The Next Big Thing After Websites and Mobile Apps

After COVID-19, building a virtual reality hub may become as common as websites and apps for many big companies.

In 2016 I attended a startup event in Shenzhen, China where I saw a cool virtual reality (VR) prototype. It was a futuristic shooter game that allowed the player freedom of movement.

The player put on a VR headset, strapped on a backpack (which was essentially a gaming PC with straps on it) and carried a ‘plasma’ gun. He was then able to walk around shooting virtual enemies without any wires tethered to him.

At that time, most of the quality VR games had players standing in a small room with wires tethered to the equipment all around him, due to the need for high performance graphics and data bandwidth. Either that or you were sitting in a simulator with goggles over your eyes.

Not very cheap or portable at all.

It was like traveling back to my teenage days where you had to go to a game arcade to play the bigger and cooler electronic games.

But VR was all the rage then. Occulus, HTC Vive, Google Cardboard — they were making the headlines. VR headsets were flying off the shelves and game console makers and software publishers were rushing to cash in.