What is the Metaverse? I believe many people have raised this question in the past two years. Is it AR/VR? Or digital twin? Is it an already popular technology or a concept that doesn’t exist yet? To answer this question, investor and analyst Matthew Ball (who previously served as global strategy director for Amazon Studios ) recently published a new book called "The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything." In addition, in a recent interview with The Verge, Ball further explained his views on metaverse , including its definition and form, industry competitors, future trends, challenges and other topics. He said: The Metaverse is the next stage of the Internet, a more interactive Internet experience, and VR is one of the entrances.
The following is a partial compilation of this interview, the key points covered include:
2) Oculus is open enough as a host device, but its future development is slow, Meta Time is running out to seize the metaverse;
3) Apple must participate in competition to ensure the success of the AR/VR hardware market;
4) The metaverse may not necessarily happen in AR/VR, but AR/VR, as an emerging platform, can bring greater future opportunities to Meta;
5) Despite the lack of success of HoloLens, Microsoft has advantages as a horizontal provider of Metaverse software.
The following is a more detailed summary:
TheVerge: What do you think is the definition of the metaverse?
Ball: It is a large-scale, interoperable Internet composed of a 3D virtual world of that renders in real time. It supports unlimited user synchronization and continuous experience. Each user can find a sense of presence (Presence) in the metaverse. ). The Metaverse has technologies, capabilities, and standards that span the virtual and physical worlds. For ordinary people, the birth of the metaverse means that our time, labor, leisure, wealth, entertainment and other activities will all exist in the virtual space. The key to the
metaverse is real-time rendering, meaning content is shareable and legible, can be changed in real time, and appears as graphical calculations. The metaverse is not necessarily a game, the game is just a form of expression.
Of course, the Metaverse is really describing a unified, enduring experience rather than a single expression. If it is just an application on the Internet (such as Roblox, Fortnite, AOL, etc.), it cannot be counted as the metaverse.
Simply put, if the Internet is about establishing connections between networks, then the Metaverse is like establishing connections between multiple 3D worlds.
In addition, if the Metaverse is discussed as a new computing platform, then I think 3D is a necessary condition for innovation and improving user experience, especially in fields such as medical and education. In addition, the metaverse is just one of the names. You can also call this platform hyperdigital reality, 3D Internet, etc.
TheVerge: Is the open metaverse good for the development of technology companies?
Ball: Interconnection and interoperability will inevitably promote the development of technology companies in horizontal businesses such as software and services. Take Microsoft, for example. Even if its market share of computing devices, hardware or operating systems is not as high as before, its horizontal businesses are more valuable than ever.
In order to solve the challenges faced in building the Metaverse, Qualcomm , Epic, Meta and other 28 companies have joined the Metaverse Standards Alliance led by the Konas Organization. Only by establishing cooperation between enterprises can it be easier to build a metaverse. However, building the Metaverse is a trial-and-error process that may require learning from feedback as you develop. Maybe we can start with 3D and social networking, and then extend to other areas.
For technology companies, if consumers can widely use 3D content and experience persistent history in the virtual world, then this ecosystem will be expected to grow through trade like the world economy.
TheVerge: Is the Metaverse a dystopia? What are its practical applications?
Ball: Dystopia is just a plot setting in a novel. When you carefully observe some past shared experiences similar to the metaverse (such as Second Life, Roblox, Fortnite), you will find that this kind of online virtual content has actually promoted Positive behaviors such as creation, exploration, identification and cooperation. These are also important qualities of the Metaverse.
It’s worth noting that I don’t think scarcity is important to the Metaverse, nor do I understand virtual lands, although many people believe that blockchain is an important part of the Metaverse. The current Internet has brought us network effects and zero marginal costs. As the next generation of the Internet, the Metaverse does not need to introduce scarce materials, nor does it need to completely simulate the real world.
NVIDIA founder Huang Renxun believes that the virtual world economy will exceed the economic scale of the real world in the future. This means that the gap between the two may be US$50 trillion per year. However, the future virtual world economy does not necessarily rely on scarce virtual goods, but mainly on real-time 3D simulation experience and 3D advertising, with the purpose of promoting physical sales.
In addition, 3D scene simulation is also one of the key applications of the Metaverse. The advantage is that the simulated physical world can be controlled through software, which can be used to manage factory production processes, the flow of people in facilities, etc. For example, NVIDIA used real-time 3D rendering to preview a new headquarters design. In the 3D scene, they could view various combinations, the impact of different lights and weather on the interior appearance, and the impact of temperature on building facilities. Some airports also use 3D simulations to plan airport layouts to see the effects of adjusting gate locations in different scenarios.
TheVerge: Are you talking about the concept of digital twins? If people can go from the digital twin in the office to the digital twin in the airport, is this the metaverse? The idea of building a virtual business independent of the real world in a digital twin is powerful.
Ball: First of all, digital twins are not metaverses. If the Internet connects all networks, then the digital twin is like an office network or a local area network.
Only when various digital twins and 3D simulations are connected to each other and realize universal exchange of information (user identity, payment history, Avatar) can they jointly form the metaverse. But until AR glasses become commonplace (Ball predicts 2037), consumers may not experience some digital twins in the right way.
In addition, digital twins are currently a B-side application that can bring value to enterprise scenarios, but have not really entered the consumer market. This is because it is not suitable for combination with virtual tourism, such as experiencing airports in other cities in a 3D digital twin, and does not have much practical value.
TheVerge: It is not easy to establish interoperability between independent platforms. It requires both parties to reach consensus on standards such as avatar systems, virtual goods, and business culture.
Ball: Yes, if the future metaverse consists of multiple parties, it will be harder to reach a common decision. However, in the field of games, the advantages of sharing weapons and Avatar systems are not great, especially decorations without additional functions. On the contrary, making a large number of avatars and costumes universal across multiple games is difficult in terms of technology, creative design, and business model.
In the industrial simulation scenario, general 3D resources are more practical, and the related technologies are already in place. For example, NVIDIA is not essentially Roblox or Minecraft, but more like a "demilitarized zone" for middleware simulation, which can interconnect different simulation contents of the two companies.
Of course, different companies can also achieve a win-win situation through the Internet, just like the New York Times settled in Facebook to gain more traffic. Or, just like independent developers use the unified avatar and user system of Unreal to develop games, the metaverse will also have large-scale unified development standards, conventions, file types and engines in the future.
TheVerge: What you mean is that in the future, there will not only be business opportunities in virtual avatars, skins and virtual items, but also a large-scale B-end metaverse market, such as on high-fidelity 3D simulation platforms, where companies can cooperate. , transactions and interactions to generate revenue?
Ball: What I mainly mean is that whether in the game field or on the B side, common standards and interoperability are gradually forming.
However, currently game engines such as Unreal are also being used in enterprises and simulation scenarios (such as healthcare, military, education, automobiles, etc.). Although it is still in the early trial stage, in the future, as the fidelity and complexity become better and better, Game engines can also generate revenue in the enterprise Metaverse market.
TheVerge: In addition to 3D simulation, what other application scenarios does the Metaverse have in the short term that can bring value similar to network effects?
Ball: It may take a series of combination innovations to appear before we can see more valuable Metaverse application scenarios. Such as common 3D file formats, systems and platforms.
TheVerge: It can also be seen from Emoji that although this emoticon has an alliance to formulate unified specifications, its appearance on different platforms such as Apple and Android is actually different. Later, as Apple's round face Emoji gradually became mainstream, and Google also changed their own Emoji to round faces. In the future, will this trend also appear in 3D avatar systems? Is the most commonly used system driving the standardization of avatars and clothing appearances?
Ball: Many people believe that achieving interoperability between consumer-grade 3D content systems is not that important. For developers, reusable 3D virtual environments seem to be more important.
In addition, 3D content is more difficult to standardize than Emoji, because different software and hardware platforms also vary in terms of display size, pixel density , etc. In the future, it may be possible to use machine learning techniques (such as software systems with understanding capabilities) to modify unstandardized 3D content for different platforms.
TheVerge: After 3D content is standardized, will the 3D platforms used in entertainment, automobiles and other fields become more open?
Ball: The advantage of 3D content standardization is that it only needs to be developed once and can be used on multiple platforms anytime and anywhere, thereby reducing the cost of 3D development. For example, the 3D special effects created by Disney when creating Star Wars movies may be shared with fitness games with the same IP.
Alternatively, you can also simulate running cars and other products in a virtual scene, and use the spatial map captured by vehicle-mounted lidar for virtual test drives, etc., to achieve a kind of 3D resource reuse.
TheVerge: At present, in order to hype hot topics, the industry has begun to mix multiple concepts such as Web3 and the metaverse, but these concepts are not necessarily related to each other. However, trading scarce digital goods in the metaverse seems to be an application scenario of Web3. What do you think?
Ball: Both Web3 and the Metaverse may create the next generation of the Internet, so it makes sense to compare the two. In addition, whether from a philosophical or technical perspective, blockchain is very important to the Metaverse and can be used to protect intellectual property business models.
Regardless of whether blockchain is speculative or not, it clearly has additional advantages in the metaverse realm. However, future adoption will depend on widespread user and platform support and adoption of the technology.
The computing power required to support large-scale 3D content sharing and blockchain may be enhanced through data compression, cloud computing , quantum computing , etc. In addition, in the future, it may be possible to establish a decentralized/distributed computing model on the blockchain, and people can rent idle GPU computing power to others remotely, but the premise is that the problem of equal distribution of bandwidth in different regions must be solved.
TheVerge: Meta can be seen as the leader in the VR headset market. Although Quest 2 is not yet an open ecosystem, Meta is leading in the exploration of the metaverse. What do you think about this, and can you predict the next development of Meta?
Ball: I think the Oculus platform is actually quite open. In addition to official apps, it also supports local download and installation/sideloading, and does not require a central identity system. App purchase payments can also be made on third-party platforms. It is worth noting that Oculus is almost the only mainstream game console that uses an open standard rendering set (WebGL, OpenGL, WebXR). This is important because few other brands do this. Even Sony only supports open standards on PS3.
However, compared to large-scale virtual platforms such as Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft, Oculus's user base, revenue, developer support, developer revenue, and cultural influence are far from high enough, and future development will not be easy.
Especially in the face of the current economic situation and Apple's privacy feature adjustments (loss of approximately 10 billion US dollars in cash flow ), Meta's investment in the AR/VR field will also be affected. One of the biggest challenges Meta faces is that it will take far longer than expected to break away from the constraints of Apple and Google and seize new markets. This may be underestimated by Mark Zuckerberg .
From 2015 to now, Zuckerberg’s expectations for AR/VR have been adjusted and postponed almost three times. Next, we may have to wait until 2025 or 2026 to see consumer-grade AR hardware. Zuckerberg said that putting supercomputing equipment into lightweight wearable AR is the most difficult technical challenge of this era.
If the virtual platform integrating AR/VR hardware and operating system is Meta's next biggest opportunity, then I think this company has fallen behind in this direction, and its core business is also experiencing a short-term decline. Meta's next time urgent.
TheVerge: If AR is the most difficult technical challenge, do you think Meta has made progress in solving AR problems (battery life, display, computing power, camera, etc.)?
Ball: Building AR glasses requires the implementation of a series of technology stacks, which will bring many difficult challenges to Meta. In terms of technical design, AR requires trade-offs and balances from many aspects, and factors such as heat dissipation and appearance weight are also very important. These problems are complex and difficult to solve. It is rumored that the AR headset developed by Apple may be equipped with 12-14 cameras, which is much more than the number of cameras in the Oculus headset.
TheVerge: Compared with Meta, Apple is better at developing hardware products and has a lot of experience in developing high-performance chips, extending battery life, user experience and UI design .
However, compared to Meta, Apple's shortcomings are that it pays more attention to integration and a closed ecosystem, has poor interoperability, and is not conducive to innovation, competition and industry standardization. What do you think about this?
Ball: Interestingly, six days before Epic Games sued Apple, the company’s founder and CEO Tim Sweeney stated on Twitter that Apple had banned the metaverse and cloud games.
If AR/VR is expected to succeed, Apple will be at least one of the competitors and will likely provide the best-performing, most mature, and lightest AR/VR products on the market. Compared with startups, Apple's advantages lie in its large scale and low costs.
However, the Metaverse does not necessarily have to take place on the AR/VR platform. It can be expressed in many ways.Meta develops AR/VR headsets not only to compete with Apple, but more importantly, to get rid of the restrictions of Apple and Google. Especially in the future field of metaverse, if Meta does not seize AR/VR, the advantages of building metaverse on mobile and PC will lag behind Apple and Google.
Of course, Meta can also try the cloud gaming market, using cloud streaming to help its social business get rid of Apple hardware limitations, and users can run it through a browser. However, the disadvantage of this method is that the cloud service is not yet stable enough, and it is difficult for non-app applications to push notifications to users. If
uses the WebGL solution to render on the browser side, it may also be restricted by Apple and cannot complete complex rendering. Apple has taken the content ecosystem to the extreme in terms of closedness. Even if you try to run WebGL applications through the Chrome browser, the iOS Chrome browser is just a wrapper based on the Safari engine, not the real Chrome. At the same time, since the Apple Store prohibits local installation downloads, you can only install Apple’s official version of Chrome.
At the same time, Google, as the world's second largest mobile platform provider, has also been trying AR/VR business for many years, but it has not achieved significant development in terms of games or hardware. Most of its internally incubated projects, such as Niantic, have been spun off and divested. It was not until the end of last year that Google began to reorganize its laboratory business and develop AR/VR equipment.
TheVerge: So is Amazon investing in AR/VR?
Ball: I guess Amazon mainly develops virtual assistants that can run on multiple platforms such as mobile. In addition, Amazon is also expected to provide computing and data center services to the Yuanverse platform in the future. In the field of cloud gaming, Amazon's Luna service seems to have less influence than Google Stadia.
Judging from the job postings, Amazon has changed the job descriptions of some interactive businesses in order to focus more on the so-called metaverse direction. However, Amazon currently mainly supports the Unreal-based ecosystem and promotes certain metaverse standards. It seems that there are no actual products, but more visions and conjectures.
TheVerge: What about Microsoft? Judging from its recent moves, the company has begun acquiring (Activision Blizzard Studios) for its gaming business, but it doesn't seem to have outstanding XR hardware in addition to 2D hardware. HoloLens was not a huge success. Even its head Alex Kipman left the company, and the future of the project is unknown. How do you think Microsoft will enter the Metaverse market? Is it through hardware or as a horizontal software provider?
Ball: When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took over the company, the game business overhaul required divestment. Later, Nadella not only acquired Minecraft, but also provided support for the game on all platforms. Under Nadella's leadership, Microsoft got rid of the need for competition through horizontal development and achieved rich vertical integration with , which is also a major feature of Microsoft's business.
Even though Microsoft's metaverse strategy is not clear at present, its horizontal technology can quickly integrate the metaverse vision. This is why Microsoft decided to invest $75 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard to build the foundation of the metaverse.
In fact, Microsoft's " Flight Simulator " has already demonstrated an impressive continuous, real-time digital twin/metaverse experience that far exceeds similar technologies on the market.
TheVerge: What do you think is the role of government in the Metaverse? In the future, will the Metaverse be controlled by , a private company, , or will there still be government regulators?
Ball: The Internet itself is a project promoted by the government. The government's role is mainly to build a strong self-regulatory agency and then give more freedom to users on the basis of supervision. In the future, a similar trend may appear in the Metaverse. , EU , and Korean government agencies have begun to participate in the construction of the Metaverse.
On a global scale, the U.S. government’s attention to the Metaverse may lag behind Southeast Asia, the European Union, and China.
TheVerge: If the Metaverse will slowly begin to appear in daily life as time goes by. So what are the signs that the Metaverse is possible? Have you already made a mark in real life?
Ball: can focus on early changes in population behavior, such as the acceptance and usage of games such as Roblox. On the other hand, the application of Metaverse technology in the industrial field also reflects the development of this technology. Currently, AR/VR and Metaverse solutions take a long time to be delivered in the industrial field, and it also takes time to convince companies to adopt these new technologies. When enterprises see the advantages of new technologies in work efficiency and information sharing, and have to deploy Metaverse-related technologies and share them with other partners, they are expected to see the rapid development of Metaverse in the industrial field. Reference: Theverge
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