Per reporter: Zhu Peng Per editor: Dong Xingsheng
The year 2021 that just passed is called the first year of the meta-universe. When the future is over-conceived and discussed, what is the path to the "future"?
The answer may be a VR device.
With the concept of metaversity hot, VR has become a financing hotspot in 2021. According to relevant statistics, as of November 2021, VR and AR-related financing reached more than 54 billion yuan, more than double the 23 billion yuan in 2020.
According to IDC, China's VR headset shipments will exceed 10.5 million units in 2023. Previously, Zuckerberg had said that 10 million users were the key threshold for achieving "explosive growth in content and ecosystems."
In 2023, China's VR headset shipments will exceed 10.5 million units
With the development of artificial intelligence, algorithms and other technologies, the virtual reality industry is ushering in new opportunities. Previously, market demand was mostly concentrated in the enterprise-side market, but the demand in the consumer market in the past two years is being stimulated.
Take Facebook's VR device Oculus Quest2, for example, according to third-party data, the total sales of the series during Christmas 2021 exceeded 10 million units.
China is also connecting the trend of the international VR field. According to IDC, China's VR headset shipments will exceed 10.5 million units in 2023. Vr hardware equipment has a wide range of application scenarios, such as film and television, games, social networking, travel, education, industrial production, agricultural production, scientific research, etc. "In the words of the Internet, all industries can be repeated." Recently, Huang Feng, chairman and CEO of Play Dream Group, said at the Shanghai press conference of the VR all-in-one YVR-DK1 developer version.
Huang Feng Image source: Play Out Dream Group Courtesy of Picture
Huang Feng believes that VR can allow many people to experience scenarios and consumption services that are beyond the actual ability to pay. "It costs more than a million yuan to climb Mount Everest, tens of millions to go to the moon, and it is more expensive to go to Mars." There are a billion people in China who have not yet flown on a plane, 600 million people who have not drunk coffee, and as for going to the moon, there are not many people who have the ability to do so. How can people now, including children, experience what it's like to be in space, and what it's like to go into a black hole in Interstellar? VR can let you see what you haven't seen, what you haven't achieved, what you haven't done, and I think such a product has a very grand application scenario. ”
Frank, chief scientist of YVR, said that the company's products are still in the catch-up stage in general in terms of technology. "For a giant like Facebook, all VR companies are in a state of catch-up. They can do five projects on new display technologies at the same time, maybe only one at the end and throw away the remaining four, and they have the resources to do such a thing. This is where we still have a gap, but we can catch up. ”
Meta-universe opens VR "new year"
In 2016, Microsoft launched Hololens and Windows MR, Sony launched PSVR, and VR quickly entered the public eye, this year is also known as VR First Year. But since then, the industry has not ushered in rapid development, on the contrary, the concept of heat declined, and the enterprises that entered the game suffered a cold winter test.
However, Huang Feng believes that VR has now passed the so-called cold winter period. "I think it's not a cold winter, it depends on whether the user's DAU time is growing." In fact, the current VR user time has been growing, technology is constantly breaking through, and the user base is also expanding, but we think it has not met expectations. ”
Player Experience Product Image Source: Play Out Dream Group Courtesy of Image
The policy is also positive. The notice of the "Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Cultivation of New Consumption" issued by the Ministry of Commerce mentions that "accelerate the application of new technologies and new equipment, accelerate the development of new information products such as ultra-high-definition video and virtual reality, and promote the integration and application of 5G+4K/8K and VR/AR technology products." ”
With the concept of meta-universes on fire, VR has also become a hot spot for financing in 2021. According to relevant statistics, as of November 2021, VR and AR-related financing reached more than 54 billion yuan, more than double the 23 billion yuan in 2020.
Technology gives capital imagination, but bubbles are inevitable.
Gong Yan, a professor at China Europe International Business School, believes that when a new concept is at a historic outbreak node, it often causes a serious bubble in the entire industry, which is the classic irrational prosperity, such as the bubble period of the early Internet industry in the 1990s. "So like the metaverse, you can imagine that when you get to a certain point, the industry will definitely face a period of disillusionment, and in this period of disillusionment, it will be difficult for most participants to survive the winter."
"VR itself has actually gone through such a stage. When we look back at the global VR project in 2016, it is full of bubbles, and then you can see that the past few years have been a cold winter, and now the entire VR industry is slowly moving towards a return to value. Gong Yan said.
The development of VR is inseparable from the conception of the metaverse, how rich the scene space of the virtual world is, and how many exploration possibilities and directions the VR industry has. In an age when concepts are all over the world, it is equally necessary to think about why concepts appear. Gong Yan believes that each concept corresponds to the times, and the concepts do not exist separately from the background of the times.
"In the classical laws of economics, there is a rule called diminishing marginal effects. In the material world, you drink the first bottle of water very happy, drink the second bottle is general, and when you drink the third bottle, the marginal effect is negative. This is the limitation of physical consumption. But when we enter a world where the material and virtual worlds are superimposed and mirrored to each other, we will find that some of the underlying economic laws in the original material world may be reconstructed. "In the metaverse, an ordinary consumer can easily consume thousands of pairs of shoes because there is no cost of maintenance and follow-up maintenance." ”
The year 2021 that has just passed is the first year of the meta-universe, and it seems that the "new first year" of VR is being opened. "We believe that with the advent of the metaverse era, VR will definitely become a trend in the development of the industry. At this stage, no company can completely eat the meta-universe, so the various sectors of the group will cooperate. Huang Feng said.
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