Advanced Television

Valve “comfortable” if VR fails

February 17, 2017

The head of VR headset developer Valve has said he is “comfortable” with the notion that the technology could turn out to be a complete failure.

Gabe Newell, MD of the game studio, made the statement in an interview with news site Polygon. Valve is co-developer of the Vive VR headset with phone firm HTC.

Newell said, so far, interest in the technology was in line with its expectations and that some VR games had already sold well. He said the advent of VR had much in common with the development of PCs in the 1980s. In both cases, he said, people bought technology without knowing why and discovered afterwards what they were good for.

Newell revealed there were now about 1,300 VR-based applications on its Steam gaming service and about 30 of those had made more than $250,000 (£200,000) in revenue.

“We’re optimistic,” he told Polygon. “We think VR is going great. It’s going in a way that’s consistent with our expectations… We’re also pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure.”

Categories: Articles, VR