text/Xun Shilin
Facebook transformed into Meta and didn't have a good life.
On October 11, Meta held the first Connect conference after the company's name change, and released the latest virtual reality (VR) headset Quest Pro priced at $1,499.99, which also brought about the results of Facebook's name change a year later. As a result, Meta's stock price fell 3.92% on the day.
It is worth noting that from the beginning of this year to now, Meta's stock price has fallen by 60.52%. Is Zuckerberg really wrong to bet on the Metauniverse? Or is there something wrong with meta-universe itself?
collapse of weather vane
Meta has always been regarded as a weather vane in the metacosmic field.
Meta's new high-end VR headset Meta Quest Pro is priced at US$1,499.99, equivalent to more than RMB 10,000. It includes the Meta Quest Pro body, the new Meta Quest Touch Pro controller, stylus accessories, partial shades and charging base, which will be available on October 25.
According to Zuckerberg himself, this pricing is just "guaranteed to the capital", in order to allow more people to buy hardware to experience the metaverse, and also took the opportunity to mock Apple , saying that Apple's pricing for devices is "as high as possible".
investor Zhao Chenjun said that for technology companies, it is normal to make profits by manufacturing hardware. As for how much they can earn, it not only depends on the technical content of the product itself, but also the premium of the brand itself. "Whether Meta's new headset is cost-price, it is still unknown, but the price of $1,500 is not easy to accept for the current consumer market." The previous generation of Quest 2, the Quest 2, was priced at $399, and it was only $299 before the price increase this year. In addition, at the end of September, ByteDance's PICO also released the new generation of VR all-in-one PICO4 series, priced starting from RMB 2,499.
"Not to mention whether Meta's new headset matches this price, from the perspective of the entire consumer market alone, this price has rejected the majority of consumers, mainly to those enthusiasts who have spare money and are willing to pay for their interests, or practitioners in related fields." Zhao Chenjun said this.
The actual situation is similar. The number of people watching the live broadcast of the Meta new product launch that day was only more than 10,000.
Technology product enthusiast Xiao K said that for friends in the circle, the price of Quest Pro is indeed very high, but its functions are much stronger than previous products. "The most important thing is that I am not surprised at all, because there have been too many related leaks from a year ago to now. In other words, for those who are used for entertainment, this more expensive device is actually a waste of money."
In fact, Zuckerberg seems to understand this. He himself said that the target audience of this price is above "people who want the best VR device", "unlike the previous Oculus series, it is a high-end headset product positioned as a productivity tool."
However, even Quest 2, which has good sales, seems to be difficult to satisfy people's fantasy about Metaverse. According to Facebook, the global sales of Meta Quest 2 have exceeded 14.8 million units since its release in October 2020. However, according to third-party data platforms, about half of Oculus headset users stopped using it within 6 months.
Zhao Chenjun believes: "This can basically determine that Zuckerberg's content library is lacking and the product is not competitive. These things are difficult to retain their own users, resulting in poor user stickiness. It is hard to say what Meta will do in the future, at least now, not."
However, Zhao Chenjun also mentioned that the positioning of Quest and Quest 2 is originally aimed at ordinary consumer users. The pricing of only $300 to $400 is itself required to subsidize Meta out of its own pocket. "This is actually not a secret, but the current cost price is indeed too high. First, it shows that the VR headset product itself is still in the development stage, and second, it reveals the dilemma of Meta cash flow to a certain extent."
According to the latest financial report data, the company's cash flow has dropped sharply to US$4.45 billion.
According to foreign media data, Meta's Reality Labs division suffered losses of US$4.5 billion, US$6.6 billion and US$10.2 billion in 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively, while it had lost more than US$5.7 billion in the first half of 2022.
Zuckerberg himself also said that there is still a "lot of investment" in the metaverse.
The front wave was shot on the beach
"Zhuckerberg's imagination about the meta universe, today's Meta doesn't seem to be able to afford it."
Zhao Chenjun believes: "Although hardware is important to the meta universe, the more critical problem is that Metaverse itself has no way to attract consumers, let alone others."
" Wall Street Journal " latest data shows that Meta's core product, Horizon Worlds, currently has less than 200,000 monthly active users, far lower than expected. Previously, Meta set a goal to exceed 500,000 by the end of the year, and then lowered it to 280,000. More importantly, the number of users in Horizon World has been declining, and most users will no longer return to the virtual world after the first month.
"This data basically returns to a very realistic problem. The kernel itself does not attract users. No matter how high your hardware device market share is, it is useless." Zhao Chenjun said. Data from
IDCh shows that in the second quarter of 2022, global VR headset shipments increased by 32% year-on-year, Meta ranked first with 86% market share, and Pico occupied 8% market share.
However, even the hardware track is ushering in more new players.
According to MacRumors, Apple may launch its own AR/VR headset device in 2023, and the price may be more than $2,000. In addition, Sony will also launch PSVR2 in early 2023, with the price likely to be similar to PS5, and more than 20 games are under development.
Xiao K said that he is also a loyal fan of PS. If good games appear and create a richer "world", the VR header at this price will obviously be more tempting.
In addition, although Zuckerberg himself publicly expressed his disagreement with Apple's high pricing practices and believed that this would harm innovation, he did the same.
html In April, Meta announced that it would charge developers up to 47.5% of each sales fee in the Metaverse, of which 30% comes from Meta Quest store fees and 17.5% is the fees of Horizon World.Zhao Chenjun said: "This commission can be said to be quite high, almost half the same as developers, which greatly stifles the developers' desire for creation."
technology industry analyst Shuangqi said that as far as the metaverse itself is concerned, many latecomers have supplemented the previous concept proposers, but "what the metaverse is" is actually a matter of "one person's opinion and one person's opinion".
The US "Business Insider" has published a public article saying that Zuckerberg cannot help Meta achieve the transformation of the metaverse, and he is "powerless to turn the world back" and "should resign as soon as possible."
In fact, many foreign Metaverse companies seem to be more gimmick than actual situations today. For example, Decentraland, which spent $123,000 to buy land in Singapore singer JJ Lin and , was revealed to have a daily active users of only 38. Although Decentraland later responded to the data incorrectly, it is difficult to hide the fact that its performance is not good.
(Proofreading: Zhang Guogang)
