Zhi DongXi (public number: zhidxcom)
Author | Xu Shan
Edit | Yunpeng
The Oculus Quest VR headset app "slaughtered" during The 2021 U.S. Christmas!
On December 25, the Oculus App topped the free download list of Apple's App Store and Google Play Store in the United States, beating out social software such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
▲Oculus topped the Apple App Store list in the United States
The Oculus app is a must-have for the Oculus Quest series of VR headsets owned by Meta (formerly Facebook), which also illustrates the surge in new users of the Oculus Quest series during the Christmas season.
According to the US technology media Road to VR, Oculus Quest 2 accounts for 39.62% of the VR devices connected to Steam, far exceeding Index's 15.79% and HTC Vive's 8.26%. From these data, we can see that at least in the US consumer VR headset, the status of Oculus Quest 2 can not be shaken for the time being.
How does Meta engage new users in vr experiences? Is the consumer-grade VR headset starting to "break the circle"? Before and after the Oculus App reached the top, what are the new actions of Meta? In the process of investigating the phenomenon in depth, I tried to find the answer to the question.
First, the more miserable the scolding, the happier the purchase, Oculus Quest 2 into the hottest Christmas gift?
According to statistics from the foreign data agency Sensor Tower, since December 22, the download volume of Oculus App in the Us apple App Store free download list has begun to maintain an upward trend, peaking on December 25 and getting the first place. Subsequently, the Oculus App's ranking began to fall.
From December 20 to January 5, Oculus ranked in the Apple App Store (top) and Google App Store (bottom) Source: Sensor Tower
Justin Patterson, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, a market research firm, also revealed that around Christmas Eve, Oculus was one of the top five entertainment apps in five countries and one of the top ten apps in the United States.
In addition to research institutions, some game developers have also begun to "celebrate the New Year" on social media, and have posted data on their own works to confirm this.
VR social platform Rec Room announced that more than 1 million VR players logged into its platform in 60 hours during the Christmas period.
Lemming VR, the developer of the VR game Gorilla Tag, also said that the number of players surged during the Christmas season, with 344,000 users logging into the software during the Christmas period, compared with a maximum of 26,000 before, achieving nearly 15 times the user growth.
Other types of manufacturers such as the VR sports game "Golf+" and the VR simulator application "Hand Physics Lab" also posted their own data sheets and joined the team of "holidays".
▲Children play "Golf+" with Oculus Quest 2
From the information of many sources, the VR headset Oculus Quest 2 has indeed gained a lot of new users at Christmas. But what's more interesting is that on December 20, when Yahoo Finance selected global companies, Meta also won the title of "Worst Company of the Year" and received a whopping 8% of the "Worst" vote.
From this point of view, scolding, but into the "metaverse", users may still choose Oculus Quest 2 and throw themselves into the arms of Meta.
Second, to the top of the Apple, Google double list, Oculus did what right?
Since Qualcomm CEO Ammon said that the shipment of Oculus Quest 2 may have reached 10 million units, the Quest series seems to have been on the road of "breaking the circle".
For example, this time Oculus App won the first place in the double list of Apple and Google, which seems to be an unexpected "climbing", but its rise is the result of Meta's dense layout from three points of content services, hardware facilities and marketing strategies.
Oculus has a rich VR content library, in terms of games, there are "Beat Saber", "Resident Evil 4 VR", "Star Wars" series, etc., many foreign netizens are discussing the feeling of playing "Beat Saber" for the first time on their social software, fun, fresh, happy has become one of the more common words.
▲ VR game "Beat Saber"
In addition to some online games, Meta has created the official VR application test platform App Lab, which allows developers to develop some interesting mini-games on their own.
Users can not only experience the fun of VR games themselves, but also share the wonderful clips they feel in the VR world to their social platforms.
For example, Oculus users can capture VR game scenes that users are experiencing through the Oculus App and the MR cameras of Apple devices.
▲ Users record VR content through iPad
Eliminating the complex shooting steps and high requirements for device hardware, Oculus and Apple have provided a new path for VR social networking, enhanced the user's social stickiness, and also played the user's creativity.
These are just a few of the recent updates to the Oculus system v35, in addition to the addition of Messenger calling, cloud backup and other features. The monthly system update speed also makes users feel the sincerity of Meta.
In terms of hardware facilities, although the Oculus Quest 2 has been released for nearly a year, the Snapdragon XR2 processor, 128G of large memory and the price of $299 make it still competitive.
As a technology company that started as a social platform, Meta also made enough publicity for the arrival of Christmas this time. Meta not only arranged the Quest Day pop-up event, but also launched the "Invitation courtesy" campaign.
Meta's Quest Day event
At the same time, on the official website of Oculus, all kinds of tutorials are readily available, how to play, what to play, how, Meta has been arranged for you, these contents have greatly reduced the user's use threshold.
In addition, we also noticed that while many VR manufacturers are still affected by the "lack of cores", Meta still ensures that Oculus Quest 2 has been in a "stock" state, which also reveals Meta's strong supply chain management capabilities.
Such a large investment has also made Meta a huge return. Many foreign media have mentioned in the report that "now, everywhere you can see the happy pictures of children after receiving Oculus Quest 2 at Christmas." ”
On social platforms, we can see that whether you want to send friends, children, or parents, Oculus Quest 2 has become one of the popular gifts. The "out of the circle" of Oculus this Christmas has also made the range of people using VR headsets begin to move towards full coverage.
Even, under this boom, some users who had previously had a general impression of Oculus Quest 2 also picked up the Oculus Quest 2 hidden in the corner and began to re-explore the VR world.
Third, want to do a killer app? The Oculus Quest 2 was on fire
Because vr headset manufacturers almost do not disclose the shipment of their own products, but most VR users will download games through the Steam platform. As one of the largest VR game platforms, the Steam platform has reference value in comparing the VR headset data connected to it.
Since February 2021, when Steam first added the Oculus Quest 2 category to its statistics, Oculus Quest 2 has maintained a strong rally every month, except for a decline in August.
In December 2021, Oculus Quest 2's share rose from 36.32% to 39.62%, another record high. Other devices, such as Pico and HTC, have hardly changed much.
▲ December 2021 List of VR devices connected to Steam
Will the Oculus Quest 2, which created the U.S. Christmas VR boom, become a "killer" hardware like the iPhone? Is the consumer VR headset on the eve of the outbreak?
Guo Cheng, president of domestic VR technology research and development and hardware equipment service provider STEPVR, said in an interview with Zhidong: "The iPhone is a computing terminal based on the mobile phone, but the VR headset itself does not have a just need, and whether it can become a user's just needed product in the future depends on the user's frequency of use." ”
He mentioned that for the consumer VR market, how many times users use Oculus Quest 2 in the second and third quarters of 2021 may be more important than the number of surges in users in a certain period.
A related industry person also said that at present, Oculus Quest 2 is in a monopoly position in the US market and even the global market, except for some manufacturers in the domestic market began to increase the consumer VR headset track, Oculus Quest 2 has almost no opponents. "In terms of cost performance, hardware facilities, and content ecology, Oculus Quest 2 has an advantage."
But he also said that on the other hand, the phenomenon also reveals that the current VR market development is not yet unbalanced, China and the United States are developing faster, but on the whole, VR headsets have not yet formed a global outbreak trend.
Moreover, he also said that the current advantages of Oculus Quest 2 are not irreplaceable, and with the participation of different players, Oculus Quest 2 may soon be replaced.
At present, whether It is Sony announcing that it will issue a new PS VR, or Apple entering the VR headset market, more and more players are involved in it, and perhaps a new situation will be formed.
Conclusion: Harvest the Christmas battlefield, Meta as the biggest winner
Meta's VR headset, Oculus Quest 2, "rode" the Christmas trend and expanded its audience. Oculus's rise to the top of the list also means that today's VR equipment demand is in a stage of rapid growth.
Although Oculus Quest 2 opened up some new users at Christmas, from the overall consumer VR headset market, VR headsets are far from the time to explode.
It is worth noting that in the era of social media, Meta software family buckets have almost always harvested a lot of traffic. After Oculus topped the list, it further strengthened Meta's control over social networks, and even began to lay the foundation for the next generation of Internet social networks.
On the other hand, the knack for the success of Oculus Quest 2 is not untraceable, and the rich content ecology, constantly updated system services, cost-effective hardware facilities and effective publicity strategies have become one of the important factors in its Christmas blockbuster.
Successful cases have been placed in front of our eyes, the domestic Spring Festival is also coming, whether the domestic VR market can reproduce successful cases in China, which manufacturers can be the domestic "game-breaker", we will continue to pay attention to.