KZero's summation : "By 2018 we estimate total HMD unit sales of almost 39m globally. This equates to a cumulative total of 83m HMD unit sales over the five year period." In other words, 83 million head mounted display units, the core platform for virtual reality. Not having read the full report, I'm skeptical about the methodology used to forecast this number, which seems too high -- but also, not high enough:

In the near term, the main market for HMD units is going to be hardcore gamers, and if we define them as owners of the latest Xbox or Playstation and PC gamers on Steam, that's probably 100-150 million total. (Assuming a lot of overlap.) So if 30% were to buy Oculus Rift or another HMD by 2018 (and that's a very generous guess), we're talking 30-45 million units sold. But even assuming the KZero forecast is accurate, 83 million is not quite the mass market we need for VR to truly be big. (As it happens, 83m is about the install base of the PS3.) Seen that way, virtual reality won't reach the hundreds of millions needed for VR to go beyond being a hardcore gamer peripheral for perhaps another decade. (Which is fine, we're in this for the long haul, but we need to be realistic about how long it'll take to get truly massive.)

UPDATE, 11:30pm: In comments to this post, Second Life and High Fidelity founder Philip Rosedale offers this forecast of VR adoption:

The adoption period for a widely-desired inexpensive technology (like smartphones) to reach saturation (1 billion+) seems to now be at about 7 years. So the ramp will be between now and about 2021.

Very interesting point, though it remains to be seen if VR HMDs can become as widely desired as smartphones. Also, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey commented to, well, correct my estimate of Playstation 4's install base (I actually meant to write "PS3", which is currently 80 million+, and have since corrected.)

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