Blog: virtual reality

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Meta’s VR push should focus on the reality of the average consumer

Ben Woods

25 Apr 2023

Authenticity in the West versus artificiality in the East

Ashleigh Millar

23 Feb 2023

artificial intelligence

virtual reality

You might have heard the term “deinfluencing” floating around the internet recently. For context, earlier this year, a popular American TikTok beauty influencer, Mikayla Nogueira, took to the app to promote L’Oréal’s new ‘Telescopic Lift’ mascara , a brand with which she is a paid partner (although this detail was conveniently placed in a hard-to-read area of the video).

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The trials and tribulations of virtual reality

Perry Gresham

26 Aug 2022

virtual reality

Playstation VR

The new world of virtual reality (VR) has felt closer over the past ten years than ever, but is still just over the horizon. VR remains niche The main sticking point is adoption: currently just under one in ten US gamers has a VR headset, dropping to around 1 in 20 in western Europe and even less in other tracked nations (MIDiA Research survey data).

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Meta’s 2024 vision for AR glasses demonstrates the tech barrier to the metaverse

Hanna Kahlert

13 Apr 2022

Can Oculus’s planned $200 VR headset move the needle for VR in gaming?

Karol Severin

14 Jul 2017

Facebook VR

oculus rift

Paid Content

So far, VR hasn’t exactly taken off in they way many would have predicted 2 years ago. MIDiA Research consumer survey data reveals that just 4% of consumers own a VR headset (weighted average across US, UK, Brazil, Japan, Sweden and Germany).

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A Tale Of Two Technologies: The Narrative And The Numbers For VR And Voice

Zach Fuller

1 Feb 2017

Alexa

Amazon

Amazon Echo

In the tradition of effective storytelling, the technology industry’s romantic narrative often involves two basic troupes: a garage and a dream. This alluring chronology is so embedded in start-up folklore that it permeates the foundation myths of everyone from Apple to Google, and it actually pre-dates Silicon Valley.

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Amazon’s Latest VR Play: Commerce Over Content?

Zach Fuller

19 Jan 2017

Amazon

Facebook

Google Daydream

As the world’s largest e-commerce retailer increasingly flexing its content muscle, following a notable presence at the Golden Globes, Amazon has announced it is hiring a ‘Creative Director of Virtual Reality’.

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Sony Downgrade Playstation VR Sales Projections – What Next for VR?

Zach Fuller

2 Dec 2016

Facebook

htc

oculus

Following a much-hyped global release only a few months ago, Sony announced earlier this week they were downgrading their Playstation VR sales projections for 2016. Although many had predicted earlier in the year that Sony held a clear-cut initial advantage in an embryonic VR industry over competitors Oculus and HTC.

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Black Friday Offer: Free MIDiA VR Report

Mark Mulligan

25 Nov 2016

Free MIDiA Report

free report

Free VR Report

Shamelessly jumping on the Black Friday bandwagon we have a great offer for you: sign up to the MIDiA weekly research briefing newslettertoday and get a free 18 page VR report: 'The State Of The VR Nation'.

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Playstation VR’s Japanese Sales Spell Trouble for Virtual Reality Adoption

Zach Fuller

25 Oct 2016

Gaming

htc vive

japan

Sony’s entry into the VR market came with a lot of hype and it was easy to see why. Initially developed under the codename ‘Project Morpheus’, it arrived with brand recognition (Playstation), high-profile gaming IP content (Resident Evil), and a lower price tag than both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

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Can NBA in Virtual Reality Avoid 3D TV’s Fate?

Zach Fuller

24 Oct 2016

3D TV

BBC

Fox television

US Sports fans will begin to see the fruits of the highly anticipated partnership between Next VR and Fox Sports this NBA season, following the announcement that the network will begin broadcasting one NBA game in VR per week.

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Quick Take: Can Viveport Be the App Store of VR?

Zach Fuller

30 Sep 2016

app store

Facebook

h&c

Viveport, the online store of the HTC Vive VR headset, launches today in 30 countries with a selection of around about 60 titles across the entire pantheon of VR content - from sports to education and including notable experiences such as Wevr’s theBlu , Mars Odyssey and Stonehenge VR .

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Why Oculus Rift Will Struggle in its UK Launch

Zach Fuller

22 Sep 2016

Facebook

htc

oculus rift

Four years after its near-mythical Kickstarter campaign introduced the name Oculus Rift into the consciousness of virtual reality believers worldwide, the headset finally launches in the UK this week. Arguably the poster-child product for VR’s renaissance since its company’s acquisition by Facebook in 2014, its arrival feels more belated than triumphant – and is marked by serious questions over its ability to draw consumers beyond the die-hard gaming contingent.

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Will Broadcast News in VR Bring a New Wave of The CNN Effect?

Zach Fuller

26 Aug 2016

broadcast news

chris milk

cnn

With CNN and Next VR announcing they will be broadcasting on October 13th the first ever live-streamed news event, it brings to mind the implications of the last revolutionary shift in broadcast news: that of the 24-hour news cycle.

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Is Virtual Reality A Partial Answer To Ad-Blocking?

Tim Mulligan

25 Aug 2016

ad blockers

innovid

product placement

According to the Innovid 2016 Global Video Benchmarks report, VR based advertising is 30 times more effective than mobile and 60 times more effective than desktop when measured by engagement. VR ad click through-rates or “gaze-though rates” have been measured by VR mobile ad network Immersv ’s tracking platform as having a 30% engagement rate compared to 1% for mobile ads and 0.

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Why HTC's 10,000 VR Kiosks in China Could Change the Course of VR

Zach Fuller

8 Jul 2016

htc vive

oculus

Playstation VR

HTC have announced they will be delivering over 10,000 pop-up VR kiosks or ‘Experience Sites’ in public places all around China. More than a publicity stunt, the move could prove significant not just in the quest for VR hardware market share but also in changing the strategies of future tech developments.

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Quick Take: Why Twitter Is Moving Into The Increasingly Congested VR Space

Zach Fuller

29 Jun 2016

augmented reality

Innovation

journalism

Twitter have hired former Apple designer Alessandro Sabatelli to oversee the company’s Virtual and Augmented Reality teams, a position Sabatelli claims is to ‘empower us all in the spatial computing revolution’.

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Virtual Reality And Scripted Drama

Tim Mulligan

13 May 2016

canal+

exzeb

Gaming

At the start of 2016 the tech hype machine was going into overdrive over the potential for Virtual Reality to finally break through to the mainstream. January’s CES in Las Vegas featured the launch of Fox Studio’s The Martian Experience, their second VR project in conjunction with a major big screen production.

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Sky Gets Serious About Virtual Reality

Tim Mulligan

17 Mar 2016

Sky

sky vr studio

Uncategorised

Today Sky announced that it has created an in-house unit dedicated to Virtual Reality (VR) content production called Sky VR Studio. This underlines the importance with which Europe’s largest pay-TV company assigns to the new immersive form of story telling.

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Why Virtual Reality Will Not Break Through To The Mainstream in 2016

Tim Mulligan

13 Jan 2016

CES

occulus rift

Online video

The premier of Fox Home Entertainment’s second VR (Virtual Reality) content offering was received with much excitement at CES last week. 21st Century Fox’s blockbuster science fiction smash hit The Martian is the subject of the new VR project which is a combination of video game functionality and story-telling narrative and allows the viewer to experience the film from the perspective of the beleaguered NASA astronaut.

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