How many of you remember what the gaming ecosystem looked like in 2007? There were consoles, PC gaming, Macs were practically a no-show except for “light” games, and mobile gaming was ports of 8 bit gaming engines and evolved versions of snake.

No one cared about playing games on the phone, that’s not what they were for, they were for email (Windows CE, Blackberry), messaging, and phone calls. Nokia’s N-Gage platform notwithstanding

Fast forward to today, iOS and Android (phones) own the market that was created when the iPhone was released… that market is called “Casual Games.” There’s been no shortage of debate about how powerful the phones are, and how well they can play games, but without a doubt, nearly everyone plays games on their phones.

These games aren’t typically using the latest whiz-bang graphics, or VR, or or even team play. They’re nothing like what a “gamer” would play. They’re far to uninteresting. The gamer wants wicked refresh rates, absurd FPS, and the latest and greatest GPUs and CPUs with as much memory as possible. Add a VR headset and the requirements increase further.

The casual gamer wants to be able to enjoy themselves, play puzzle games, grow farms, checkers, peer to peer backgammon, and so on. Things that run perfectly on their mobile devices.

What’s happening today is a very similar revolution. Oculus released the Oculus go, powered by what amounts to a mobile phone’s core. They’ve stripped the non-essential software and hardware and put it in the market.

What’s different this time? The Oculus Go leverages a well tuned app store ecosystem, developed with their partners at Samsung while building Gear VR. Why does the app store matter? Says Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president of iOS, iPad and iPhone marketing, in a Rolling Stone story called “Apple: How iPhone Gaming Revolutionized Video Games”

“We thought maybe we’d get 50 apps to start, but on the first day we had 500, and we thought that was an omen. But I’d be lying if I said we thought it would be as revolutionary as it would become. It’s changed the world. It’s changed the way software is written and distributed. It’s changed the gaming industry.”

Simply? Consumers want an easy button. The Oculus Go is incredibly simple, and easy. The Oculus Go is not for the “gamers” among us. It’s a very simple and elegant entry into the consumer VR space. It provides exactly the same experience that the current casual games do on iOS and Android, but in VR. You can play with friends, watch movies and TV, and of course you can do most of it in real time with friends.

Here’s a quote from a friend of mine, and new Go convert/evangelist Elie Finegold: “Got another one today for my wife so we can hang together while I’m traveling.” This comes from our first experience in Oculus Rooms. He and I spent the better part of an hour just chatting and catching up. He was so taken by it, well, you see what happened.

We’re on the edge of something great here. I hope you’ll follow along for more as it unfolds.

Previous Go stories:
New to the Oculus Go? Here are 10 apps to get you started.
Wireless consumer VR: slip it on and Go. Anywhere.

The 65 inch range is great, and, in fact is what we have in the living room. Ours is 8 years old, plasma, and weighs about as much as a full barge on the Mississippi, but I digress. The size of the TV is a great match for the room.

Today’s consumers demand larger, higher resolution screens, to replicate the 100+ year old movie going experience. Thinner, lighter, and with internet connectivity and apps. You want all of the latest apps: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and it would be idea to have a complete operating system for the ultimate in expandability. Content is king.

But a change is coming. I’m not talking 3DTV, or the gimmicky curved screen tech of the past few years. Those are just micro iterations on the same old technology. I’m talking about something as big as the jump from VHS to 4k just in time streaming through Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube.

What if the best screen for the single person’s living room of the very, very near future was just 10% of the size of today’s best selling TVs?

Wait. Ten percent? 6.5 inches?

Let me introduce the living room of the future. Today’s TVs have a viewing angle of 30° to 40° based on how far away the screen is from the viewer. The living room of the future will feature 120° angles or more. That’s right, you’ll be able to use your peripheral vision to see content! It’ll feel so close, you’ll want to reach out and touch it.

But that’s not where the fun ends. It’s where it begins. Today’s audio systems are spatial – a popular setup is to have 7 speakers, and one subwoofer. This is known as 7.1 surround sound. In the future, you’ll just want to keep the subwoofer – it’s the speaker that delivers the real punch, the lows, the sounds that shake things. A “Bass Shaker” will easily suffice in lieu of a subwoofer.

So what’s this crazy future? A massive improvement in viewing angle, and just one speaker? Instead of one giant screen, I predict that it will be two ultra high resolution 6 inch screens, just inches from your retina. Content will be delivered in streams thanks to the proliferation of 100 to 300 megabit internet connections, viewable in a full 360 degrees, or rendered on the device itself. Audio will be delivered directly to your ears with the lows coming from the one remaining speaker.

People all over the globe are already living in a similar future. The future where the perfect TV for the living room is no TV at all, actually. It’s a PC, driving a Virtual Reality headset, with great headphones.

You see, in the future, entertainment will no longer be about size and simulated immersion. It will be about actual immersion, and that takes no space at all.