2 million headsets sold by the end of the year

Virtual reality is becoming a more popular technology in the wake of high-profile product launches like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive but it is still several years away from “hypergrowth” and mainstream adoption, a new study found.

In the 2016 Virtual Reality Industry Report, issued jointly today by Greenlight VR and Road to VR, and which offers a 10-year roadmap for the VR ecosystem, the researchers predicted that while there will be 2 million–non-Google Cardboard–virtual reality headsets in consumers’ hands by the end of this year and 36.9 million by the end of 2020, the VR industry is still six to eight years away from hypergrowth or a tipping point in adoption of the medium.

That said, the study predicted that by the end of 2025, there are likely to be 135.6 million VR headset in use, of which 122 million will be mobile.

The consumer VR era kicked off in earnest last fall with the launch of Samsung’s mobile Gear VR and was further bolstered over the last few weeks with the launch of the tethered–meaning, connected to a powerful computing device by wires–Rift and Vive. Sony will complete what some might call the end of the beginning of this era later this fall when it releases its tethered PlayStation VR system. Analysts from Digi-Capital have previously predicted that the VR ecosystem would be worth $30 billion by 2020.

The report offered plenty of fodder for both those who are skeptical of VR’s prospects and those who are enthusiastic about the technology’s future. Still, it’s hard to escape the study’s most significant conclusion, that it will be several years at a minimum before consumer virtual reality is a major market. And that’s in large part due to the fact that there is no killer app on the immediate horizon.

“Unlike smartphones, where there was a stronger need for consumers to have these devices,” the report’s authors wrote, “the use cases that will drive broad consumer adoption are still early in development.”

That said, they continued, they do expect that a killer app is coming at some point. “We believe mainstream adoption of [VR gear] will be accelerated by the development of a ‘killer consumer app,’ which will likely come from social networking in virtual reality.”

A sentiment like that, if eventually proven accurate, would likely be great news for Oculus, which is owned by Facebook, whose CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has lauded the technology’s potential social impact.

Still, Oculus should not start celebrating just yet. While the Rift may well get the lion’s share of headlines in the early going, the PlayStation VR may very well be the long-term winner. Because of its lower price–Sony’s hardware will sell for $399, versus $599 for the Rift and $799 for the Vive–the report suggested that by 2018, Sony will have sold 3.1 million units, “just over half of the tethered [head-mounted display] market.”

What’s uncertain, according to the study, is how the various VR systems will differentiate themselves over time. “There will be a natural sorting-out process, by which various hardware configurations…evolve to optimize each vertical/use case,” the authors wrote. “For example, gaming platforms may evolve ultra-robust audio capabilities, while military platforms may evolve deep [augmented reality], or information overlay capabilities.”