Crytek announced several months ago that it would be stepping up its virtual reality efforts big time. To that end the company announced its VR First initiative: a concentrated effort to draft colleges and universities around the world into the immersive army. Crytek would provide its chosen partner schools with hardware, guidance, networking, and — of course — the latest version of CryEngine with which to build their experiences.
Since the announcement of VR First in January, not much more has been said about the project. Today, however, Crytek is pulling back the curtain for the first time. According to the company, over 400 schools applied from around the world to join VR First. That number was whittled down to 201 which will make up VR First’s inaugural class. Crytek conducted a survey of these initial institutions and compiled the results in an intriguing infographic that you can check out below:
There are a lot of interesting bits of information that can be pulled out of this graphic but the one that sticks out the most is that it seems the Oculus Rift is the overwhelming favorite for higher learning institutions around the globe.
According to this survey at least, the Rift seized a whopping 67 percent of the territory when it comes to college and university use. Even with the admittedly small sample size of this particular study, that’s still a commanding figure. The next rung down on the usage hierarchy is even the Gear VR which, despite being co-developed by Samsung, still keeps things in the Oculus family and brings the brand’s number as a whole to a dominating 83 percent.
Oculus is most likely pulling these kinds of numbers due to the fact that it has been around significantly longer than the Vive and was, during the DK1 and even the DK2 era, the only high-end VR headset available for universities and schools to obtain.
Any way you slice it, however, Oculus seems to far and away be the headset most likely to be in use by those studying VR at this level. That’s a trend that impacts the types of experiences, and even hardware, that we receive down the line.
Crytek is also reporting “88 percent of the 201 universities surveyed are either planning or already offer a VR course, while on average there are less than two headsets available to each of these universities,” which they believe is proof that programs like VR First are necessary for the industry to thrive.
