Things are certainly heating up in the VR space, as tons of people have lined up everywhere to pre-order or get their hands on virtually any VR headset regardless of brand. I am ALSO buying an Oculus Rift in a couple weeks, so I’ll have front seats on what’s going on in the space, as my friend got his hands on the first batch of pre-orders and is willing to sell me one for a very reasonable price. We have some interesting data points on both Sony and the HTC Vive. Of course, the guys at PiperJaffray are keeping close tabs via their industry/channel checks, so it’s nice to be in the “in crowd” when it comes to cutting edge research.Here’s what was stated in Gene Munster's most recent VR report:We estimate the HTC Vive has shipped ~85k units as of 6/22. We estimate HTC Vive has 15% more interest when compared to the Oculus Rift. This would imply the Oculus Rift has shipped slightly fewer units than our ~85k estimate for HTC Vive. Based on reports from Mainichi News, around 500 people in Tokyo waited in line to pre-order the PlayStation VR on Saturday, 6/18. To put this number into context, 260 people waited in line to pre-order a Nintendo 3DS, which Nintendo sold out of its initial supply of 400k units in the first day five years ago. The high levels of interest, and the sell-out of VR headsets across all providers is not at all surprising. People in the United States are really huge fans of the Matrix. The Japanese get their cues from shows like Ghost in the Shell and Sword Art Online. It’s really, really, really not hard to sell something that has shown up across countless TV shows and movies. The concept of VR is certainly complicated, but it’s nothing new. It’s like selling people flying cars at affordable enough prices (I’m sure Tesla has that on their 30-year road map), and while the enthusiast segment will be the first to get their hands on these devices, the trickle down to everyday consumers will likely happen at an accelerated pace. I know the initial data points aren’t convincing, but once the supply chain catches up we’ll get a sense for actual demand. It’s really not hard to sell something people have been eagerly awaiting for *ehem* decades now? Don’t get me wrong, grandpa and grandma will likely kick it in the living room with a remote, but for the “rest of us,” i.e. vast majority of people, virtual environments are worth drooling over. In other words, if your life (happens to) suck, you can always convert into the “bad ass” you really aren’t. You just open up a game and you’re Kratos, Hitman, Harry Potter, Goku, Scorpion, Master Chief… uh whatever. Let the imagination run wild here, no one will laugh at you. Since there are real limitations to the material world such as Einstein’s theoretical equations and mathematical certainties that cannot be refuted, the VR environment is the most ideal environment for living out your fantasies. I mean, if you want a real world equivalent to “Alice Through the Looking Glass” without expending all the energy to create a vortex through time and space into another dimension, so you can manipulate physical properties, I guess a pair of goggles sounds like a bargain. From what I understand, we’d have to start harvesting energy from the sun to enter into other dimensions or become a "multi-dimensional civilization." That’s technology more advanced than the stuff Yoda and Luke Skywalker talk about in a galaxy far… far… away. Basically, VR isn’t going to be obsolete anytime soon, and with so much room for growth and improvement I think it's the next major interface for computing/gaming going forward. Creating a real world alternative just isn't feasible, and if you had to do it another way, you just create a more elaborate version of a head mounted display. At this point, Facebook leads the pack in features and ecosystem development. So, buying Facebook makes sense here. The business doesn’t center around hardware and yet it has cutting edge hardware to market and sell. The irony is that Facebook might make more profit from hardware than both Google and Microsoft, especially if they play their cards right over the next five years.