My mother-in-law Tan Chin tries out VR.
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Three grandmas show how virtual reality can be the life of a holiday party

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

During my holiday break, I always like seeing what the relatives enjoy when it comes to gaming. The kids always lead the way. One nephew was playing Crossy Road on his brand-new Apple TV. But virtual reality stole the show at Christmas.

As you can see from the photo above, my 81-year-old mother-in-law, Tan Chin, loved the Samsung Gear VR experience. Like when my colleague Stephen Kleckner got his five-year-old daughter to try out VR, I saw from viewing this non-gamer grandmother and her mobile-gaming grandchildren that virtual reality has a magical appeal that crosses generations. That tells you the potential of the platform, which tech advisor Digi-Capital believes will generate $30 billion in annual revenue by 2020.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.