A Big Yawn Says James Cameron!

A big yawn! That’s how James Cameron describes the Oculus Rift. Not because it’s a poor experience, mind you. It’s because he’s seen it all before in his professional life. Not quite phrased the same way, but I’ve heard this sentiment from the likes of Jaron Lanier and other top experts in the field.

It’s important to remember that products like the Oculus Rift aren’t about having something radically new. Much of the technology and concepts are quite old. It’s the readily available mobile panels that are manufactured at economies of scale that make affordable devices like this possible. We really could have had the Oculus Rift ten years ago, but they were too expensive to make. So the breakthrough and real brilliance of the whole thing is price and mass market potential which is opening doors we didn’t have access to before. There were a lot of shoulders climbed upon to get us to where we are today and are ultimately going – it didn’t just happen.

Magic Leap is likely a repeat in history.  In my opinion, the investors bought a vision and workplan, not a product. Big whoop about a patent filing. Until I see otherwise, the product doesn’t exist yet no matter how many palm sized pink elephants we see.  The big difference between the history that got us up to the Oculus Rift and similar products is that – in my opinion – Google’s joint investment was effectively buying a decade and future patent rights to get them to the time when, similar to mobile panels, the core components are readily available at economies of scale – or even exist!

Now do we need so many Avatar sequels?  That’s a different topic entirely!