Virtual reality is taking some time to catch on to the market—but a new report from Newzoo suggests there’s still a great amount of interest in it.
The report indicates that, across both North America and Europe, 11 percent of the online population between the ages of 10 and 65 are planning to buy some sort of virtual reality product over the next six months. On the flip side, however, half of Western consumers don’t have any interest in the product just yet, while 8 percent aren’t even aware of its existence. Meanwhile, 32 percent of those polled haven’t yet come to a decision.
As far as the country that shows the highest interest in VR technology, Spain leads the charge with 16 percent, while, in terms of budget, a good portion of Canada’s audience stated they would be interested in buying such products.
ESports was also a big focus of the report, as Newzoo indicated that 63 percent of those who bought virtual reality tech are also into that level of competition—which makes it interesting that no VR manufacturers have jumped on board for a sponsorship just yet. The report also noted that over half of eSports enthusiasts and 24 percent of viewers that tune in on occasion have plans to buy VR-related goods somewhere down the road.
Peter Warman, CEO for Newzoo, said: “We have been relatively silent when it comes to VR. This has to do with our expectation that the lion’s share of VR revenues will be generated by hardware sales, spectator content, and live viewing formats. Game software revenues from VR will remain marginal for the near future and be absorbed into current PC, TV/console and mobile game revenues. We will leave guestimates on the future size of the total VR market in revenues to the experts in hardware and (online) retail sales. We are specialists in game revenues and gamer behavior. Hence our effort is to research and report on VR from a consumer perspective because ultimately, in the long term, VR and AR will change how consumers communicate and interact with content.”
Going back to budgets among virtual reality buyers, Canada has a large portion of consumers interested mainly in HTC Vive (28 percent), followed by the Oculus Rift (25 percent) and the Samsung Gear VR (20 percent). Meanwhile, audiences in Spain prefer the Homido VR (34 percent) as a top choice, followed by the Rift (25 percent).
The report provides plenty of information, and could certainly be news of interest to those who manufacture and market virtual reality gear. For that matter, eSports would definitely be worth looking into, especially considering the high interest amongst players and fans alike.
