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Hypereal is taking the problems associated with high virtual reality hardware costs to heart. To do this, this Chinese VR company is focusing on lower virtual reality hardware requirements while also hinting that they will be releasing lower priced virtual reality headsets this year. Hypereal’s plans are another important piece of evidence which indicates that 2017 will see dramatically lower virtual reality hardware prices.
Hypereal VR details. Image credit: Hypereal
2017 = YEAR OF VR
As I mentioned in an earlier article this week, 2017 will be the year that virtual reality blows up. Yes, better and more virtual reality games, videos, and adult experiences will come out this year because developers will have time to figure the complexities of VR hardware and software. Still, I don’t think this is the real reason we will see an explosive growth of virtual reality hardware and software sales in 2017. My earlier article about the Oculus Rift price cut demonstrated that it would be mainly price cuts that will help VR grow. As of late, many hardware manufacturers are considering the benefits of low margins and low prices when developing new VR products.
Lower Requirements
The leaders at Hypereal are one of the manufacturers following this new low-cost virtual reality trend. As a leading Chinese virtual reality developer, Hypereal’s approach to cutting costs is not novel, yet it bears important implications for the widespread Chinese adoption of virtual reality hardware and software. To be low-cost, Hypereal’s VP of operations Jinjing Sha says that the company plans to lower the barrier to entry for consumers by offering a virtual reality headset system that requires less beefy home computers. In other words, lower minimum requirements.
Image credit: Hypereal
Hypereal’s new virtual reality headset called Pano seems comparable to the HTC Vive. It comes with a full set of trackers and controllers allowing users to do room-scale virtual reality. Hypereal is not revealing details as of yet, but they claim that their headset requires only a moderately powerful PC setup. The PC requirements are as follows:
- GPU:
- NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960
- AMD Radeon™ 470
- CPU:
- Intel® Core™ i3-6100
- AMD FX™ 8350
By requiring a less powerful PC, Hypereal aims to kickstart the virtual reality industry in China. Hypereal’s VP Sha believes that $300 is the key price point that virtual reality headsets need to hit for “a 400 percent increase in market penetration.” The Chinese market needs aggressively cheaper products for a few reasons. Explaining why a cheaper VR market is needed in China, Hypereal’s John Gu says:
“Tier 1 cities in China, like Beijing and Shanghai have per capita disposable incomes of less than $700 USD per month. You don’t need to be in China to realize that for a family to spend an entire month of disposable income on a PC VR hardware is just unreasonable. Our job is to convert unreasonable to probable.”
Hypereal setup. Image credit: Hypereal
Lower Prices in the East = Good Things are in Store for the West
If virtual reality catches on in China, good things are in store for the western consumers. In other words, prices will radically fall. The mass market of production and consumption that the Chinese economy provides will allow American developers and manufacturers to cut prices while still retaining a profit from larger sales volume. Hypereal’s products and strategies will soon be tested. They plan to reveal more details about their hardware and software on March 27th.
Companies have to work towards bringing costs of VR Headsets in the affordable range… I am not saying make it more cheap or low-end, but just that one feels that they can try this unique tech without burning a hole in their pockets… Hyperreal and many other companies like Acer, Lenovo are on a path towards this…
Well, of course, China has a cheaper solution!
yes you are right but they also make some good stuff, I believe it all depends upon the company that what quality of product they want to build for ex apple products are also built in china but they are better quality then their competition.