President Xi and Mama Peng are also paying attention to VR. Will 2016 be the first year of the industry?

On the eve of the National Day holiday, President Xi and Mama Peng visited the headquarters of Microsoft in the United States and experienced the 3D "holographic glasses" HoloLens that made a stunning appearance at the Microsoft Win 10 launch conference.

With such a high-end exposure, virtual reality has once again become the focus of everyone's attention. Later, on the evening of October 6, Microsoft announced that the HoloLens developer version will be launched in the first quarter of next year, priced at $3,000. As a solution positioned in augmented reality, Oculus is always closely related to augmented reality.

As a recognized benchmark in the field of pure virtual reality, Oculus' every move has always attracted much attention from the industry. At the end of last month, Oculus and Samsung jointly released a new version of the Gear VR virtual reality headset, priced at $99.

It is reported that the domestic virtual reality market will see the release of a number of new products in the coming period.

Since it has returned to people's attention, the topic of virtual reality has never faded. The frequent appearances in recent times have once again increased the attention of the industry and the outside world. During the National Day holiday, a post on Zhihu about the first year of virtual reality caused heated discussions. In fact, many professionals at home and abroad have expressed their views on similar issues, and their views are not exactly the same.

Optimists: Within 5 years

In 2014, Facebook spent a huge amount of money to acquire Oculus. This milestone in the history of virtual reality development also triggered many people's bright prospects for the future of the industry.

According to a Japanese gaming website, in 2015, the new generation of virtual reality devices represented by Oculus effectively improved the user experience and greatly reduced the cost of use, bringing a whole new way of playing to game consoles, which can be regarded as the beginning of the virtual reality gaming era.

Also in 2015, Feng Xin, CEO of Baofeng Technology, repeatedly stressed that this was the first year of virtual reality in China. In an attempt to enter the mass market with a price of 99 yuan, Baofeng Magic Mirror once launched the slogan of "opening the first year of virtual reality in China", although the goal of "1 million daily active users" has not yet been seen.

From the perspective of capital, more and more venture capital companies have listed the virtual reality sector as a hot investment in 2015. It is reported that in the first half of the year alone, the financing amount of virtual reality companies has reached 248 million US dollars. Silicon Valley venture capital company "Rothenberg Ventures" announced that it will invest 10 million US dollars in virtual reality related start-ups in the next 14 months.

The entry of capital can be regarded as the preheating of the industry, and the formation of market scale still needs to rely on the final popularization of consumer products. Oculus, Sony and HTC, three heavyweight companies, will launch consumer virtual reality helmets at the beginning of next year. This may greatly increase the popularity of equipment, so some people regard 2016 as the "first year of virtual reality."

According to market research firm Juniper Research, virtual reality will experience huge market growth in 2016, with device sales reaching 3 million units. By 2020, hardware vendors will sell 30 million virtual reality devices, generating more than $4 billion in sales.

Wang Ran, CEO of China Renaissance Capital, also said with certainty that 2016 will be the first year of the virtual reality industry. Whether it is glasses, filming equipment, platforms or content, many companies are actively planning and have achieved some results. In the next five to ten years, virtual reality will be able to subvert the global entertainment industry like Uber subverted the global taxi industry. In addition, he also pointed out that this time China will keep pace with the world.

Pessimists: It will be hard to achieve success within 5 years

Unlike the optimists, the pessimists believe that virtual reality will be in the observation and preparation stage within five years, and it will be difficult for virtual reality to become mainstream and be accepted by the public before 2020 or even longer.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg once said: Oculus is the bet for the next generation of computing platforms in the next 5-10 years. In other words, virtual reality is unlikely to reach an explosive level at least within 5 years; as for filling in the gaps in UI to become the next generation of computing platforms, this trend may become clearer after 10 years.

Similarly, the founder of Oculus does not agree with the optimistic analysis. He believes that virtual reality still needs a long time to develop and will not be popular before 2020. Zuckerberg's judgment is more based on macro-level analysis, while the expectations of the founder of Oculus are more inclined to start from the details of technical implementation. There is no doubt that virtual reality still has many problems to be solved, such as motion sickness, computing performance, screen display technology and price.

Players who are experiencing current content also have reservations about virtual reality technology.

As one of the earliest VR game experiencers, Jeff Atwood, founder of Tack Overflow, once said in an article that he would not recommend VR games to other players at present because it is still far from a revolutionary experience. He described the scene he saw in an almost sarcastic and disappointed tone: the color was offset, the picture was three-dimensional, like a fisheye, and it was not at all like what was hyped in many articles.

A senior netizen in the domestic virtual reality industry has a similar view to Jeff Atwood. He believes that a complete VR system not only requires an immersive viewing method that is different from a two-dimensional screen, but also requires an interactive method that allows people to immerse themselves in it, as well as digital content that matches it. The current interactive methods are not natural enough, and there is no team that can provide a full range of solutions. It is hard to say whether this virtual display craze will repeat the ending of the 1990s.

In 2015, the investment of capital, the opening of links, the progress of equipment and the release of content in the virtual reality industry are obvious to all; however, at the same time, many problems such as low device penetration rate, lack of high-quality content, unclear image quality, and dizziness do exist. Which year will be the real first year of virtual reality? It may not be the essence of the problem to be obsessed with a specific number.

The answer of Fireworks Workshop CEO Lou Chi is even more clever: the year when the retail version of Oculus is sold will be the first year! Yes, the virtual reality industry still needs some opportunities, and these opportunities may also come from other industries.

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.