The "Virtual" And "Reality" Of The Meta Universe: AR And VR Have Become Investment Outlets, And There Is A Lack Of Just Needed Scenes

? ? ? ? On September 8, the concept stocks of "Yuan universe" continued to soar. Zhongqingbao has been trading for two consecutive days. Among the 55 companies included in the wind virtual reality index, 47 companies rose on September 8, of which 10 stocks rose more than 10%.

At present, the capital market ignited by meta universe mainly covers game companies and AR / VR industry chain, which are all subsets of meta universe. The so-called metaverse, in short, is a virtual parallel world connected with reality, which brings immersive feeling through VR and other interactive devices. This word comes from the novel avalanche written by science fiction novelist Neal Stephenson in 1992. In the past two years, the concept of meta universe has spread rapidly since American game platform roblox, social overlord Facebook and other benchmarking companies have mentioned the vision of meta universe.

? ? ? By 2021, the meta universe has become a hot word in the domestic science and technology circle. The recent acquisition of Pico of VR company by byte skipping will further ignite the meta universe market. Guosheng Securities pointed out that the meta universe is an immersive virtual space in which users can carry out cultural, social and entertainment activities. The core of meta universe is to carry out virtual assets and virtual identity. Blockchain, games, network computing power and VR display are the four technical pillars for building the meta universe.

It is not difficult to find that many popular concepts can be classified into the meta universe. In fact, the development of the meta universe is still in its infancy, and the hype and bubble are also involved in it. Many people in the virtual reality industry told the 21st century economic reporter that due to the introduction of new concepts, there will be short-term fluctuations in the capital market, and it will take time to explore the meta universe. However, in the long run, we will pay more attention to the development of the hardware industry chain. Only when the hardware is more popular and the underlying core technology is more mature can new breakthroughs be made.

People in the industry generally believe that with the maturity of optical and display devices of upstream core components and the gradual improvement of downstream software ecology, VR era has come. Visual China

Giants rush into meta universe, AR / VR investment returns

In the sub industry of meta universe, game and AR / VR are undoubtedly the most concerned track. At present, NVIDIA, Facebook, Google and Tencent are marching toward the meta universe, according to China Merchants Securities research paper. According to IDC forecast, the annual growth rate of global virtual reality industry scale will reach 54% from 2020 to 2024. With the continuous development of new technologies, virtual reality meta universe related industries may usher in an explosion.

For example, in April this year, Epic Games, the parent company of the popular game fortress night, received a new round of financing of US $1 billion, which is the highest financing in the field of meta universe since this year; In the first half of the year, core games, VR social game company rec room and cloud game technology company nynli technology all obtained financing of one million or hundreds of millions of US dollars.

Looking at the VR circle, the VR industry has long ago proposed the imagination of the meta universe, but with the desolation of the previous two years, the meta universe has not been popularized. However, since this year, the virtual reality industry has started a new round of investment and layout boom. According to the data previously released by HTC vive, in the past 100 days, there have been more than 50 X-ray investment events. Among the 50 investment cases, the industry with the largest number of single vertical sector is medical, reaching 10.

Take Facebook as an example. In 2014, it purchased oculus for us $2 billion. At present, oculus is the world's largest VR device in sales. Meanwhile, Facebook has invested in many VR game and content companies. Recently, Facebook began to test the VR conference office software named horizon workrooms, which provides virtual space across VR and web for the team. Users can enter a virtual conference room through their VR device oculus quest2 to work together. In Zuckerberg's view, AR / VR will surpass smart phones and personal computers and become the next generation of mainstream computing platform.

It is reported that Apple's first AR / VR head display will be released as early as 2022, and apple has completed the physical design of three AR / VR chips, all of which have entered the production stage, and will be handed over to TSMC for mass production with 5nm process.

From the perspective of domestic enterprises, it is reported that HTC is about to launch a beta version of its VR platform beatday. Beatday will create holographic concerts on PC terminal and mobile devices through the combination of virtual venue and real performance, so that more audiences can participate in the interaction; Byte beat in the acquisition of Pico, in April this year with 100 million yuan investment in the universe concept company code Qiankun.

Demand and technology to be broken

It is worth noting that at present, the meta universe is not mature and is still in the conceptual stage. CITIC Securities Research Report points out that the virtual world described by the meta universe is expected to bring changes to the society, such as entertainment mode, social mode, social operation efficiency improvement, and re exploration of personal value. However, the implementation of the virtual world still needs continuous development and breakthrough in digital infrastructure, terminal equipment, content and virtual currency, which is expected to become a new long-term exploration direction.

Among them, the virtual reality fields represented by Ar and VR are more popular. With the development of demand and industry chain, AR and VR industries have started a new round of growth period. In particular, AR devices with stronger mobility and portability have attracted more attention. At present, the application scenarios covered are more and more extensive, including ar social networking, AR games, AR education, AR remote control, AR online retail, AR measurement, AR navigation, AR tourism; VR house watching, VR games, VR education, VR exhibition tourism, VR training, etc. However, it should be pointed out that the current market base of AR and VR equipment is still low, the industrial chain is still in the cultivation period, and the market is still waiting for the emergence of consumer grade equipment and killer applications.

In particular, the hardware industry chain is still immature, and there is a lack of hard demand scenarios. At present, whether AR or VR, customers are mainly for b-end, and the main function is game entertainment. Although there are some very successful C-end consumer applications, they are still relatively rare, and the core rigid demand applications are insufficient. Of course, the current head display devices can provide immersive services and bring amazing experience to users. However, these are not just needed. In the face of high cost, there are many alternative options, and users have not significantly increased the bill due to audio-visual upgrading.

Some people in the industry pointed out that the price of head display equipment must be greatly reduced to reach the corresponding market scale. The price of early consumer head display was too high to produce market impact. According to the strategy analytics report, the price of consumer ar head display is expected to further decrease over time, with the average selling price falling from more than $800 in 2020 to less than $500 in 2026 (a decrease of 38%).

? ? ? On the one hand, the popularity of AR, VR and other terminal products is very important, and the hardware industry directly carries the content. On the other hand, the further development of chips and other key technologies closely related to the hardware industry chain also directly determines the control of the industry's discourse power. At present, the most critical technologies in the upstream and downstream industry chains of AR and VR include accurate sensing, motion tracking, 3D optical imaging Professional visual computing chips, as well as AR, VR operating systems and computing platforms are in the construction stage, and the technical direction is not clear. The right to speak is more in the hands of foreign high-end enterprises, such as the need for high-tech chips from Qualcomm and NVIDIA. On the whole, the hardware industry chain is gradually mature, which will provide a more solid foundation for the development of the meta universe.

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