Virtual Reality Companies Navigate ‘The Trough of Disillusionment’

Twelve months ago the Virtual Reality World Congress in Bristol, England, was a sell-out show, with over 750 attendees gawping over the latest VR hardware and production techniques.

This year's event, which took place last week, attracted even more participants -- more than 1,200 over three days -- but the mood felt decidedly less upbeat. Virtual reality, it seems, has been mugged by reality.

Sales of VR hardware have fallen 40 percent behind forecasts, CCS Insight, a technology research group, said in a February report. And the VR hardware that is selling has mostly been relatively inexpensive goggles that allow people to experience VR through their smartphones, such as Samsung's Gear VR and Google's Daydream, not higher-end, dedicated headsets such as those made by Sony Corp, Facebook Inc.'s Oculus and HTC Corp.