By now, according to Meta’s narrative, as 2025 began, we were all supposed to be in its virtual universe with a visor firmly fitted to our eyes: doctors performing operations remotely, university students studying in virtual classrooms, and many other futuristic and futuristic applications. One day, in a house on fire, firefighters will be able to gain time to save more lives,” the group led by Mark Zuckerberg even went so far as to speculate in the pressing publicity battle. How this would be possible, of course, was not explained. Nor was there any time, for within a few months, Menlo Park’s rosy sci-fi forecasts were replaced by the much bleaker ones of analysts.

A trudging industry

What is happening to the world of virtual, augmented and mixed reality? Considering some recent developments that are not exactly exciting, VR, AR, or MR visors still cannot break through, especially in the consumer market, where video games and video content are well-suited for being enriched and strengthened by such immersive technologies. It is precisely gaming that seems the most in crisis. If, in fact, in the professional field and B2B some applications in the medical field, in support work in the field and in the development of the metaverse, AR/VR visors slowly seem to be gaining consensus among those working in the field, when it comes to pure entertainment, the diffusion of these wearable devices is still very limited.

PlayStation VR2 at the post

On the one hand, PlayStation VR2 turned one year old a few weeks ago, but despite an encouraging start and a stock of titles that by no means can be called poor (far from it), Sony seems to have forgotten about its second-generation visor. Announcements of games are now increasingly rare, no major titles in the pipeline that could shake things up and rise to the role of killer application (Metro Awakening? We’ll see), and practically zero software support in over twelve months, although the latest developments speak of an update by the end of the year to be able to use the visor on PCs too (of the series…. couldn’t they have thought of that before?).

Rarely, if ever, have we seen such a peripheral so ‘abandoned’ by a manufacturer in such a short space of time, even though on closer inspection, the signs for a half-flop were all there. Price too high for a mass audience (higher even than that of PlayStation 5), wired design now difficult to swallow, compatibility limited to PS5 and no backwards compatibility with PlayStation VR games, no discount on the list after 14 months from release (599 euros or 649 euros bundled with Horizon Call of the Mountain), only one official accessory (the charging cradle for the controller) and, as already mentioned, no support for operation with the PC and, therefore, the impossibility of accessing a VR game park that is extremely broader and more varied than the one available on the PS Store.

Result? Less than 1.7 million visors shipped (not sold) in a year (IDC data) against an installed console fleet of around 60 million units, stockpiling up in Sony’s warehouses and only five games with a confirmed release date. And that’s a real shame because (cable aside) the PlayStation VR2 is a fine visor in terms of components and technological solutions adopted, but even with all the goodwill, it is not clear how Sony can reverse this trend (if it wants to, of course).

This is not Hollywood

The fascination we feel with virtual reality in movies does not quite make its way into everyday reality, although the technology is not confined only to cinematic fiction. Movies tend to amplify the potential of VR, portraying it as a total escape from reality, a seamless, immersive experience, often with breathtaking graphics and capabilities far beyond those of today. These representations, as found in “Ready Player One” or “The Matrix,” relate particularly to our want for incredible experiences and worlds of fantasy, using the levers of visual awesomeness and narrative convenience to great effect. Reality, though, is more nuanced with today’s VR. These include the high cost of powerful devices and computers, technical hurdles such as motion sickness, limited field of view, and not-yet-perfect resolution, making the experience less fluid and accessible than what is usually seen in movies.

The amount of content available is also still rather limited compared to traditional entertainment platforms, while social acceptance is held back by the perceived isolation provided by wearing a bulky visor. Still, more concrete applications of VR materialize aside from pure entertainment, although less striking than the cinematic visions. These are training in aviation and medicine, treatments against phobias and post-traumatic disorders, design in architecture, and education to create more immersive learning experiences, but the field where virtual reality found its biggest success was in the industry of video games, offering an utterly new way of immersion.

This is the difference between movie VR and real-world VR: the exaggeration of the former for the purposes of narrative and entertainment versus current technological, economic, and social limitations. VR has undergone several cycles of great enthusiasm followed by disillusionment but continues to evolve, finding new uses, which shows its appeal isn’t bound to the big screen. Its wide diffusion is probably only a matter of time and further technological advances.

Not even Apple is saved

And what about Apple’s Vision Pro? Months and months after its release, Ming-Chi Kuo-one of the most reliable market analysts when it comes to Cupertino-speaks of almost halved sales forecasts for this luxurious and futuristic hybrid visor that starts at $3500. From the public and media attention able to catalyze the launch to a ‘bubble’ of Vision Pro already deflated, between a disappointing number of applications and a few really interesting uses, up to test bookings in Apple Stores plummeting and the used prices on eBay falling, a possible Apple rethink on the development of a second version of the visor is planned-not anymore in 2025, but in 2026, according to Kuo.

It has to be said that Apple has never really pushed the Vision Pro as a gaming visor, but mainly as a product for work and as a virtual replacement for a big screen in the Home Cinema field, a field on which it actually seems to work very well, thanks also to the many 3D films that can be bought or rented (obviously in digital-only version). The fact is that if even Apple finds itself with a technologically advanced ‘hybrid’ visor that seems to be anything but a success, something is evidently not working.

This is well known by Meta itself, whose Reality Labs division dedicated to the Metaverse (and thus also to Quest visors) closed the first quarter of 2024 with revenue of $440 million, up 29 per cent, but at the same time with an operating loss of $3.8 billion between January and March. If nothing else, Quest 3, which starts at €549 and is a stand-alone VR/AR visor, has received numerous software updates since its October release (the latest one, for example, adds a lying down mode), making it an even more feature-rich product. In addition, it is compatible with Quest and Quest 2 games, can easily interface with a PC (wired or wirelessly), and has a very extensive software park, not only in terms of games.

The breakthrough that is not there

Yet not even Meta with its Quest (there are also models two and Pro) and its Metaverse project has made a breakthrough in the hearts and wallets of the general consumer public, not least because of the prevailing trend of generative AI, which seems to have now overshadowed any other technology. It is no coincidence that it is trying everything to succeed, as evidenced by the announcement of the opening of the Meta Horizon OS to third-party manufacturers such as Asus, Lenovo and Microsoft. In the future, we will, therefore, see visors made by third-party companies with Meta software on board, but the timing, price range and whether these will be consumer or professional products are not yet known.

The feeling, however, is that as long as these visors have an ‘intrusive’ form factor, cost hundreds if not thousands of euros, offer a visual impact that is not yet realistic, do not completely solve the motion sickness problem, and are not light, portable, and ‘seamless’ like a common pair of glasses, virtual and augmented reality will remain experiences only for a few users – mostly professionals – and far from mass fruition.

Mind you, it’s not that VR/AR/MR visors and games are going to disappear overnight, but considering that 12 years have passed since the release of the Oculus Rift DK1 and that a little bit of all the big techs tried to establish themselves in this sector between Microsoft, HP, Dell, Google, Nintendo, and Samsung, including the recent announcement of Project Mohan, expectations for a mature and widespread AR/VR market are not materializing even in 2025, and things are unlikely to change anytime soon.