Nokia OZO exec talks about firm's VR plans, why OZO 360-degree cameras are so expensive and bringing its costs down, and the state of VR content production
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat :
Context & Ripple Effects
Nokia entered VR in mid-2015 with the Ozo, a professional-grade 360-degree camera unveiled after weeks of teasers (Nokia planned to debut a virtual reality product that July) and positioned for fast low-res rendering aimed at studio workflows. By December 2015 it was taking pre-orders at $60,000 with Q1 2016 shipping (the $60K pre-order window).
This VentureBeat interview with an OZO executive, a year into shipping, is Nokia defending that pricing and sketching a path to cheaper hardware — a defense that, in hindsight, marks the high-water point: by late 2017 Nokia said it would stop work on future Ozo versions and cut up to 310 staff, about 30% of its Nokia Technologies unit (the Ozo wind-down and 310-job cut).
First-order effects
- Professional VR content producers are the only buyers who can absorb a five-figure camera, so Nokia's own plan to bring costs down is an admission that the addressable market at $60K is too thin to sustain the product line.
- The exec's read on VR content production sets expectations for studios deciding whether to invest in 360-degree capture now or wait for cheaper second-generation gear.
Second-order effects
- If Nokia had succeeded in cutting OZO costs, it would have pushed the camera downmarket into direct competition with the broader 360-degree hardware field; instead the later decision to halt future Ozo development removed that pressure and left early professional buyers with an end-of-life platform.
Third-order effects
- The arc from a $60K flagship to discontinued follow-on hardware is a case study in professional-first strategies for nascent platforms: premium capture gear can't bootstrap a content ecosystem if the audience for that content arrives slower than the hardware roadmap, a tension Oculus chief scientist Mike Abrash's long-horizon AR/VR research outlook (Abrash's research progress and predictions) implicitly frames from the platform side.
The trend: Premium VR capture hardware priced for professionals is giving way to a wait-and-see market, as vendors like Nokia discover that content demand, not camera capability, is the binding constraint on the VR production ecosystem.