????弗雷斯特研究公司（Forrester Research）分析師詹姆斯?麥克奎維說：“Facebook收購Oculus似乎更多的是出于恐懼，而非真正的業(yè)務(wù)需要。Facebook錯過了向移動技術(shù)的轉(zhuǎn)型，感覺Facebook的高管們似乎發(fā)誓絕不再錯過任何重大轉(zhuǎn)型。然而，與移動技術(shù)不同，虛擬現(xiàn)實永遠只能是小眾技術(shù)，即便它最終能發(fā)展成非常令人興奮的小眾技術(shù)。”

????麥克奎維表示，這是因為，虛擬現(xiàn)實仍然受限于其硬件規(guī)模和相應(yīng)內(nèi)容的匱乏，最重要的是，它還受限于人的五種感官的極限值。試圖將虛擬現(xiàn)實移植到社會領(lǐng)域，就更不靠譜了。

????麥克奎維稱：“你的Facebook好友短期內(nèi)肯定不會發(fā)布虛擬現(xiàn)實內(nèi)容。這使得社交媒體和虛擬現(xiàn)實之間的匹配不那么顯而易見。”

????這已有先例：10年前，林登實驗室（Linden Lab）推出的第二人生（Second Life）游戲為玩家們營造了一個3D虛擬世界。用戶在這個世界里可自定義角色，還能進行社交活動。林登實驗室本身和它的理念一時間備受關(guān)注，但這款游戲在鼎盛時期也僅有10萬玩家同時在線，最終未能被普遍接受。

????如今的虛擬現(xiàn)實技術(shù)要先進得多，也更有可能被廣泛采用，但也可能面臨同樣的命運：只對小眾具有吸引力。高德納（Gartner）研究分析師布賴恩?布勞說：“我可以告訴你們，沉浸式虛擬現(xiàn)實不是移動設(shè)備之后的下一個大平臺。我們認為可穿戴設(shè)備非常重要。但不僅限于頭戴式顯示器，還包括手表、健康追蹤器，甚至聯(lián)網(wǎng)的家電和汽車。”但即便如此，可穿戴設(shè)備仍有很長的路要走。

????布勞說：“如今，Oculus僅僅是一款頭戴式顯示器產(chǎn)品，而不是一個內(nèi)容體系。我們知道，未來真正驅(qū)動虛擬現(xiàn)實生態(tài)系統(tǒng)向前發(fā)展的是內(nèi)容。因此，我們要想看到虛擬現(xiàn)實平臺出現(xiàn)，還有很多整合工作要做。”（財富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：項航

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????"Facebook's acquisition of Oculus seems motivated more by fear than by good business alignment," Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey says. "Facebook missed the shift to mobile, and it feels like Facebook executives have sworn to never miss another big shift again. Only unlike mobile, virtual reality will only ever be a niche, even if it eventually becomes a very exciting one."

????That's because virtual reality is still constrained by the size of its hardware, the lack of content for it, and above all, the saturation limits of your five senses, McQuivey says. Try to graft that onto a social experience, and the proposition becomes even more fraught.

????"Your Facebook friends certainly won't be developing virtual reality content anytime soon," McQuivey says, "which makes the fit between social media and virtual reality less than obvious."

????It has been done before: 10 years ago, Linden Lab's Second Life came to market with a 3-D virtual world where users could customize an avatar and socialize with each other. The company and concept received much attention for a time, but peaked at fewer than 100,000 concurrent users, ultimately failing to achieve broad adoption.

????Today's VR technology, while far more sophisticated and more likely to see broader adoption, also risks the same fate: niche appeal. "I can tell you that immersive VR is not the next big platform after mobile," Gartner research analyst Brian Blau says. "We see wearable devices as very important, but it's not just limited to head-mounted displays. It includes products like watches, fitness trackers, or even connected devices such as home appliances and cars."And even then, it's a long-term play at best.

????"Today, Oculus is only an HMD product," Blau says. "It's not a content system, and we know that it's content that will actually drive any VR ecosystem forward. So many more pieces need to come together before we see the emergence of a VR platform."???