AMD demonstrated its commitment to the future of virtual reality during last month's E3 2015 by pulling together big name industry executives, content creators, and retailers to discuss the practical future of consumer virtual reality. The results were a refreshingly frank, open and encouraging conversation. AMD is betting big on virtual reality. It's lost ground to competitors in recent years, faltering in the performance GPU market and struggling to regain momentum against the likes of nVidia despite winning big in the next-gen console hardware race. But in Los Angeles at last month's E3 2015 the semi-conductor giant took a bold gamble on the future of an industry and threw itself into the virtual reality arena. By the close of the week, one thing was clear: when it comes to VR, AMD means business. To that end, they held a series of dedicated events throughout the week, designed specifically to showcase their latest GPUs powering the latest virtual reality experiences. However, the company's boldest move by far was to gather a selection of consumer electronics retailers and manufacturers, throw them in a room with assorted VR developers and community members, and let them verbally duke it out over their vision of the VR industry's evolution. AMD called it the VR Advisory Council, and it was a rare and refreshingly open debate on the future of an industry. Heavyweights like Best Buy, BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Theatre Arts), DSG (Dixons Store Group), The Visual Effects Society, 20th Century Fox, HP, HTC, Alienware, Microsoft, Unity and Futuremark shared the floor with representatives from the VR development community including content creators Reload Studios, Ragnarok, Zypre (The Production Studio behind ‘First’ the Wright Bros short) and Unity Technologies (not to mention Road to VR). MC'd by AMD's VP of Alliances, Roy Taylor, topics and agenda were broadly defined in advance, but freeform conversation among delegates was encouraged throughout. I'm going to focus on two of the main topics at the event and try to summarise highlights of the discussions that arose around them. The Virtual Reality Market Opportunity The challenge with a brand new industry, and for those looking to invest in it, is understanding just what market potential exists there. Given that no consumer VR hardware is yet on sale (remember, even Samsung's Gear VR is still an 'Innovator Edition'), this is the realm of business analysts and industry commentators. Clearly we're in the land of educated guesses and financial crystal balls here, but Tony Danova from Business Insider (BI Intelligence) pulled together some interesting figures to serve as the basis for this initial discussion. Opinions differed here as to whether the figures quoted were realistic, with opposing estimates from the council varying—somewhat understandably perhaps. BI Intelligence estimates that by 2020, 25 million VR headsets across mobile, PC and console will have shipped, equating to a $2.8 billion hardware market. Whilst we know of the major players coming to market in late 2015 to mid 2016—HTC/Valve, Oculus, Sony, and Samsung—AMD are currently tracking 11 other, as yet unannounced headsets working their way to market. A representative of Unity Technologies stated their belief that the mobile VR market will eventually dominate, with 50-60% of the overall VR market. They cited the prevalence of Google cardboard—which according to Google passed the 1M shipped mark some months ago—as an example of its possible adoption. 20th Century Fox's representative on the other hand was bullish about the 'tethered' PC VR headset market, saying that Valve's HTC Vive could sell as much as 1 million soon after launch. Sony's Morpheus, should hardware production meet with demand, may ship between 1-3 million units dependent on price and supporting content, according to the rep. Oculus on the other hand are a relative unknown, at least as far as brand recognition and experience in the marketplace is concerned. Aside from the existing developer kit owners "It's all about content" was the feeling from Fox. Mobile, on the other hand, didn't have content compelling enough to really break through at this point. Additionally, there was an opinion that, in this first flush of early hardware, there will be a demographic who wants to own this hardware because it's exclusive, desirable and new. To that end 'premium' platforms (which interestingly seemed to indicate Valve's Vive to some present) may be desirable because of their higher estimated price. Conversely, going in at too low a price may actually be detrimental to the industry. The broad range of predictions here speak to just how new and untested virtual reality as a consumer prospect really is. Realistically, we simply won't know how things will pan out until headsets hit the market later this year, with Valve's Steam VR and HTC's Vive believed to launch in time for Christmas. It'll be really interesting how opinions and strategies alter over the next 12 months as real figures start to emerge. [button color="orange" size="large" type="3d" target="" link="https://www.roadtovr.com/tech-industry-heavyweights-debate-the-future-of-vr-at-amd-vr-advisory-council/2/"]Continued on Page 2[/button] Industry Nomenclature and Types of VR One of the common themes running throughout the Council's session was that of communicating such an alien technology as virtual reality to an unsuspecting, uneducated consumer market. Even as a journalist and enthusiast in the VR space, I can tell you that being consistent with your terms in reference to VR technologies and experiences is tough. So imagine just how difficult it might be conveying the myriad terms associated with VR to say, an older relative. Clear, concise and jargon-free nomenclature is going to be vital in tackling consumer confusion. This is true for both hardware and software. For hardware, terms such as IPD, FoV, FPS, Low Persistence etc. are just plain confusing. Being able to encapsulate attractive properties in a device whilst cutting through the technical 'crap' is vital. So synonyms or colloquialisms may be needed. It was challenges in describing the new wave of software being built for virtual reality that occupied the lion's share of the discussion. When you consider that VR will likely allow entirely new types of entertainment to emerge, how on earth do you avoid confusion when you're trying to persuade someone to buy it? 'Experience' is one term that is used to generalise types of VR applications that aren't easily pigeon-holed by existing standards. This is where the Council agreed more clarity was needed. AMD's Retail representative suspects that "Ego gratification" may be a strong sales draw in the early days. Why invite a friend over to watch your 70 inch TV or check out your car when you can take them up Mount Everest at your house? These experiences need to be "bucketised", so that retailers are armed to target consumers with terms that sell, said the AMD representative. [caption id="attachment_12752" align="aligncenter" width="640"] How would you market an 'experience' like Senza Peso to novice VR users?[/caption] For content creators too, avoiding certain terminology when referencing their own creations may well be key where monetisation is important. Calling a VR experience a 'Demo'—a term the VR community has become used to in the first three years of the industry—cheapens a creator's work and diminishes its value. Having ways to describe these experiences is key to allowing developers monetise their work. A representative from Best Buy said that, although the term 'experience' is generally ok, it's used to describe so many different saleable items that the term could be "diluted" and not strong enough to sell VR appropriately. More specifically, VRideo's representative spoke of just one content segment's naming difficulties. "There's many different types of VR video out there...", naming '360 degree', 'spherical projection', '180 degree', with some stereoscopic and some monoscopic—they used the term 'immersive video' to clearly group them. Outside of these main topics, practical concerns of retail VR were also in abundance. Subjects like hygiene when demonstrating VR to a stream of customers and just how much floor space should bricks and mortar stores set aside for demonstrations. The Best Buy representative viewed the market as being premium initially and needing to pitch the demo experience to match. The USC Entertainment Tech Center delegate believed demonstrations weren't workable at all, citing broken 3D glasses of the short-lived 3DTV phase in shops across the lands tainting consumer experience. [caption id="attachment_30518" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Will we need disposable headset covers for in-store VR demos to maintain hygiene standards?[/caption] On the creative front, the positivity surrounding VR's possibilities were balanced against problems with how to mitigate risks of developing for VR with no current install base. Shayla Games' representative said that they were having to consider delivering their content episodically to mitigate financial risk. Reload Studios meanwhile commented on designing their game to scale across multiple platforms, so that they can sell into a broad range of VR platforms, from mobile to high-end - again, mitigating themselves against an uncertain market. VR is about to exit its honeymoon period of hardcore enthusiasts, it's about to get real, with a lot of money at stake. AMD's assembled Council was a rare opportunity to gauge what some of the world's biggest players, responsible for defining how the general public will access and experience VR, think of the technology, and further, how they envisaged the consumer retail experience. The good news? They're excited and for the most part understand how big VR could potentially be. However, they also see challenges unique to VR facing them soon as products hit retail. It's clear that retail language needs to expand to accommodate virtual reality's breadth of offerings - this will likely involve trial and error in the short term. So where now for the VR Advisory Council? If the event is deemed a success by the attendees, AMD will endeavour to form a non-profit organisation as overseers of the group. That may well include invites for Intel and NVIDIA too by the way, just in case you were wondering. And much as the phrase 'non-profit organisation' generally makes my blood run cold, I can't help but believe that these discussions are valuable to the industry's gestation. So, I'm hoping we'll see the Council's return in 2016. With all major VR hardware set to have reached market by then, it'll be fascinating where the discussion leads next.