Per reporter: Bi Yuanyuan Per editor: Dong Xingsheng
Against the backdrop of the metacosmonics, tech companies are getting important tickets.
According to the "White Paper on the Development of virtual reality industry (2021)" released by CCID Research Institute, from January to September 2021, the investment and financing amount of the global AR/VR industry reached 40.709 billion yuan, which has exceeded the total amount of investment and financing in 2020 (24.4 billion yuan).
What difficulties will virtual reality face before the consumer market really explodes? Can VR products surpass mobile phones? Recently, at the 2022 Technology for Good Innovation Week Virtual Reality Forum organized by Tencent Research Institute, Zhang Zhuopeng, CEO of Light Particle Technology, Peng Huajun, CEO of Nader Optics, Zhang Daoning, CEO of NOLO VR, and Ye Cong, Deputy Product Director and Expert Engineer of Tencent Multimedia Lab, gathered together to discuss.
In 2024, the share of virtual reality will reach 240 billion yuan, and the price of "close to the people" is the key
In March 2021, online gaming platform Roblox announced the creation of a meta-universe, igniting the first fire of the industry's imagination.
The fire quickly burned all over the world, and the giants announced one after another into the meta-universe. The first to get tickets are technology companies; it is the consumer market that tests the development prospects of the industry.
At the end of 2021, Qualcomm CEO said that Q2 sales have reached 10 million units. The industry generally believes that 10 million users is the tipping point, after which the content and ecology will achieve leapfrog development. Looking at China, mobile phone manufacturer OPPO also officially launched a new generation of smart glasses Air Glass at the end of 2021. Liu Chang, president of OPPO Research Institute, said that in the future, smart glasses will become the most important "third screen" in personal life after mobile phones and watches.
Image source: Video screenshot
Before the consumer market takes an important step, the capital market moves against the wind. According to the "White Paper on the Development of virtual reality industry (2021)" released by CCID Research Institute, from January to September 2021, the amount of investment and financing in the global AR/VR industry reached 40.709 billion yuan, which has exceeded the total amount of investment and financing in 2020 (24.4 billion yuan); from the perspective of the number of investment and financing events, from January to September 2021, there were 248 financing and merger cases in the global VR/AR industry. Among them, the number of foreign investment and financing mergers and acquisitions occurred 158, and the number of domestic investment and financing mergers and acquisitions occurred 90, both of which increased significantly compared with 2020.
Zhang Zhuopeng believes that major Internet giants are stepping into the new AR/VR consumer market from past consumer goods giants. In the past, when people mentioned VR, you can imagine a person wearing a helmet and wandering through the virtual game world through vision. It's just that in the eyes of outsiders, the helmet is more bulky.
Through continuous upgrading, helmets have gradually evolved into lightweight glasses, which are more popular with consumers. There are market reasons behind this, and there are also technological boosts. "The first is optical waveguide technology, the second is miniature optical machine technology, and the third is spatial interaction technology involving algorithms and software."
Zhang Zhuopeng predicted that the track of smart glasses will become lively in 2022, and the products launched by both Internet giants and consumer electronics giants will become "close to the people". In the next two years, it will also experience the amplification period of AI, and the application field will combine different contents of the metaverse. "I expect that in the next two years, the consumer market will change more and more, and it will become bigger and bigger." Zhang Zhuopeng said.
Data agencies are also optimistic about the development of the virtual reality industry. According to the data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the average annual growth rate of the global virtual reality industry is expected to be about 54% in the five years from 2020 to 2024, of which VR will grow by about 45% and AR will grow by about 66%, and the share of the two will be about 240 billion yuan in 2024.
In the 3.0 era, can VR surpass smartphones?
The development of hardware is closely related to the future of virtual reality and even the metaverse, so after the smartphone, can virtual reality achieve a new transcendence?
Zhang Daoning believes that the virtual reality era is different from the past PC and mobile phone era, from content, interaction to headset, more vertical than mobile phones and computers.
Industry insiders believe that virtual reality will go through three stages in China. The first is 2015 ~ 2018, to large and heavy helmets, and wired connection, the need to plug in the power supply, interactive forms need a large controller, the price is generally in 8000 ~ 12000 yuan; the second stage is 2019 ~ 2021, VR all-in-one machine appears, is still a bulky helmet, but the advantage is that there is no need to plug in the use, while the controller is still very large, the price dropped to 1999 ~ 3500 yuan, the global annual shipment of more than 10 million units, completed the milestone growth of the 1.0 era.
For the virtual reality 3.0 era, Zhang Daoning predicted that the headset will become smaller, and there will be a general appearance of glasses-style, light, wireless, and low-power, very convenient VR products in the future, and the controller and the headset will achieve true integration. After the start, the mainstream price can be controlled between 999 and 1999 yuan, which is also the price range of the real outbreak of smart phones.
After becoming lightweight, what are the possibilities of VR? Zhang Daoning said that in the future, there will be full-body motion capture, whether it is a social application, or square dancing, fitness, tai chi, the future of VR can achieve a variety of interactive methods. "The future VR interaction controller should be hands-free, not affect you to take things, can not affect you to take off the headset."
In 2021, entrepreneur Ma Huateng proposed the "True Internet", which is also considered to be similar to the concept of "metaverse". Now the door to the virtual world and the real world has opened, he said. Whether it is from virtual to real, or from real to virtual, we are committed to helping users achieve a more realistic experience, and a new reshuffle is about to begin.
"In the next stage, a whole new dimension will emerge in the era of global connectivity, namely the virtual world. In this era, all real-world information, people, things and virtual times can be more seamlessly connected and transmitted. Ye Cong said that this is where the very important changes in the Quanzhen era lie.
The current Business Model of the Internet has been emphasizing fragmented time, and Zhou Peng believes that the fundamental reason is that the screen size is too limited. "Preempting fragmented time is essentially limited by technology, AR or VR actually expands the screen infinitely, and from the perspective of business model, we think it is the next era."
But whether virtual reality products can completely surpass smartphones, Zhang Zhuopeng gave objections. He conservatively believes that VR will be an important entrance to the next generation of the Internet, but it will not be a decisive entrance. "The next generation of the Internet, I think is still dominated by mobile phones, the possibility of surpassing mobile phones is unlikely, and the possibility of replacing mobile phones is even smaller." VR is definitely an increment, tens of millions or even over 100 million is possible. ”
In addition to the satisfaction of hearing and vision, some companies in the industry began to experiment with technological coverage of taste, touch and smell. "The ultimate form should be that the five senses of human beings can be satisfied by technology, and then provide different information through different scenes, truly pass it on to us, so that we can achieve a truly immersive experience." Ye Cong said.
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