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A few years ago, virtual reality was all the rage in Hollywood, helping to fuel the rise of Silicon Beach with the promise of reinventing the entertainment business.
At its peak, investors pumped $253 million into two dozen deals involving virtual and augmented reality start-ups in L.A. and Orange counties in 2016, hoping that pricey headsets projecting virtual worlds would become as popular as smartphones. But investment in the technology has slowed dramatically in recent years, and what seemed like a promising boom has largely fizzled.
Several California companies that raised millions of dollars have shut down or have laid off dozens of workers, as businesses scrambled to readjust their strategies in the face of lackluster consumer demand for VR headsets and a drought of capital.
Take heart, VR enthusiasts. It took several tries for video streaming to catch on, too.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 15 2019, @09:36PM
Well, there's definitely a reason that when Facebook took over Oculus from Luckey, they said "we need affordable and standalone, not high-performance and big-budget games". Can't say I like either owner nor either policy much, but the corporate controllers seem to have a better sense of where the technology needs to go in the short run.