The leading giants in the virtual reality industry have joined forces to form an organization which aims to promote VRs growth and development. Acer Starbreeze, Google, HTC Vive, Oculus and Samsung created the Global Virtual Reality Association on December 7.
The Virtual Reality industry is mainly a brand new technology as it used to be only developed by startups. In recent years, tech giants have now taken most of the Virtual Reality shares in the market. It is probably one of the latest inventions that have quickly catapulted itself to stardom especially now that big companies have developed their own versions.
As the Virtual Reality technology is relatively new, there are no clear standards in terms of software and hardware. The main problem that has been raised is that the software of one company does not work on other devices and vice versa. For example, a game bought from the Oculus store will not play on HTC Vive.
The Global Virtual reality Association (GVRA) is trying to augment this gap as it is created with the aim to share the virtual reality industry's best practices to maximize the technology for all consumers. According to the non-profit organization's mission, "The goal of the Global Virtual Reality Association is to promote responsible development and adoption of VR globally. The association's members will develop and share best practices, conduct research, and bring the international VR community together as the technology progresses. The group will also serve as a resource for consumers, policymakers, and industry interested in VR."
Not all virtual reality industry players are part of the GVRA though. Two big companies, Apple and Microsoft, has not joined the organization. It seems that Microsoft has its own plans for the Windows Holographic platform and virtual reality device, HoloLens. On the other hand, Apple has not ventured into the virtual reality industry saying that it is more interested in virtual augmentation.
