When the sci-fi novel avalanche was published in 1992, author Neil Stephenson would never have thought that his term “metaverse” would shine in 19 years.
Roblox went public in March 2021 and quickly became a company with a market value of US $40 billion. The concept of “meta universe” suddenly caught fire all over the world. Since then, the industry has seen that Facebook has entered the meta universe on a large scale, and even renamed the company “meta”. See byte jump acquire Pico and Tencent negotiate to buy game phone manufacturer Black Shark technology. On January 18, 2022, Microsoft offered the largest acquisition in history and spent US $68.7 billion on Activision Blizzard, a famous game developer. Metauniverse was mentioned eight times in the meeting related to the acquisition.
At present, the “fire” of the yuan universe is becoming more and more popular, which has swept many industries and fields.
The reporter of China business daily noted that with the popularity of the concept of meta universe around the world, XR (extended reality) industry, as an important “entrance” of meta universe, has ushered in development opportunities. According to the Research Report of the third-party organization counterpoint, it is expected that by 2025, the shipment of XR headset equipment is expected to exceed 100 million units, an increase of nearly 10 times over 2021. It should be noted that XR means extended reality, which is the general name of various subdivided industries including VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), Mr (hybrid reality) in the industry. In the report of counterpoint, compared with VR all-in-one machines and other AR / VR devices connected to computers or game consoles, VR all-in-one machines are the mainstream choice in the XR headset market at present. It is expected that the shipment volume will exceed 40 million units in 2025.
When interviewed by reporters, many XR practitioners and third-party experts generally believed that the XR industry is one of the infrastructure and important entrances of the meta universe. In addition to the game field, XR equipment is increasingly penetrating into e-commerce, cultural tourism, industrial manufacturing, advertising and marketing, remote office, education and training, medical health, military security and other industries, While realizing commercial applications and increasing market demand, the scene, depth and breadth of applications are further enriched and expanded.
capital boom: the “entrance” of the meta universe
Feng Zheng, vice president of Shunwei capital, pointed out in the article “Research on Yuan universe Wanzi industry” that the concept of Yuan universe can condense the direction and entrepreneurs of relevant tracks to the greatest extent. In essence, metauniverse is an innovative opportunity for virtualization of the physical world after the maturity of engine, AI (Artificial Intelligence), audio and video, 5g, chip and XR. At present, the entry direction of powerful players such as meta, Microsoft, apple and snapchat is VR / AR, which is the hardware entrance of the virtual world. However, the current technology is not mature enough and still needs huge investment and longer time.
As we all know, meta acquired oculus, a VR equipment manufacturer, as early as 2014. Although the official has not disclosed the shipment number of oculus equipment so far, several third-party data show that oculus Quest series is the best-selling VR head display equipment at present. Referring to meta’s financial report for the third quarter of 2021, our reporter noted that the revenue of consumer hardware products, including oculus VR head display equipment, was classified as “other revenue”, accounting for only 2% of meta’s total revenue, but achieved a significant increase of 195% year-on-year.
Tu Chuanqi, senior marketing manager of Nanchang Virtual Reality Research Institute, told our reporter that the great popularity of yuanuniverse makes VR and AR known to more people, which is a good thing for industrial development and integration, and many start-ups can also be seen by investors.
According to the data provided by enterprise investigation, in 2021, there were about 103 investment and financing events publicly disclosed by China’s VR / AR track, with a financing scale of more than 24.5 billion yuan, compared with 86 and 71 investment and financing events in 2019 and 2020, with a financing amount of 31.131 billion yuan and 15.537 billion yuan respectively. It is not difficult to see that the investment and financing of VR / AR track in the primary market has experienced a decline in 2020. Driven by the yuan universe fever in 2021, it has resumed the double growth of financing quantity and scale.
In early September 2021, when Pico was acquired, an executive of DPVR, a pico competitor, disclosed to our reporter that many investment institutions and giants came to contact us. At the beginning of 2022, Tencent was reported to be preparing to acquire Black Shark technology. After the acquisition, black shark may turn its business focus to VR / AR technology and provide VR hardware equipment. At present, this transaction is still in the negotiation stage and has not been finalized.
Shen Jin, managing director of Qualcomm Venture Capital China, also publicly said not long ago that metauniverse is one of the hottest concepts in the recent science and technology circle, and XR industry has ushered in new development opportunities. Qualcomm venture capital has always been very concerned about the XR field, and its R & D investment and strategic investment in XR can be traced back to 89 years ago.
He Wancheng, senior researcher of VR gyro Research Institute, pointed out to our reporter that the impact of yuancosmic fever on XR industry has several aspects: first, the attention has been improved, second, it has driven the upsurge of investment and financing, and third, from the perspective of consumer market, there has been no particularly significant growth. Generally speaking, the transformation from attention to purchasing power is expected to lag for about half a year. In short, it plays a positive role on the whole.
Shi Chao, vice president of Tianjin virtual reality and Augmented Reality Technology Application Association, said that in 2021, while the hardware products of XR industry maintained iterative upgrading, the content ecology was constantly enriched, and the major capital was actively arranged. XR is not only the infrastructure of metauniverse, but also an important entrance.
At the same time, many respondents have further suggested that the concept of the yuan universe is still in its early stage. Although it includes many subdivision tracks and touches on all walks of life, growth is bound to be accompanied by a “bubble”. We should take a prudent and rational view of the development prospects of the Yuan universe. XR technology is still immature, and AR is more difficult than VR in terms of hardware core components and content ecology. In recent years, Apple’s highly anticipated ar products have continued to “skip tickets” and have never been put on the market, which shows the difficulty of AR innovation.
scene break: Battlefield outside the game
“If users are just immersed in VR games, it is only the next Xbox, PlayStation and switch, and can not shoulder the important task of ‘hardware entrance’, just like the migration of smartphones from games to work and life in those years.” Feng Zheng wrote in the article “Research on the industry of ten thousand words in the yuan universe”. In his opinion, the most important direction VR needs to cross now is non game content.
Shi Chao told our reporter that in recent years, XR products have emerged many landing cases in application scenarios such as medical and health, real estate and home decoration, e-commerce, industrial production, advertising and marketing, military security, cultural tourism, exhibition, education and training.
A person in charge of an XR start-up company gave an example to the reporter. In the fields of k12 education and vocational education, XR has a very large application space. XR technology can vividly express abstract concepts, conduct virtual simulation training for high-value equipment that is difficult to operate, or provide remote assistance in combination with 5g, AI and other new technologies.
In high-risk operation industries, such as power grid and other fields, the application of vr virtual simulation technology to learn the operation of large equipment is safe and can improve efficiency. In the field of vehicle mounted, Weilai, Nolo and nreal jointly made vehicle mounted VR head display and AR glasses. In the medical field, the use of AR and VR technology plays a very important role in preoperative planning, remote assistance, first aid safety teaching and so on. In terms of culture and tourism, it has promoted more diversified artistic creation and immersive visual experience, indirectly boosting the development of culture and tourism industry.
Many insiders are optimistic about the development of XR industry in 2022 and even in the next few years. Although it still faces technical and market challenges, XR industry will usher in new development opportunities.
Tu Chuanqi pointed out that some breakthroughs have been made in the key technologies at the bottom of the XR industry, such as eye tracking, gesture recognition, liquid crystal zoom lens, array optical waveguide and a series of new technologies, which have improved the display and interactive experience, and thus promoted the cost reduction and performance improvement of terminal products. In terms of head display hardware, VR head display is becoming more and more lightweight, concise and civilian. The “braided” VR all-in-one machine is removed. It can be played with it, the price is more close to the people, and good applications are gradually increasing, which stimulate the growth of users. From the perspective of application, there is a tendency to apply to C for customized applications in industries such as education, culture and tourism and Party construction, which is not only reflected in the entertainment game sector. With the growth of C-end users, the ecology of the whole industry is forming a virtuous circle, and application developers also have more motivation to do high-quality content, More “innovative applications” and “unicorn” enterprises will be born in the next three to five years.
The reporter noted that the first “climax” of the development of XR industry originated from Facebook’s acquisition of oculus in 2014. Then, from 2015 to 2016, there was a VR / AR entrepreneurship boom in China’s foreign markets. For a time, various head display devices flooded the market. However, because marketing gimmicks were far greater than user experience, the “virtual fire” of VR / AR burst before long, and a large number of “players” retreated, leaving few left. In 2021, the concept of meta universe is popular all over the world, injecting new kinetic energy into the development of XR industry and providing a clearer “grasp”. Compared with five or six years ago, XR has begun to penetrate into all walks of life. Both giants and entrepreneurs are setting off a card battle, hoping for a real outbreak of XR industry.
