[adg001]

> in the next 5 years

I will not hold my breath. I tested the first (admittedly rudimentary) HMDs in the mid 1990s. VR was f-ing hot back in the days among those of us interested in "computer graphics". According to commentators, VR would have disrupted our lives over the next a few years. Here we are.

[throwaway4aday]

The key thing missing at that point was a half-trillion market surrounding the hardware comprising the VR devices. The cellphone industry is going to continue to plow ahead no matter what happens with the popularity of VR so no matter what displays are going to get better, mobile processors more powerful, energy efficient and smaller, networking will speed up, and hand-face-eye tracking will get better.

The only necessary tech that isn't driven by a large existing market are lenses. That's a pretty good deal for VR hardware, you just have to focus R&D money on one area while getting the rest practically for free (yes I know a lot of work goes into integrating those other components but it's nowhere near the same as having to develop the tech in the first place).