A story about why exciting hardware crash and burn

I’m yet to handle a VR set. Reason being, I’m a bit of a sceptic.

In fact, if I was a betting man, I’d put money on this VR experiment fizzling out in a few years, just the way it’s earlier “cousin”, the Google Glass, did. I mean, there are several checkboxes new products tick to succeed in today’s marketplace; boxes Google’s doomed product failed to tick back in 2013.

Perhaps I should begin my case by taking you back to my university days.

I was in my second year: young, abrasive, stuck in a course I didn't like, had too much time and still got monthly allowance from my folks. Meaning I could devote more time and energy to mundane stuff like pissing contests and less towards making good grades.

It was the era of the 7th generation consoles. The PS3s and Xbox 360s (and the tech powering them) were featured on the cover of every videogame, computer and tech magazine for months. What passed for leisure in my circle were regular sessions of competitive gaming followed by long hours of fanboy arguments. Our arguments were usually of the world-changing nature i.e. why the Xbox 360 was the superior console to the PS3 (I was in the Microsoft camp). My personal talking points were raw computing power and HD DVDs.

If you remember, there was a time when the industry was yet to make up its mind about what was to succeed DVDs. Pundits were split between the HD DVD and Blu-ray. The two consumer technology behemoths; Toshiba (which was aggressively pushing the HD DVD) and Sony (championing the Blu-ray) kept throwing money at the situation.

Well, after reading the leading technology magazines in those days, (mostly Ziff Davis publications like PC Magazine, Computer Gaming World, as well as more popular magazines like PC Gamer, we Microsoft groupies were convinced HD DVDs were the future. Microsoft was supposed to be the better company, and the 360 was supposed to be the better product, with the better components, particularly, the HD DVD technology.

Sony and time would prove that Xbox fanboys were drinking their own Kool Aid. The HD DVD bit the bullet when Sony convinced Walmart and Warner Brothers, along with some other major movie distributors to embrace the Blu-ray format, and abandon the HD DVD. The HD DVD became a bust. Blu-ray took its lunch money (Toshiba lost nearly a billion dollars ), and since Microsoft stubbornly refused to incorporate a Blu-ray drive into their console throughout its lifespan, we fanboys were left enduring the hassles of multi-DVD games as we had to switch DVDs several times during gaming sessions.

Little wonder that I humbly ditched my fanboyism and bought a PS3 some years later. Aside having to eat humble pie, I learned a valuable lesson.

Never argue with fanboys. Lol.

That, and the fact that pushing new hardware, ones that will have ripple effects on consumers, their lifestyle and the products they already use is a tall order. When there’s a competitor tussling with you in the marketplace, it is nigh impossible. Microsoft and Toshiba learned this the hard way. And history was going to repeat itself in a few years.

When Google had a Glass Jaw

The Google Glass was a failure. Some publications even embellished their headlines with the “epic” prefix e.g BGR and Fox. Clickbait or not, who could blame them? Google’s new toy which it had pushed for almost two years did not catch on. The product was cancelled and taken back into the lab.

Had it succeeded, Google was going to usher us all into a new age of interactivity. It was going to change the game. After first encounters, tech writers became instant believers. They saw the immense possibilities it offered. (Where have I heard that before? ).

You could video anything you looked at. You could have a map in front of you wherever you walked. The tech offered you a computer and the internet ready at a moment's notice, taking your real world experience to a whole new level.

Also, for the Google Glass, content wasn’t really the problem. It layered a virtual UI over the real world, so you were rarely - if ever - in want of ways to interact with the tech or things to do with it.

The first problem it faced was the price. $1500 is a lot to ask people to pay for a fun glass. Kinda like an alt-version of the Snapchat spectacles come to think of it.

The second issue was the launch itself. The product wasn’t ready. It was supposed to be in beta, yet it was launched like a finished product. The narrative got away from Google, and became a PR nightmare. Not good for a product that was yet to define what position it wanted to occupy in the consumer’s life - everyday device or geeky accessory? As Will Oremus of Slate wrote, "Glass’ problem is that the technology today simply doesn’t offer anything that average people really want, let alone need, in their everyday lives."

Oh dear.

Hardware products differ from software. Interacting with hardware offers a different experience for the user while the amount of control the company exerts over the user experience is limited. Once the product leaves the warehouse, its fate is in the hands of the masses.

As it is now, the current expression of VR shares too many similarities with Google Glass, (Google's unfortunate experiment came first after all). And as a brilliant friend pointed out to me as I was writing this, Glass and VR (as we now know it) don't just share similarities (and potentially the same fate), they are different expressions of the same idea; add a realtime and lifelike layer of interactivity on content. Glass was Augmented Reality (interactivity on existing universes - like Microsoft’s Hololens) while VR is interactivity on created universes.

It’s a pretty nifty idea when you think about it or when you sit through a demo. But the idea has never been the problem. It wasn’t the problem during Glass’ brief stint and it isn’t the problem now. The medium itself is.

You know that situation where your friends tell you your startup idea is a slam dunk but then refuse to patronize you when you launch because, well… shrugs. Yes, this is that situation but with billions of dollars at stake.

It’s not their fault. If your startup’s going to be based on VR technology, I’m going to be shrugging too.

Snobs and the hardware life

At best, I believe VR (if it survives) will become one of those add-ons the really geeky and really edgy folks use - like your friends with the Playstation Move or the Xbox Kinect. Fancy but not groundbreaking. Interesting but not essential to the consumer experience.

Secondly, tech naturally carves out a niche and consolidates. When cars started showing up, it took some time, but eventually we moved in the air conditioner, the radio and then the phone into the car with us. When we got mobile phones, we embedded cameras and added the ability to listen to the radio, and browse the internet. When we got consoles, we added the ability to browse the internet, watch movies and play older games.

If VR is gonna succeed, it’s going to have to be embedded inside some other tech we already use or embed other tech we currently use into the whole experience. Why? Because there’s no space for an extra box in the living room. Right now, we have TV, DVR, Radio, Cable Decoder, WiFi routers, a game console, and a Blu-ray player. At some point, it gets too much. Unless the tech geniuses can figure out a way to make the tech powering VR come with any of these devices, VR will be fighting in an already crowded space.

Sony played a genius hand when they embedded their PS3 console with a Blu-ray player. Nobody needed to tell you that getting a PS3 was a good bargain - two pieces of tech for the meagre price of one.

Another problem is; the VR isn’t replacing anything. New tech that successfully permeates the consumer marketplace is usually a replacement of old tech. Flat screen TVs replaced CRTs. Blu-rays replaced DVDs. Smartphones replaced feature phones which replaced analogue phones. The need was already there and tech was solving it. New tech just came to do it better.

As the Google Glass experiment proved, people aren’t that ready to change their ways for the sake of it. They change when the new way is a better and easier way to meet old needs. I did a mini research. I showed some pics of the Oculus Rift to a friend. I tried pitching it to her as the toy the cool kids are playing with these days. Her reply was unexpected. She went, “And how am I supposed to lug that thing around in my handbag all day? Biko, I have work to do abeg.”

Immediately she said it, I saw her point. VR is not going to be a mobile device. So where’s it going to stay? In the living room? I don't think so. The tech currently powering VR makes it an isolating/solitary experience. It’s definitely not replacing the TV because then we’d need two or three visors, one for dad, mom and child. On the average.

I honestly can’t see it succeeding.

But then again I could be wrong. Several tech heavy weights including Google, Facebook, HTC, Acer, Samsung and Sony, have chimed in, committing to support the format and improve the tech. Throw enough money and brains at the problem and it might just go away (I’m sure I’ve heard that before also).

I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I’d still bet against VR, in spite of the tech being pushed by tech heavyweights. It will (probably) be an epic failure. But that is not to discourage failure. After all, it’s Silicon Valley wisdom to say, “if you’re not failing, you’re not trying.”

I can only assume that the bigger the failure, the bigger the lesson.

P.S. This post is not exclusively about VR. It’s about the challenges new innovations face especially when they involve introducing a totally new kind of consumer technology to the market. I simply used VR as a vehicle to channel my thoughts. Perhaps the headline should read - why good hardware products fail.

So why do good products fail? Here’s a quick recap:
Way too high price point (especially if you’re not Apple), Sucky marketing, Non-essential nature i.e it’s an Add-on, and poor industry support.

Techazuri:
A story about why exciting hardware crash and burn

I’m yet to handle a VR set. Reason being, I’m a bit of a sceptic.

In fact, if I was a betting man, I’d put money on this VR experiment fizzling out in a few years, just the way it’s earlier “cousin”, the Google Glass, did. I mean, there are several checkboxes new products tick to succeed in today’s marketplace; boxes Google’s doomed product failed to tick back in 2013.

Perhaps I should begin my case by taking you back to my university days.

I was in my second year: young, abrasive, stuck in a course I didn't like, had too much time and still got monthly allowance from my folks. Meaning I could devote more time and energy to mundane stuff like pissing contests and less towards making good grades.

It was the era of the 7th generation consoles. The PS3s and Xbox 360s (and the tech powering them) were featured on the cover of every videogame, computer and tech magazine for months. What passed for leisure in my circle were regular sessions of competitive gaming followed by long hours of fanboy arguments. Our arguments were usually of the world-changing nature i.e. why the Xbox 360 was the superior console to the PS3 (I was in the Microsoft camp). My personal talking points were raw computing power and HD DVDs.

If you remember, there was a time when the industry was yet to make up its mind about what was to succeed DVDs. Pundits were split between the HD DVD and Blu-ray. The two consumer technology behemoths; Toshiba (which was aggressively pushing the HD DVD) and Sony (championing the Blu-ray) kept throwing money at the situation.

Well, after reading the leading technology magazines in those days, (mostly Ziff Davis publications like PC Magazine, Computer Gaming World, as well as more popular magazines like PC Gamer, we Microsoft groupies were convinced HD DVDs were the future. Microsoft was supposed to be the better company, and the 360 was supposed to be the better product, with the better components, particularly, the HD DVD technology.

Sony and time would prove that Xbox fanboys were drinking their own Kool Aid. The HD DVD bit the bullet when Sony convinced Walmart and Warner Brothers, along with some other major movie distributors to embrace the Blu-ray format, and abandon the HD DVD. The HD DVD became a bust. Blu-ray took its lunch money (Toshiba lost nearly a billion dollars ), and since Microsoft stubbornly refused to incorporate a Blu-ray drive into their console throughout its lifespan, we fanboys were left enduring the hassles of multi-DVD games as we had to switch DVDs several times during gaming sessions.

Little wonder that I humbly ditched my fanboyism and bought a PS3 some years later. Aside having to eat humble pie, I learned a valuable lesson.

Never argue with fanboys. Lol.

That, and the fact that pushing new hardware, ones that will have ripple effects on consumers, their lifestyle and the products they already use is a tall order. When there’s a competitor tussling with you in the marketplace, it is nigh impossible. Microsoft and Toshiba learned this the hard way. And history was going to repeat itself in a few years.

When Google had a Glass Jaw

The Google Glass was a failure. Some publications even embellished their headlines with the “epic” prefix e.g BGR and Fox. Clickbait or not, who could blame them? Google’s new toy which it had pushed for almost two years did not catch on. The product was cancelled and taken back into the lab.

Had it succeeded, Google was going to usher us all into a new age of interactivity. It was going to change the game. After first encounters, tech writers became instant believers. They saw the immense possibilities it offered. (Where have I heard that before? ).

You could video anything you looked at. You could have a map in front of you wherever you walked. The tech offered you a computer and the internet ready at a moment's notice, taking your real world experience to a whole new level.

Also, for the Google Glass, content wasn’t really the problem. It layered a virtual UI over the real world, so you were rarely - if ever - in want of ways to interact with the tech or things to do with it.

The first problem it faced was the price. $1500 is a lot to ask people to pay for a fun glass. Kinda like an alt-version of the Snapchat spectacles come to think of it.

The second issue was the launch itself. The product wasn’t ready. It was supposed to be in beta, yet it was launched like a finished product. The narrative got away from Google, and became a PR nightmare. Not good for a product that was yet to define what position it wanted to occupy in the consumer’s life - everyday device or geeky accessory? As Will Oremus of Slate wrote, "Glass’ problem is that the technology today simply doesn’t offer anything that average people really want, let alone need, in their everyday lives."

Oh dear.

Hardware products differ from software. Interacting with hardware offers a different experience for the user while the amount of control the company exerts over the user experience is limited. Once the product leaves the warehouse, its fate is in the hands of the masses.

As it is now, the current expression of VR shares too many similarities with Google Glass, (Google's unfortunate experiment came first after all). And as a brilliant friend pointed out to me as I was writing this, Glass and VR (as we now know it) don't just share similarities (and potentially the same fate), they are different expressions of the same idea; add a realtime and lifelike layer of interactivity on content. Glass was Augmented Reality (interactivity on existing universes - like Microsoft’s Hololens) while VR is interactivity on created universes.

It’s a pretty nifty idea when you think about it or when you sit through a demo. But the idea has never been the problem. It wasn’t the problem during Glass’ brief stint and it isn’t the problem now. The medium itself is.

You know that situation where your friends tell you your startup idea is a slam dunk but then refuse to patronize you when you launch because, well… shrugs. Yes, this is that situation but with billions of dollars at stake.

It’s not their fault. If your startup’s going to be based on VR technology, I’m going to be shrugging too.

Snobs and the hardware life

At best, I believe VR (if it survives) will become one of those add-ons the really geeky and really edgy folks use - like your friends with the Playstation Move or the Xbox Kinect. Fancy but not groundbreaking. Interesting but not essential to the consumer experience.

Secondly, tech naturally carves out a niche and consolidates. When cars started showing up, it took some time, but eventually we moved in the air conditioner, the radio and then the phone into the car with us. When we got mobile phones, we embedded cameras and added the ability to listen to the radio, and browse the internet. When we got consoles, we added the ability to browse the internet, watch movies and play older games.

If VR is gonna succeed, it’s going to have to be embedded inside some other tech we already use or embed other tech we currently use into the whole experience. Why? Because there’s no space for an extra box in the living room. Right now, we have TV, DVR, Radio, Cable Decoder, WiFi routers, a game console, and a Blu-ray player. At some point, it gets too much. Unless the tech geniuses can figure out a way to make the tech powering VR come with any of these devices, VR will be fighting in an already crowded space.

Sony played a genius hand when they embedded their PS3 console with a Blu-ray player. Nobody needed to tell you that getting a PS3 was a good bargain - two pieces of tech for the meagre price of one.

Another problem is; the VR isn’t replacing anything. New tech that successfully permeates the consumer marketplace is usually a replacement of old tech. Flat screen TVs replaced CRTs. Blu-rays replaced DVDs. Smartphones replaced feature phones which replaced analogue phones. The need was already there and tech was solving it. New tech just came to do it better.

As the Google Glass experiment proved, people aren’t that ready to change their ways for the sake of it. They change when the new way is a better and easier way to meet old needs. I did a mini research. I showed some pics of the Oculus Rift to a friend. I tried pitching it to her as the toy the cool kids are playing with these days. Her reply was unexpected. She went, “And how am I supposed to lug that thing around in my handbag all day? Biko, I have work to do abeg.”

Immediately she said it, I saw her point. VR is not going to be a mobile device. So where’s it going to stay? In the living room? I don't think so. The tech currently powering VR makes it an isolating/solitary experience. It’s definitely not replacing the TV because then we’d need two or three visors, one for dad, mom and child. On the average.

I honestly can’t see it succeeding.

But then again I could be wrong. Several tech heavy weights including Google, Facebook, HTC, Acer, Samsung and Sony, have chimed in, committing to support the format and improve the tech. Throw enough money and brains at the problem and it might just go away (I’m sure I’ve heard that before also).

I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I’d still bet against VR, in spite of the tech being pushed by tech heavyweights. It will (probably) be an epic failure. But that is not to discourage failure. After all, it’s Silicon Valley wisdom to say, “if you’re not failing, you’re not trying.”

I can only assume that the bigger the failure, the bigger the lesson.

P.S. This post is not exclusively about VR. It’s about the challenges new innovations face especially when they involve introducing a totally new kind of consumer technology to the market. I simply used VR as a vehicle to channel my thoughts. Perhaps the headline should read - why good hardware products fail.

So why do good products fail? Here’s a quick recap:
Way too high price point (especially if you’re not Apple), Sucky marketing, Non-essential nature i.e it’s an Add-on, and poor industry support.

nice article bruv
100% truth

Leez:
nice article bruv 100% truth

cc lalasticlala,mynd44,cao

cool. so on point