Now major companies are VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), MR (mixed reality) technology has shown a strong interest, these technologies in games, in the live broadcast, video entertainment, medical, education and other fields have also used good performance, many people regard them as the next large industry direction. At the same time, China’s economic growth is increasingly dependent on consumption, so the virtual reality industry is supported by both market demand and national policies. VR and AR will indeed be the next industry direction in the long run. But it’s not going to be as rosy as the companies are making it out to be for at least a decade or two. Although it is a vision, companies like to tell stories and swindle investors. Take the mobile phone as an example, a mobile phone costing several thousand yuan is the result of years of accumulation of technology from major software and hardware companies and manufacturing companies. VR and AR will not be cheap in five years if they are to be as powerful and stable as mobile phones. Here I would like to emphasize that VR, AR, intelligent robot or driverless car is a well-known trend. The key is when to achieve it and how to achieve it. The former reflects the sensitivity of businessmen, while the latter reflects the greatness of inventors.
1. Currently, each company produces VR and AR products with incompatible formats and no standardization, such as immersive games, and each company promotes its own platform. (HERE I combine AR and MR to mention, because every MR mode must be AR mode first, this word is more of a description of a state, when users use AR equipment, the data service and the reality of the real world will be superposed, namely MR form. Therefore, it is inappropriate to refer to MR as a separate form.
2. Even if it is standardized, games and videos like VR and AR, or scene interaction, it takes a lot of manpower and material resources to achieve high-quality experience. In other words, small companies can’t afford it. As you know, the production cost of a game is 3D>2.5D>2D. Therefore, the development cost of VR and AR style games and videos is certainly much higher than the cost of normal technology development.
3.VR and AR At the current stage of development, most products tend to enhance the consumer experience of existing industries, but these technologies may be novel at the beginning, people are eager to experience the products, they may feel boring after a period of time. For example, the drone is fun, one or two days is ok, play for a year you try. Of course, I don’t deny that there are drone enthusiasts out there, but the industry they support is nowhere near as big as the mobile industry. If VR and AR want to attract consumers to use them for a long time, they must be connected to the Internet. Only when consumers go to the Internet for entertainment and social interaction can relational data be generated and the performance and experience reach the consumption level.
4. The explosive power of VR and AR content is the amount of end users, but their hardware itself is an immature chicken rib product, and consumers will not pay a large amount of money. Without a sufficient number of users, the passion and motivation of content developers to make content will be greatly reduced, and scarce content will restrict the development of VR and AR for a period of time.
In conclusion, the current hardware and software level of VR and AR have not reached the level of mass consumption, and will not become the main technology consumer products (mobile phones, computers, etc.) in the next 10 or 20 years. Now, various companies are following the trend of entering this industry, and it is likely to repeat the failure of Google Glass. (Google Glass is one of augmented reality’s landing products.) I’m going to talk about Steve Jobs. What I admire most about him is his keen business vision. First of all, he will conduct in-depth analysis of existing technologies and skillfully apply them after understanding their characteristics and attributes. During his time at the helm of Apple, there were few tech gimmicks and gimmicks, and he didn’t passively jump on the bandwagon, always entering the market during critical periods of technology development. So, we often see some of the existing technology in his hands, transformed into magic. My hope is that companies will realize this and move on to more valuable industries to lay the foundation for their companies, otherwise the industry will burst and the good times will be wasted.