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Best Buy will sell VR headsets with free demo
If you’re one of those people with a great curiosity when it comes to VR or virtual reality technology, then you got to try it to love it. At Best Buy.
The advent in popularity of Virtual Reality have spawned many would want to get their hands on them. Buying headsets can be a pain due to high, premium prices and unavailability in some territories. Well, that was a problem back then. However, Best Buy is planning to make some soft introduction of VR devices with the average consumers. This will be done primarily be done with Oculus Rift demos in its 500 stores and 200 demos for the PlayStation VR.
This is an attempt to make VR more mainstream and reachable. Far from its exclusive status from a year ago. Compared to months before this launch, VR is mostly for the enthusiasts and developers who would want to tap into this new and emerging technology, thus, less to no one actually experienced it first hand.
The real question from this undertaking is this: will it succeed?
As far as many people are concerned, the success of this strategy would dictate the future of virual technology in the market as a whole. If more people believe they want to use the technology, then there is a great potential that it will be as or even surpass the popularity of smartphones and tablets. Failing would mean that maybe virtual reality isn\’t that ready yet for consumer use.
This is not to say that virtual reality headsets are not practical and unusable, the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are great examples that the average Joe without any technical training can setup and use a VR headset. The Samsung Gear VR is even taking extreme measures to make their VR headsets a household item next to their Galaxy lineup.
That\’s why this holiday season, Best Buy is giving a helping hand. The consumer electronics chain is going to be providing demos for Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR in many of its stores.
By the time the holiday shopping season kicks in, Best Buy will have 500 stores demoing Oculus Rift, showing a wide variety of consumers the capabilities of the VR headset. When it releases in October, demos for PlayStation VR will also be in 200 rotating locations across the US.
Deloitte, a professional services firm even predicted that virtual reality for 2016 will mostly be surrounding around experimentation and limited content outside of the gaming sphere. But despite this limitations, 2.5 million VR headsets and 10 million digital game copies are expected to be sold this year. So, who\’s to say that virtual reality does not have a future in this competitive world.
