Working with Sony R&D to bring emerging technologies to market
Sony asked us to create a product experience and marketing strategy for a suite of new technologies. Already a household name in consumer electronics, Sony continues to set the bar for mixed reality experiences, including immersive gaming and entertainment.
Working with Sony's R&D team, we helped define a series of use cases and identified potential markets for its volumetric capture system and spatial displays.
Building more immersive futures
Extended Reality (XR) encompasses a range of technologies that blend the physical and digital worlds, including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). To support these experiences, Sony is developing a range of products and tools, including volumetric capture systems and spatial displays.
Volumetric capture is a technique that captures real-world objects or people in 3D space, creating digital representations that can be used in XR experiences. Spatial displays enable XR tools and experiences by projecting digital environments into physical space.
Identifying market strategy
Our team helped workshop directions with Sony’s team, consulting with project stakeholders to define target markets, audiences, and opportunity areas connected with the space.
We synthesized primary and secondary research, combining our competitive analysis with the results of online surveys and user interviews to identify business and consumer needs. From these, we derived a set of use cases supporting Sony’s advance technologies in XR.
The portable nature of Sony's capture system and displays proved instrumental in establishing a unique market fit, as most competing products are heavier, more complicated, and more expensive. Beyond these characteristics, we also researched and analyzed Sony's offering across a variety of product and market variables, including quality, latency, target industry, and form factor.
Making a splash at CES
Ahead of the product launch, the team demonstrated both its volumetric capture system and spatial displays at CES.
On the Sony floor, visitors were able to experience a 360-degree view of Manchester City players and spectators in a 3D metaverse through its tablets and Spatial Reality (SR) displays. The team also unveiled a 27-inch prototype of its SR display capable of displaying life-size objects, allowing game designs, products, and medical images to be viewed in realistic 3D.
These technologies promise to enable digital experiences that are more immersive and interactive than ever before, furthering Sony's mission to “fill the world with emotion through the power of creativity and technology.”
