Dive Brief:
- Acer Starbreeze, Google, HTC VIVE, Facebook's Oculus, Samsung and Sony Interactive Entertainment have joined forces for a non-profit organization called the Global Virtual Reality Association (GVRA) to promote the growth of VR technology worldwide, according to an organization press release.
- The tech firms, all of which produce VR hardware, want to collectively “develop and share best practices for industry and foster dialogue between public and private stakeholders around the world.”
- A stated goal of the group is to promote responsible development and adoption of VR tech and serve as a resource for consumers, policymakers and industries interested in VR.
Dive Insight:
The new initiative from VR hardware makers mirrors a group launched in September to promote artificial intelligence called the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society. That effort included Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon and IBM, and stated goals of promoting AI and creating universal industry guidelines for working with the technology.
As bleeding edge technologies like AI and VR move beyond early adoption and start to go mainstream, it's important for developers and marketers alike to work together to better understand how to educate consumers and properly implement these tools. Both of the new non-profit organizations are an indication that industry giants expect these technologies to play big roles going forward and want to ensure they are helping shape how they evolve from the beginning. The launch partners also understand these technologies are larger than any one company, and that it benefits every player to introduce VR and AI in a controlled manner with unified standards everyone adheres to.
The GVRA press release points out that VR has the potential to become the next big thing impacting sectors from education to healthcare, along with making significant contributions to the global economy. Other industry forecasts see VR breaking out big with consumers, with Juniper Research suggesting hardware sales could crack $50 billion by 2021 — an acceleration that will likely be driven in part by new offerings like the recent launch of Google's Daydream View headset.