Cover News reporter Xu Hai
In March 2020, the game company V society released the world's first VR native 3A masterpiece ("3A masterpiece" game field description, refers to the high cost, high volume, high quality works), this polished 4 years of products once listed, will be countless praise.
In the know, there is no shortage of "don't ask, it's in the history of VR games", "Alyx is far away from the vr games I've experienced," "as long as there is enough indoor space, you can buy a VR game for it, and it's even worth it. Even worth buying a set of VR equipment for it", "This is a game from the future" and other highly praised comments. Even because of this game, many VR headset devices around the world are in a state of shortage.
Figure 1: Half-Life VR gameplay
However, behind the Half-Life fire is the VR industry, which has been silent for a long time.
Explosion period: the bubble burst VR capital return to rationality
From obscurity to the full swing and then gradually tend to cold, the development trajectory of the Storm Magic Mirror is a good reflection of the development of the VR industry in the first few years of the vein.
In September 2014, as a pioneer in China's VR industry, Storm Video held a conference in Beijing "two hours away from the Earth", "Storm Magic Mirror" generation was born, the entry price of 99 yuan, so that many users rush, have to buy experience. The first generation of "Storm Magic Mirror" was born. Subsequently, two years, storm magic mirror 2 generation, 3 generation, 4 generation came out one after another, sales and user volume rose year by year, storm magic mirror therefore has got two financing, in January 2016, the second round of financing amount even reached 230 million, the valuation of a time to reach 1.43 billion.
But in October 2016, the form of a sharp turnaround, storm magic mirror into layoffs, storm magic mirror CEO Huang Xiaojie released an article entitled "to all concerned about the storm magic mirror friends", in response to all the rumors publicly, Huang Xiaojie in the article indirectly admitted the fact of layoffs, from the peak of the scale of the 500 people down to 300 people, and at the same time in the article Huang Xiaojie is also optimistic about the future development of VR. VR's future development made an optimistic prediction: "I think it is now the eve of the VR outbreak, the development of VR in 2017 will definitely exceed everyone's expectations."
However, in 2017, the VR industry did not develop according to Huang Xiaojie's predictions, but instead suffered an industrial winter, capital gradually calm, according to the technology think tank "A Zi Guangnian" statistics, from 2014 to the first half of 2019, the VR / AR industry investment in 2016 reached a peak of 29.9 billion yuan, and in 2017 it shrunk to 10.9 billion yuan. In 2017, it shrunk to 10.977 billion yuan, the industry investment shrinkage 2/3.
To date, when the reporter again in the application market to download the "storm magic mirror VR" APP, but after the start of the direct flashback, and in the comment area, the screen is full of "can not open "The first step is to make sure that you have a good idea of what you're getting into.
Figure 2:2014-2019 first half of China's VR/AR investment amount and number
Cold period: the wind mouth faded VR practitioners to pragmatic
"Storm Magic Mirror "The star of the curtain did not let the VR industry hit rock bottom, October 4 of the same year, Google in its annual launch of the Daydream View helmet, somatosensory handle and Daydream ready Pixel phone; October 7, Facebook held the Oculus Developer Conference announced that it would launch a mobile all-in-one and invest $250 million in VR content developers.
In October 2019, the White Paper on the Development of the Virtual Reality Industry released by Saidi Think Tank pointed out that "after experiencing the first year of fire in 2016 and the cold period in 2017, the virtual reality industry is gradually characterized by gradual pragmatic and good development, and new modes of new business continue to emerge."
Figure 3: VR all-in-one machine
Compared with the "entry-level" VR glasses that are mocked as "made in Huaqiangbei", PC-based VR headsets, VR all-in-one machines, higher-end VR displays, and more core VR devices, the VR display is more advanced. VR display, more core VR chip, more cutting-edge VR high-end wireless machine, as well as 5G brought the "cloud VR" technology so that the VR experience is more and more excellent, latency is more and more low, to the user to bring more and more small sense of vertigo, the industry threshold industry is also more and more high, the price of VR hardware equipment from the level of one hundred dollars rose sharply to the level of thousands of dollars. The first step in the process is to make sure that you are able to get the most out of your computer.
Pico marketing director Xuan Yi said in an interview with Cover News, the current VR equipment are equipped with CPU, memory, flash memory, HD screen hardware, has become an independent computing unit, similar to a cell phone, while supporting the motion tracking software algorithms, the overall result of VR equipment manufacturing costs, so the price level is also rising.
Recovery: technology precipitation VR industry ecology gradually improved
After 2016, the VR industry gradually began to pay attention to the technology research and development precipitation and related VR content production, the formation of VR hardware, VR software, VR content production and distribution, VR applications and services, etc. as a representative of the industry composed of the VR whole The VR industry chain is a whole lot more than just the VR hardware.
VR hardware has developed from simple glasses to VR helmets and VR all-in-one PCs, and VR platform computing has put forward higher requirements for hardware technology, including chips, sensors, and other core components that have become indispensable to VR hardware components support. The big waves, the survival of the fittest, higher technical requirements also make many "Huaqiang North made" VR hardware enterprises become history dust, to date, in the market can also splash VR hardware on Oculus, Pico, HTC Vive, Dapeng and other head manufacturers with strong technical support.
And in terms of VR software, "Virtual Reality Industry Development White Paper" pointed out that companies from the network architecture, 3D modeling, algorithms and other general-purpose technology, software weaknesses can be solved. Huawei has developed connection protocols and software based on open source components as well as APIs to create a cloud VR/AR structure, realizing an end-to-end solution; Oculus has launched AWS (Asynchronous Space Twisting Technology) version 2.0 to further reduce the hardware requirements of VR equipment; Facebook has developed an AI algorithm, Deep Focus, which, when combined with eye tracking and dynamic display technology, can be used in VR heads. Combined with eye tracking and dynamic display technology, it is able to generate natural dynamic blur in VR headsets to better mimic the effect of the human eye gaze, thus alleviating the visual fatigue caused by the polydispersity adjustment......
The development of software technology further optimizes the VR consumer experience, and allows for more VR content production to flood the market, with VR games and VR videos becoming the focal point of VR content development.
Figure 4: Stills from the VR animation Gloomy Eyes, a collaboration between HTC Vive and France
In the field of VR video, the 2019 masterpiece - the multiplayer interactive large-space immersive theater video Floating Moment - allows users to Take the headset to participate in the VR theater video performance, the video was shortlisted for the Venice Film Festival VR unit; the same 2019 VR video masterpiece, by the HTC Vive and the French cooperation VR animation Gloomy Eyes, is the use of the game engine real-time computing, so that the viewer can walk around in animation at will, as if roaming in the world of animation ......
In the field of VR games, in addition to "The Elder Scrolls 5 VR", "Resident Evil 7" VR version, etc., four years of hibernation, an outbreak of 2020 VR game masterpiece "Half-Life" seems to give the VR industry to play a dose of cardiac needle, according to the VR media "VR gyroscope" measurements, have VR equipment. According to VR media "VR gyro" estimates, 1/4 of people who own VR devices have played Half-Life, and 1/5 of them have paid for the game.
Hardware and software technology precipitation, content production progress, coupled with the commercialization of 5G, the VR industry after the winter of 2017, slowly ushered in the signs of recovery. Tencent, Aichiye, Youku, Migu and other platforms that started from traditional video content have also entered VR, opening VR special areas on various platforms; the three major carriers are also actively building 5G+VR cloud platforms, and strengthening the research and development of VR technology from the level of communication software.VR has also begun to penetrate the services of intelligent manufacturing, education, medical care, media and other industries, and in 2019, CCTV has utilized VR technology to carry out real-time VR on the 70th anniversary of the National Day Parade , the Spring Festival Gala conducted a real-time VR live broadcast.
Figure 5: Migu Video VR Zone
Greenlight Insights predicts that by the end of this year, the size of the global VR technology market will reach 160 billion yuan; in February 2019, the international data company IDC also predicted that by 2023, there will be more than a billion people visit at least one consumer place installed with VR devices every year, and 10% of these consumers will try to use VR devices.
Is the VR industry going through the winter of 2017 again, or is it taking advantage of the 5G wind to explode as predicted? The future is unknown, but VR is on its way.
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