Virtual reality not viable for 5 years, EA says

PanARMENIAN.Net - EA seems a bit reluctant to jump on the virtual reality bandwagon. Before making any serious commitments to VR, the gaming giant wants to wait and see if the tech is able to secure a large portion of the market share, Digital Spy said.

"As one of the largest software producers we have all of the manufacturers of equipment coming to us to try to sell us on their equipment and giving us development kits to try to build software for it," said EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen during the UBS Global Technology Conference (via Games Industry).

"So we'll build software for various ones but we'll really wait and see how big the market is going to be."

Jorgensen went on to say he doesn't view VR as a platform that will be viable for a whole five years.

"I think the reality is, the next one to three years, it's probably going to take some time to build up a sizable marketplace and you might see alternative uses for virtual reality first before it becomes gaming," he added.

"Longer term, five plus years away, I think there's certainly a market there and it will be another exciting way to enjoy gaming."

Other big names in the industry such as Ubisoft and Sony seem to be fully on board with VR, with the latter developing its very own PlayStation VR headset.