Virtual reality hit products are zero-hypothesis hype

What is the new trend of the Internet? The biggest sign is whether the giants are competing in this field. In the last week of 2015, the door of virtual reality (hereinafter referred to as "VR") officially welcomed Tencent and LeTV. In 2015, VR concepts, products, and capital exploded, but behind the glitz is still a mess. VR content, supply chain quality, and even the lack of an explosive product so far are bound to bring hidden dangers into the new year.

Zero hit products

Since Baofeng Technology launched the "Baofeng Magic Mirror" in the second half of 2014, the concept of VR has gradually become known to the industry. The last week of last year can be called "VR Week". Tencent unveiled the Tencent VR team in a high-profile manner and announced that it would launch VR products for ordinary users in the second half of 2015. At the same time, LeTV officially announced its own VR strategy. In addition, virtual reality company Ant Vision announced the completion of a 300 million yuan round B financing. The concept of VR is likely to take over from O2O and become the next hot spot in the Internet.

However, looking at both domestic and foreign markets, VR is still only capital-driven and has not entered the product-driven stage. Even in the most widely used audio and video and gaming fields, users cannot even find a VR product with significant sales volume—just like the successful products of Apple and Xiaomi in the smartphone field.

Looking around the world, VR investors and enthusiasts are also looking for and expecting blockbuster products in 2016, but their targets are still international giants such as Sony and Microsoft. Joe Kraus, an investment partner of Google Capital, has doubts. There is not enough convincing reason for people to wear VR helmets every day, which makes investors worried. It is too early to predict what will happen in the future.

Helmets are undoubtedly the most commonly used hardware implementation method in the current VR field, but apart from game enthusiasts, few people will buy one and take it home. The Rothenberg Ventures investment team has invested in more than 25 products in the VR field so far, which is more like a "wide-net" gamble.

Very little content

When it comes to VR, the more fatal part lies in the content it carries. After all, when you buy a helmet, you want to watch more audio and video content or play more games.

However, the reporter learned that most of the VR concepts are currently based on hardware, while videos and games, as important carriers for realizing VR, have not been raised to the same level. Although Baofeng Magic Mirror has launched a number of VR games, this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the 750 or so online games approved for publication by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television in 2014.

Although LeTV claims to have built China's largest VR content application platform and has released a dazzling list of partners, the current content of its VR content is just a list.

"We do have some high-quality content now, but in the short term it will take a long time for a huge industry to emerge, with millions of virtual reality helmets on the market," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed concerns about the VR industry.

In addition, there is currently no dedicated VR content area in mainstream mobile phone stores. Resources are not only scarce but also difficult to search. The channels for VR users to obtain content are not smooth, and the cost of obtaining content is very high.

Some people in foreign markets have already introduced VR into the fields of medical care, education, design, etc. Some even believe that compared to every household owning a VR device, VR may be more applicable in corporate and professional fields, such as medical and educational institutions.

Just as drones and other smart hardware are more feasible in the enterprise market, VR is also eager to try the enterprise market. However, for these entrepreneurs, it is often difficult to obtain valuations similar to Tencent and Alibaba even though they are "more than profitable". After all, the enterprise market does not have the demographic dividend like the mass market.

Products are not standardized

Compared with the relative shortage of VR content, the VR hardware market is currently booming. Baofeng Magic Mirror has been upgraded to the fourth generation, and at the end of November last year, Baofeng Magic Mirror all-in-one machine Mo One was launched. LeTV launched the mobile VR helmet LeVR COOL1 at the VR conference, which can be used with LeTV's 5.5-inch screen super phones Le 1 and Le 1 Pro.

Analysts bluntly stated that it is impossible to achieve standardization of hardware in the domestic VR industry in the short term. From the perspective of control methods alone, there is no unified industry standard for remote controls, handles, and somatosensory devices, and the situation is chaotic. In addition to control methods, there are also corresponding VR hardware for different operating systems such as Android, iOS, and Windows, and even for different mobile phones.

In addition, according to computer graphics chip manufacturer Nvidia, in 2016, only 13 million PCs in the world will have graphics cards that can fully support virtual reality products. According to research firm Gartner's estimate that the number of PCs in the world in 2016 will be about 1.43 billion, less than 1% of PCs in the world can support virtual reality helmets. "The fragmented hardware is not good for the already weak VR content. How to achieve content focus in the face of fragmented hardware and diverse peripherals is a problem," said an industry insider.

In addition to the problem of technical access, some common problems, such as dizziness caused by long-term wearing and not being suitable for everyone, have limited the mass production of VR helmets. Just like the public's adaptation process to 3D movies, the more realistic the VR scene, the more likely it is to cause sensory cognitive disorders in users. "People need to get used to switching between virtual and reality so as not to feel too dizzy."

Hypothetical concepts are becoming popular

"We have seen the trend of VR now, but we don't know if it is the future." Although Ma Huateng has made a clear statement on the industry and many domestic and foreign analysts have admitted that the demand for the VR concept will not be too strong in the short term, the capital market has gone crazy for it during the cold winter.

Wind index data shows that since last year, the virtual reality index has accumulated a 167.71% increase, and the cumulative increase in the last two months of last year was 58.12%. Hong Hao, managing director and chief strategist of Bocom International, recently pointed out to the media that "A-shares have begun to speculate on the concept of 'virtual reality'. These stocks have been called the following names before: Apple concept, smart wearable, holographic concept. After so many times of speculation, they are still deceiving themselves."

However, investors still have their own preferences for the VR concept. Some investors have said that they will only invest in software manufacturers because of the lack of excellent targets, and will not invest in hardware manufacturers. "The VR industry is still in its infancy, just like the era of mobile phones back then." Baofeng Mojing CEO Huang Xiaojie believes so, but he also believes that VR will be a much larger market than the Internet. In the words of Feng Xin, CEO of Baofeng Technology, "VR will be the center of the next generation of the Internet."

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.