Assumptions and Failures — Where Did 3D TV Go?
Back in 2009, 3D media was such a cool thing, and we began to see and hear about it everywhere we go. It was mainly caused by the movie “Avatar” and its global success in the 3D film — people even call it the “Avatar Effect.”
With the worldwide success of this particular 3D movie, TV manufacturers around the world thought that the 3D is the next big thing for general consumers and something that they would want to enjoy at their homes. This assumption was a bad start of this journey, and it becomes worse as the electronic companies make further assumptions.
Based on their problem assumptions that people would want to enjoy 3D products at home, TV makers believed that following the trend and producing the 3D TVs will be a good idea to solve the problem. Ultimately, it not only didn’t help to solve consumers’ problems but also negatively impacted their businesses down the road.
Consumer electronics companies then made an implementation assumption, which they thought that people would buy the new 3D TVs. However, again, various issues went against the assumption. First of all, the timing was not ideal to assume that consumers will simply purchase a new 3D technology, or worse, not even a new TV. During the release of 3D TVs, the TV industry was going through a transition from analog to digital, which caused every household to buy a new TV to adapt to the new services starting in June 2009. The additional costs also steered consumers away from it — including 3D compatible Blu-ray player, extra fees for 3D contents, as well as 3D glasses. The user experiences of the glasses were especially poor due to its price, inconsistency (same glasses cannot be used at a friend’s house if they don’t have the same TV), performance, and physical discomfort. Finally, despite the fever of this “seems like a future” technology, there was only a handful of 3D contents available to enjoy at the time. So, considering all of those reasons, the majority of the consumers did not want to spend money on a similar product that they have just purchased to watch a limited amount of 3D contents.
As a result of these assumptions and the low popularity caused by them, the manufacturing of 3D TV has ended by 2017, and we no longer see ads or information about it.
