On the road to "realizing the dream" of the metaverse, where is the interaction technology stuck?

Image source @ Visual China

Text | Praying Mantis Observation, author | Tu Lin

As a possible form of the next generation of the Internet, the heat set off by the metaverse is still continuing.

Recently, the VR company Beijing Qitian International Culture and Technology Development Group Co., Ltd., co-founded by Zhang Yimou and others, underwent industrial and commercial changes, adding Xiaomi affiliates Hanxing Venture Capital Co., Ltd. and Intel Asia Pacific R&D Co., Ltd. as shareholders, while the company's registered capital increased to about 75.7461 million yuan.

According to Bloomberg estimates, the global meta-universe market size will reach $800 billion in 3 years, which is 5 times the size of the global game market in 2020.

Considerable market prospects have already attracted a number of giants to enter the game, and meta-universe-related concept stocks have also ushered in a "crazy rise". But under the heat, we may also need some "cold" thinking: is the underlying support technology represented by interactive technology mature enough to undertake the arrival of the metaverse?

Interactive technology and metaversity, is "bound" is more "two-way rush"

According to the definition of "metaverse" given by IDC, an authoritative market research institute, "an open virtual world that is parallel to the real world and can provide immersive experiences such as games, shopping, social networking, and learning."

Leaving aside a long list of prefixes as adjectives, we can simply understand the metacosm as an "immersive virtual space" in which users can carry out the activities mentioned in the aforementioned definition.

Virtual space sounds cool, but to really land, it is still inseparable from the support of hardware carriers. Vr and AR in interactive technology, as important hardware carriers in the metaverse, have always been regarded as "a ladder to provide immersive virtual reality experiences for metaverse users".

Zhao Guodong, secretary general of the Zhongguancun Big Data Industry Alliance, clearly pointed out in the book "Meta-universe" that the meta-universe has five major characteristics: immersive experience, free creation, social network, economic system, and civilization form, and VR equipment is an important support tool to ensure immersive experience and let users feel that "others are around me".

Therefore, after the metaverse became popular, the first to "boil" up, in addition to related concept stocks, is the VR/AR industry.

On the one hand, some VR/AR-related technology companies at home and abroad have begun to frequently gain capital favor. In January this year, iQIYI VR received hundreds of millions of yuan in Series B financing. In May, VR technology service provider STEPVR received nearly 100 million yuan in financing. In July, Sweden's well-known VR game studio Retreat Games completed a $25 million Series C financing.

On the other hand, Internet giants interested in metaverses have also "started" VR/AR companies. ByteDance intends to invest more than 9 billion yuan to acquire Pico. Tencent, on the other hand, has a $28.7 billion valuation in the new round of financing, with a 40% stake. At the same time, it also invested in Roblox, which had a market value of more than $40 billion on the first day of listing, at a high price of $150 million.

Of course, from another point of view, the advance "exploration" of VR/AR has also increased confidence in the landing of the metaverse.

According to the "2021 China VR/AR Industry Research Report" of Yiou Think Tank, after 2016, which is known as the first year of the VR/AR industry, the entire industry has rapidly ushered in a trough period. It is only in recent years that the VR/AR industry has gradually begun to overcome the core shortcomings of the hardware and content ecology.

According to the data compiled by the Prospective Industry Research Institute, the global shipments of VR headset equipment from 2016 to 2019 did not exceed 4 million units, and the global shipment of VR headset equipment rose sharply in 2020, reaching 6.7 million units, an increase of 71.79% year-on-year, and it is expected that the annual shipment volume in 2021 will exceed 9.8 million units and exceed 40 million units by 2026.

It can be said that the gradual maturity of the VR/AR industry has laid the foundation for the "rapid fermentation" of the concept of metacosmity.

This is actually why there are not a few people who clamor that the metacosm is a pseudo-concept, but there is still capital willing to pay for the concept. Because we have seen the prototype of the metaverse through VR/AR technology, it is not a fantasy.

After all, as a newly emerging internet concept, the metaverse is too "fake and empty" for the vast majority of people. Interactive technologies such as VR/AR, which grew up before this concept, just dilute the "sense of nothingness" of this concept.

As for VR/AR technology, as we all know, its development after 2016 has been tired, and it is lacking emerging concepts such as "metaverse" to continue its next development.

Therefore, in the view of "Mantis Observation", the metacosm and interaction technology are not so much "bound to each other" as "two-way travel".

Let the metaverse "land", interactive technology still has a long way to go?

The importance of VR/AR technology to the metaverse determines that the metaverse is inseparable from the evolution of interactive technology from concept to landing. To some extent, this also determines the time period of the metaverse from "dreaming" to "realizing dreams".

So why is the commercialization of interaction technology in the metaverse often considered "obstructive and long"? In the view of "Mantis Observation", this is essentially due to the current development of the technology, which is difficult to support the "ambition" of the metacosm.

The concept of speculation is a matter of capital, and the realization of technology still has to be settled on the enterprises in the industry. From the earliest HTC to the later Huawei, Xiaomi, Microsoft, and Fantasy Technology, they are all relatively advanced enterprises in the industry, and the development difficulties they encounter also represent the dilemma faced by the entire industry to some extent.

Huawei and Xiaomi are the first big manufacturers in China to get involved in AR. In April 2016, Huawei released huawei VR that supports 2K resolution, 95° field of view, and 0-700 degrees myopia adjustable, with a starting price of 599 yuan. In the same year, Xiaomi's VR price of 199 yuan also officially debuted, but unlike HUAWEI VR, it is more like Google Cardboard's VR box, that is, toy VR.

It is worth noting that after the "ebb tide" of VR-related heat in 2016, the two major manufacturers have entered different development tracks.

Xiaomi chose to seek external cooperation. In 2018, the Xiaomi VR all-in-one machine created by Xiaomi and Oculus was put on sale at a price of 1499 yuan. This is actually Xiaomi's first product for core VR consumer groups.

Huawei insists on independent self-research. In November this year, Huawei officially released the 6DoF game set, which completed the hardware and functions of VR products such as 6DoF gamepads, visual modules, custom security zones, and PC VR assistants for its HUAWEI VR Glass released in 2019, which is to keep up with the rhythm of mainstream VR products on the market.

The path of Microsoft and Xiaomi is similar, and it also fits the characteristics of "external cooperation and high cost performance". In October 2016, Microsoft unveiled its own VR headset. It is understood that the helmet positioning technology came from HoloLens, and the manufacturing was handed over to six OEMs of Lenovo, HP, Acer, Asus, Dell and 3Glasses, which cost $299, far lower than the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, which were about $700 at the time.

However, extranet players have reported that although Microsoft VR headsets are cost-effective, they are far inferior to the more expensive Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

To some extent, this also shows that VR devices are still difficult to balance in terms of cost and experience.

Expensive VR equipment has a good experience, but it hinders the expansion of consumer groups; cost-effective VR devices cannot let consumers truly appreciate the fun of VR because of poor experience.

Phantom Technology is a more representative player in the field of AR in China. However, unlike the above-mentioned VR players who mainly focus on hardware equipment, the advantages of Fantasy Technology are more at the software application level, such as the FANCY AR ruler based on ARKit, the AR interaction of scanning product photos, the AR game called "Dead Lands" and so on.

However, although there has been a breakthrough in the professionalism of AR technology, its commercialization is currently mainly concentrated on the B-side, including providing AR customized services for well-known enterprises such as Alibaba, NetEase, Moutai and Huawei, etc. Only a small number of AR games have appeared on the C-side, and the demand market is relatively blank. This is also one of the important reasons why AR is difficult to meet the development needs of the metaverse at present.

In fact, some people in the industry have long pointed out that whether at the B-end or the C-end, there is a relatively large obstacle to the development of VR/AR, that is, how to simulate the five senses through a complete set of devices.

Take resolution, for example. Theoretically, VR will feel like it is in the real world after it reaches a resolution of 16K, that is, to get an "immersive experience". However, the highest resolution of VR devices on the market at present only supports 4K, and from the experience point of view, the sense of grain is heavier. It can be seen that the resolution of the aforementioned Huawei and Xiaomi VR devices only supports 2K.

Even if the resolution is improved, there is still a "clichéd" poor experience that needs to be solved. A friend who has had a VR device to watch movies told Mantis Observation that the sense of weightlessness after wearing the device is actually quite obvious, far less than what is seen in the movie "Ready Player One", just watching the movie, he already has a sense of vertigo, let alone like the protagonist in the movie, to complete various activities.

That is to say, from the concept to the landing of the technology to the commercialization of the B-end/C-end, the test faced by interactive technology is not only difficult, but also has a long cycle.

In the view of "Mantis Observation", as an important entrance to the metaverse, the commercialization of VR and AR devices is blocked, which will directly affect its popularity, and the realization of the metaverse may also be reduced to "empty talk".

This is actually why, although the entire VR/AR industry related software and hardware technology is maturing, capital still once lost "patience" with VR/AR-related enterprises.

According to the data of Tianyancha, there are more than 17,000 VR-related enterprises in China, and nearly 80% of related enterprises have been established within 5 years. Since 2016, the financing capacity and amount of VR/AR projects have declined year by year, with 77 cases in 2017 with an amount of 1.7 billion yuan; in 2018, it was 48 cases, with an amount of more than 1.7 billion yuan; in 2019, it was 38 cases, with an amount of 1.5 billion yuan; and in 2020, it was 18 cases with an amount of 1.1 billion yuan.

The dream of the metaverse is beautiful, but the slow commercialization process of interactive technology is also doomed to this "dream realization" journey will not be easy to go.

Resources:

1. "Interactive Virtual World of Six Supporting Technologies of the Metaverse" - Metacosm Chowder

2. "Metaverse "core" entrance - VR" - Metacosm insight

3. "Metaversmic Interactive Cornerstone - AR" - Metacosmonic Insights