More people care about movies and TV shows than immersive 3-D games.
Companies such as Samsung and Facebook’s Oculus promote their virtual-reality headsets by highlighting awe-inspiring 3-D experiences for gaming and virtual travel. But one of the most popular activities among early adopters of the technology is less novel: watching 2-D movies and TV.
“It’s been a surprise on the VR circuit because much of the work is driven by people coming from the gaming world, who are fairly dogmatic about what VR means,” says Anjney Midha, founder of the San Francisco venture capital fund KPCB Edge. Figuring out what people want to do with headsets is crucial if companies such as Facebook are to make the devices widely popular.

Companies that make VR headsets don’t provide detailed data on what people are using them for. But Netflix’s app, which offers only 2-D content, is listed as one of the most popular for the Samsung Gear VR, which uses a smartphone as its screen. A 2-D video viewer, VR Cinema, is one of the most popular apps for headsets built around Google’s cheap mobile VR technology, Cardboard, with over a million downloads.
Despite their focus on interactive 3-D experiences, some large headset companies have shown signs that they recognize flat video’s importance. Hulu’s app is bundled with the Oculus Rift headset, for example (it also offers some immersive 360° video content). Oculus CTO John Carmack says the company worked with Netflix on its VR app because it was needed if Gear VR was to be successful.
Meanwhile, Sony is betting that flat content will be just as important as the 3-D kind to its virtual-reality headset launching next month. The company has been promoting the device’s “cinematic mode,” which displays conventional movies and TV or games on a large virtual flat screen. TV and movie content could help buy time for Hollywood companies trying to figure out what really works in VR.

Midha says that designs like Expanse could be successful for a time but will ultimately fade away when the displays in VR headsets capable of 3-D improve. Carter says his company plans to adapt its product line to take advantage of new technologies as they become affordable.
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