Report: Google Will Go In Big For VR Hardware This Year

The Financial Times reports that Google isn't going to let the VR hardware wars fall to the likes of Samsung and Oculus; instead, it's working on a (cardboard-free) VR headset of its own, to be released in conjunction with Android VR software intended not only to make Android more VR friendly in general but specifically to help developers reduce nausea-inducing lag. The report doesn't quite come out of the blue, considering that Google has shipped more than 5 million of its own Cardboard viewer already, and has several projects dealing with VR infrastructure, either directly (like Jump) or indrectly (like Project Tango). Google (or Alphabet) has proven itself a hardware behemoth, not just the "search giant" it's so often called in news stories, and of late seems to be more interested in making its footprint in hardware a bit firmer.

Comments

Maybe not so much

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think of a company as being from what it derives its revenue, Google is still an advertising company.

Its a real stretch, to describe them as a hardware "behemoth". All they made is:

- Nexus 4/5/6/7
- Nexus Q (cancelled)
- Glass (arguably cancelled, but at least still in test)
- Chromecast
- Chromebook Pixel
- Pixel C
- Car (still in test, and will be for years)

Of those , Chromecast is probably the only large seller, maybe Nexus devices depending on what your threshold level is for "large" sales.

Theres other stuff like OnHub, Android TV, Chromebooks, Android etc, but Google doesn't make any of these hardware devices - they are made and branded by other companies, and Google does the heavy lifting on most of the software stack.

Cardboard is, a cardboard cut out. That doesn't make you a hardware behemoth either.