Piper Ja ray, SuperData and others to better understand the international VR and AR markets. This year, our aim is to compare 2017 forecasts to the 2016 forecasts and the actual numbers to understand the current market and its potential direction. Most projections used last year were not updated. Available data consisted of short press releases or summaries of reports, which are detailed in the reference list. Full reports were expensive while the reliability of the data remained questionable. Data about the VR and the AR markets in particular were di cult to obtain, causing di culty in correctly interpreting the state of the market.We did nd enough information for examination in reports by SuperData, Citi Research and Digi-cap. However, forecasts in these reports featured large discrepancies that were di cult to explain. Apart from the inevitable variables that caused di erences in projections - like publication date, quantity of resources and level of expertise there was another factor: lack of uniformity in terminology. For example, we saw projections made about dissimilar markets, but were presented under similar names.Another di culty was the sloppy use of “virtual reality” and “augmented reality,” which were often not de ned clearly enough. Some reports used ”virtual reality” as an umbrella term for the entire spectrum of VR and AR; other reports used only VR or AR. Furthermore, when forecasting “total VR/AR revenue,” the reports often did not clearly state whether applications and content were included or not.A clear and uniform distinction between all these de nitions is needed in reports to simplify meta-analysis and prevent contradicting news headlines about the potential of the VR and AR markets. Although it was di cult to compare reports from 2016, it was still possible. For 2017, besides copying the numbers of the reports, no additional analysis was possible with the forecasts found. It also was impossible to compare them with our weighted forecast of last year. Therefore no update of the forecast is given in this report. The studied reports of SuperData, Citi Research and Digi-cap are included in the reference of this report. Nevertheless, we wanted to present an impression of the market based on the available information. First, we will give a short summary of the main ndings from our 2016 report1. After that, we will provide an overview of the VR developments in 2016 based on information from SuperData including a market forecast. Unfortunately it is o
展开阅读全文