Tech stakeholders in Africa agree that virtual reality holds great prospects for the continent despite the high cost of the technology.

There is a belief that while the cost may be discouraging for Africa's virtual reality content developers, there is an expectation that the price will drop with the continued innovation in VR hardware development technologies.

"When this happens, focus would be on how the global VR companies are able to deliver in the African market and competition would push them to be more aggressive thus improving the technology's adoption on the continent," said Dapo Olusegun, content creator and Oculus owner.

Experts say Africa could benefit extensively from the technology that allows the digital world to be overlaid on the physical world, even though the user is still in the physical world.

"Virtual reality is beginning to look like a solution that is getting ready for major adoption; yes it's still in its infancy if you consider what we could achieve with the technology, but for simple applications right now, it's already delivering. The application potentials are numerous and could be the most interesting tech to happen in 2016 and beyond, not just in developed countries but also in Nigeria and other African countries," said Olusegun Martins, Head of Digital at Insight Nigeria.

Recently Lagos-based Co-Creation Hub announced Imisi 3D, a community of virtual reality developers and enthusiasts.

In February, Samsung launched Gear VR 2016 in Kenya, and, a few months later, OEM company X-Tigi announced its intention to introduce its own virtual reality gadget in the East African market.

Andrew Kaggia, a Nairobi- based game developer and animator, believes that virtual reality could be a medium through which African stories can be told.

South Africa appears to be well ahead of other African countries in the virtual reality space, with an established virtual reality community in place, a hackathon for virtual reality and content companies, including Deep VR.

Virtual reality is the next platform

Research by SuperData revealed that mobile virtual reality will generate US$861 million in revenue.

Goldman Sachs predicted that by 2020 virtual reality would grow to US$110 billion, and Samsung has already seen a way to control how virtual reality software is downloaded since the Google Play store already has dozens of VR apps, and ensuring the continued growth of the library could be a profit generator for the company.