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Lack of content is a major flaw

author/IT TimesReporter Shen Yibin

Editor: Qian Lifu  Sun Yan

The gaming and entertainment event 2024 ChinaJoy (CJ Exhibition) has come to an end recently. According to the organizers, the number of participants this year reached 367,000, setting a record high. Traditional game giants such as Tencent, NetEase, Century Huatong, Giant Network, rising stars such as Eagle Point Network and Lilith, as well as overseas game giants such as PlayStation and Ubisoft, released a number of new games at the CJ Exhibition.

At this year's CJ exhibition, AI is the undisputed protagonist, and the "old friend" VR/AR/XR also attracted a lot of attention. In June this year, Vision Pro was launched in China, which has boosted the popularity of VR/AR/XR. At the CJ exhibition, many companies set up experience scenes, and the audience can travel into the game world by wearing a headset. However, many domestic game manufacturers told the "IT Times" reporter that due to cost reasons, they will not consider launching the Vision Pro version for the time being.

At the CJ exhibition, you can see Cosplayers in gorgeous costumes, players in strange costumes, and various doll props everywhere. In the crowd, a player wearing a Vision Pro headset and holding a cup of coffee quickly caught the attention of the IT Times reporter. She said that the purpose of doing so was, on the one hand, to experience the feeling of wearing Vision Pro for a long time in outdoor scenes, and on the other hand, to experience different VR devices at the exhibition site and look for VR games that are planned to be launched on Vision Pro.

In the Qualcomm Snapdragon theme pavilion, the reporter had a try. Each of the eight cockpit devices is equipped with a VR headset. The moment you put on the headset, "Qualcomm X"Collapse: Skyrail》" in 3D, and then you enter the game scene of "Honkai Impact 3". The cockpit starts to rotate according to the screen content. You jump down from the Daydream Hotel and feel the sense of weightlessness. Looking around, you come to the scene in the Pinocchio chapter. You shuttle between the high-rise buildings and take in the beautiful scenery of the whole city.

Although it only lasts 2 minutes, the full immersion makes people unforgettable. Li Yonggang, technical marketing director of Qualcomm China Marketing Department, told reporters that this VR experience uses 5G-A millimeter wave technology to deploy 8 servers in the cloud, which are responsible for rendering the VR images and then transmitting them to the device through the millimeter wave network. It not only changes the original local rendering method of the headset, but also provides higher quality and lower latency for VR images.

At this year's CJ exhibition, the large-scale XR experience exhibition hall "Qinchao Awakening Immersive Exploration Experience" attracted the attention of many visitors. A fallen terracotta warrior statue broke out of the ground, opening its arms to welcome the players.

The reporter put on a headset and "walked into" the archaeological site covered with yellow sand to excavate the Terracotta Warriors; he took the elevator in the archaeological center to the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang, where the rumored mercury rivers and jewel starry sky all appeared before his eyes; through the simulated hands in front of his eyes, he was also able to complete interactions such as picking up a backpack and lighting up the runes on the stone tablet.

It is reported that "Qinchao Awakening" was created by Shanghai Yuantuojing Technology. At the exhibition site, the relevant person in charge of Shanghai Banding Network Technology told reporters that Shanghai Yuantuojing Technology was invested by Shanghai Banding Network Technology and provided "Qinchao Awakening" XR technology solutions, which brought a real experience through holographic projection, MR, VR, AR and other technologies as well as 5D body sensations such as vibration, wind, heat, and weightlessness.

Apple Vision Pro was once highly expected to boost the confidence of the increasingly sluggish VR/AR market. However, when the Chinese version of Vision Pro was launched, the imagined "iPhone moment" did not come, and Vision Pro sales fell short of expectations.

IT Times previously reported that a consumer returned the Chinese version of the Vision Pro after using it for three days. Later, a blogger revealed that the return rate of the Chinese version of the Vision Pro exceeded 50%. The high return rate also plagued the US version of the Vision Pro. A survey by foreign media Cult of Mac showed that 45% of users chose to return the Apple Vision Pro within the 14-day no-reason return period.

Although Apple has not released official return data, Bloomberg reported that Vision Pro sales did not reach 100,000 units, far below expectations. Well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also pointed out that Vision Pro currently lacks practical functions and is difficult to become a necessity for users' daily use.

At this year's CJ exhibition, whether it was the two XR exhibition halls experienced by reporters or the VR/AR games displayed by other companies, the equipment used was mainly PICO.IOur ultimate goal is commercialization. Vision Pro is expensive and not cost-effective for the general experiencers and consumers."The relevant person in charge of Shanghai Banding Network Technology admitted that there is no plan to produce Vision Pro version content at present, and if consumers buy PICO, the content can be directly downloaded from the device.Download on the backup end.

Alex Katuzian, general manager of the mobile, computing and XR business group of Qualcomm Technologies, said at the 2024 Snapdragon Gaming Technology Awards held on July 25 that Qualcomm's series of XR processor product portfolio, the Snapdragon Spaces developer platform, will cooperate with multiple device manufacturers such as PICO, Google, Meta and Microsoft to bring more than 80 XR devices.

It seems that PICO has become the "winner" of VR games in CJ exhibition. But the fact is that PICO is not having a good time now.At the beginning of last year, PICO significantly lowered its sales target for the year. At the end of last year, PICO laid off more than 300 employees, accounting for about 23% of the total staff size, and reportedly canceled the development plan for the next-generation VR headset PICO 5.

This year, the entire VR/AR industry is still in the cold. IDC's latest "AR/VR Headset Market Quarterly Tracking Report" shows that China's AR/VR headset shipments in the first quarter of 2024 were 107,000 units, a year-on-year decline of 37.8%. Among them, VR shipments were 22,000 units, a year-on-year decline of 72.6%; MR shipments were 34,000 units, a year-on-year decline of 52.7%; although AR shipments increased by 119.2% year-on-year, the base was not large, at 8,000 units.

In fact, it is not the poor experience that discourages consumers, but the lack of content. Although Chinese Internet apps such as Weibo, Douyin VR Live, and Tencent Video have successively released versions that support Vision Pro, from the actual experience, except for the six customized films, other content is very "floating".

The "Research Report on the Current Status and Development Trends of China's VR Game Industry in 2024" released by Zhiyan Consulting shows that from the perspective of popular game categories, VR seems to be consistent with traditional games. Adventure, shooting and simulation are the most popular categories of VR-exclusive games, and are also the three most popular types of VR-compatible games; from the perspective of game style, the top VR games focus on plot, creation and competition. The most representative works of these three are "Half-Life: Alyx", "REC Room" and "Pavlov VR" respectively.

These popular VR games have not yet been ported to Vision Pro, only some simple games such as chess and Fruit Ninja are available.

For individual consumers, the price and content of Vision Pro are barriers. However, on the B2B side, Vision Pro is exploring new application scenarios.

According to reports, a thoracic surgeon at Peking University People's Hospital recently used Vision Pro to complete an assisted thoracoscopic radical resection of lung cancer. In the past, doctors had to frequently switch between multiple monitors to obtain the patient's vital signs and surgery-related information during surgery. Vision Pro allows all information to be displayed clearly and intuitively, ensuring that doctors can complete the entire surgery accurately and smoothly.

Layout/ Ji Jiaying

Image/IT Times

Source: IT Times WeChat ID: vittimes