The Google VR team shared some impressive figures at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week – more than 10 million Cardboard viewers have been shipped worldwide. Google’s low-cost smartphone enclosure for viewing VR content has been available since 2014.

With media attention on Oculus’ successes in reinvigorating the VR industry in 2014, Google’s surprise announcement of Cardboard looked like an amusing experiment, but it quickly became a huge success, as it was just good enough to provide anyone with a smartphone a small taste of VR. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, and announced via Google’s blog, the team revealed that more than 10 million Cardboard viewers have shipped worldwide, with 160 million downloads of Cardboard apps on Google Play. The 30 most popular apps have more than 1 million downloads.

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With two small lenses fixed inside a basic cardboard enclosure, Google’s Cardboard design never intended to deliver a truly immersive VR experience, but it provided an incredibly lower barrier for entry, and a stepping stone towards Google’s high-performance mobile VR solution, Daydream. In turn, the research and investment in software development for the Daydream ecosystem has filtered back to Cardboard; since October, Cardboard apps running Google’s VR SDK share some of the performance improvements developed for Daydream-ready phones. As such, Cardboard is likely to continue to remain relevant for years to come.

The Google VR team also took the opportunity to announce Sky VR, a new premium VR video content app, and three new augmented reality experiences – The Sims, Chelsea Kicker and WSJ AR – for Tango-enabled devices.

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Dominic Brennan
The trial version of Microsoft’s Monster Truck Madness probably had something to do with it. And certainly the original Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. A car nut from an early age, Dominic was always drawn to racing games above all other genres. Now a seasoned driving simulation enthusiast, and former editor of Sim Racer magazine, Dominic has followed virtual reality developments with keen interest, as cockpit-based simulation is a perfect match for the technology. Conditions could hardly be more ideal, a scientist once said. Writing about simulators lead him to Road to VR, whose broad coverage of the industry revealed the bigger picture and limitless potential of the medium. Passionate about technology and a lifelong PC gamer, Dominic suffers from the ‘tweak for days’ PC gaming condition, where he plays the same section over and over at every possible combination of visual settings to find the right balance between fidelity and performance. Based within The Fens of Lincolnshire (it’s very flat), Dominic can sometimes be found marvelling at the real world’s ‘draw distance’, wishing virtual technologies would catch up.
  • user

    amit singh also said that he doesnt expect mobile ar glasses (with vr capabilities) in the next 2 years.

    • OgreTactics

      Press source please? Are you sure he was referring to “glasses”? If he was referring to Tango…well unfortunately VR definitely deserves to fail for this cycle, period.

      • user

        dpa: “Mit der Zeit dürfte es Brillen mit Gläsern geben, die durchsichtig sind und AR-Inhalte einblenden können – aber zugleich auch zum Display für VR werden können.” Das werde aber “nicht in den nächsten ein, zwei Jahren” möglich sein.

        he also said that tango will come to hundreds of millions of phones.

        • OgreTactics

          Thanks. Aber ich verstehe nicht warum hate Google etwas Brillen gemeldet.

          • user

            they have never given up on glass as a consumer product. the question is if they collaborate with magic leap or license their tech and build their own version with hearables and smartwatch.

          • OgreTactics

            – Indeed I forgot about Google Glass which was a better era in which people had sense. I don’t believe in Magic Leap however, it shows to many signs of being vaporware although for the sake of justifying investment they might end making AR glasses that have nothing ground-breaking, as it is technologically impossible to have remotely decent lightfield glasses yet.
            – Hearables are nice although like VR there’s not one compelling marketable product yet, but there is however, nothing remotely like a smartwatch which exists yet.

          • user

            how can it be vaporware? maybe it takes some years to miniaturize the tech but thats how it works if you try to do something new. you cant keep patents a secret. and startups need to attract talent. not talking about it isnt really an option.

          • OgreTactics

            I thought you were about to write an “Entrepreneurship 101” to ponder whether it’s a vaporware or not…

          • user

            i thought you were finally growing up