After Meta this year's Connect conference, Tim Sweeney, the founder of Unreal Engine and Epic Games, praised Meta's development in VR/AR hardware. It was still in the stage of Benmai or Blackberry , and dared to make a steady investment strategy, constantly released new devices, initially starting with affordable hardware, learning to improve from consumer experience feedback, and subsequently promote leading advantages through high-end devices, and then migrate technology to mainstream cheap devices.
From a strategic perspective, this is of course true. However, in fact, from the perspective of pure consumers, looking at the process of this year's connect conference, Meta once again demonstrated their ancestral debuffs of high investment, low efficiency and negative returns, so that even if Meta joins , Microsoft , the response is mediocre. I dare say that even if it is just an ordinary working day, the industry discussion brought by the news that the two giant companies announced the cooperation should be more influential than this connect conference.
So today's video is to analyze why the Connect conference has such a bad impression, which leads to the public's first reaction being disappointed and unfavorable.
VR is virtual, but the experience is real. Hello everyone, welcome to this issue of VR Express. I am your old friend, Teacher Zai. The first thing I want to say is that at the Connect conference in the past two years, VR games account for not only a small proportion but also a light weight, which has led to the failure of VR game players' expectations and feel a little disrespectful. I think Meta and the others have not realized the fact that they are inadvertently perfunctory VR players.
You must understand that in the years when the connect or the oculus connect conference, VR used games to play games was the driving force of the industry. The two generations of quests had a combined installed capacity of 17 million, and they were all aimed at VR games. They were really willing to stay in front of the live broadcast and see you. The audiences who were hanging the press conference of the Metaverse Big Pie are also mainly VR players.
However, in the past two years, it has been a brief introduction to VR games, and it has taken a formal motion. Although most people have expectations in their hearts that this year's quest pro has opened a product line that focuses on office, and the hardware is no longer related to VR players' affairs, but the game content is also so sloppy, so everyone's resentment is naturally concentrated on quest pro.
In fact, the new self-tracking handle Touch Pro is a very good connection point. Meta can be expressed in this way. Although Meta Quest Pro is mainly for office work, and you must buy a set to buy it, we still prepare a brand new Touch Pro controller for gamers. It also supports Quest2, and a true blind-spotless self-tracking handle. Although the price of $299 per single view is a bit high, compared to another blind-spotless solution, a pair of base stations + handles used for PCVR positioning is definitely far more than $299, and the price is easier to accept in comparison.
plus touch pro probably may also adapt to Quest3 in the future. I bought the Touch Pro this year, and next year I only need to buy a single quest3 headset. The handle will be obtained one year in advance. Buy it early and enjoy it early. If Meta is using this introduction idea at the connect conference, I believe that many quest2 users will pay for the touch pro controller and have no complaints. On the one hand, this will give VR player users enough respect and surprises, and at the same time, it can explain the work positioning of quest pro more clearly.
However, the fact is that Meta's statement about Touch Pro is completely inconsiderate. At the same time as the connect conference was released, some foreign bloggers invited to experience it in advance said that the controller of Touch Pro is only 2 hours long. As a result, this is an oath. Is it the next day, John Carmack and Meta CTO Boz, who replied to netizens' comments on Twitter , and corrected that the maximum battery life is 8 hours. The reason for this oath is that the official answer of offline employees' training is "the controller lasts for two hours with the headset", so foreign bloggers who only had a brief experience all reposted this statement when they first released the experience, which caused everyone's misunderstanding.The function of the
Touch Pro handle is more than that. It contains an LRA linear motor in the trigger position and thumb position. There is also a VCM voice coil motor in the holding area of the main body. It can also track the index finger. The thumb position and bottom support pressure sensing. All of this is in the entire connect conference keynote speech, except for short video clips, there is no memory point at all.
Therefore, another big problem with the entire connect conference is that under the leakage of the 0 confidentiality of the entire company, the new hardware is no mystery. However, the display of the new function did not produce the most eye-catching video clips. Even the display of the most core MR mixed reality, even if it comes out the signature rhythm lightsaber, it looks extremely delayed and cannot even compare to the front. The small MR fencing clip released by Zuckerberg in half a month is exciting. This reminds me of Meta's Super Bowl ad last year. It is outrageous that Meta can always be so accurate in promotion and promotion and avoid the G-spot of his target user group.
Because in other process speeches at the connect conference, there are actually many other MR mixed reality games. Their single trailer is more exciting than the shocking glances mixed in the keynote speech.
Give you an example of a more vivid image. In the past two years, the heads of meta-related departments have a slim look, each of them memorize their own manuscripts, and they also have to perform as if they are in a natural dialogue. The drama makes people drowsy. The overall effect is like listening to the school leaders holding a conference when they were students. The leaders say that the leaders and the students in the audience play their own. This is why, even Microsoft CEO O Satya Nadella , when they came out to the platform to officially announce their cooperation, it makes people feel uncomfortable. The other function display, the presence of the entire pre-arranged process speech, seems to be just a editing material for interspersed, which is not as good as the offline speech. One link after another, the person in charge can interact with the audience.
In addition, Meta spent so much time talking about the future planning of Horizon Worlds and the progress of Meta Avatar. The reality is that Meta has been delaying for two years and has not opened up Horizon Worlds to all users. The public opinion is full of negative comments on Horizon Worlds. Therefore, although it accounts for so much space, these links cannot excite the majority of people. To put it bluntly, if Meta gets stranded on VR in the future, the biggest reason is that they have to fight Horizon Worlds to become their Achilles heel.
However, everyone's focus of this connect still needs to return to Quest Pro. Regarding the specific experience of the product itself, we just say that we can't afford it, so there is no way to analyze it. But one thing is certain. Everyone generally believes that it is not worth the price, and behind this mentality, what is really unhappy is that Meta doesn't even have a low-end option, so let's talk about what logic Meta uses to set this price.
First of all, everyone knows that for us VR players, whether it is Quest2 or PICO4, they can be bought at a lower or equal to the BOM cost. We are used to hearing the leading manufacturers selling hardware at a loss. So what is the material cost of Quest Pro?
According to the last news from Lynch from the supply chain, it was close to 5,000 RMB, which is 699 US dollars. The earliest time was 799 US dollars, and the last time the Quest Pro suit was 1,499 US dollars, which was nearly doubled. In fact, we don’t have to carefully calculate the prices of each part in the suit. In fact, there is only an additional charging base, protective cover, other protective ropes, side covers, etc., even if a non-suit is synchronized, it should be included, not included in the suit. For example, a full-enclosed mask is sold alone for $50 US dollars, which means that every item in the suit is making your hardware profit, and it is almost accumulated based on the price of the order, and the price is not reduced because it is included in the package.
Of course, when we mention this point now, it is not that we have to ask Meta to sell things with the BOM cost line, but to tell everyone why you feel outrageous when you see the price of $1,500. In the radio interview that Zuckerberg accepted after the connect conference, he actually clearly mentioned the reasons for the high pricing. He believes that high-end professionals and knowledge workers are willing to pay $1,500 to $2,000 to buy laptop for their own productivity work platform. Similarly, the office-oriented quest pro can also be sold at this price. Through the consumption experience of this type of user group, a large amount of technology foundation is established, and a development ecosystem is established to reduce it to a price point suitable for the masses in the future.
That is to say, from now on, Meta has clearly divided its products into two categories, one is the VR office line represented by Pro, and the other is the game product line represented by ordinary quest version. However, this is the difference between Meta and the consumer public. First of all, Meta Quest Pro is suitable for office work, but looking at all the upgrades of Quest Pro, except for the price, you can't see where it is not suitable for playing games.
The only thing that prevents users from buying and playing games is the high threshold price you set. Why can't there be a stand-alone version at the same time? It's 8+128GB configuration. The changes here alone can be reduced by $150. It doesn't seem too much to remove other things in the suit to make $1100-1200. It's not impossible to be willing to earn $1000 less. I believe that many people will grit their teeth and get it. Moreover, from the publicity, it's too different to have $1000 and only $1500.
The most important point is that VR gamers are ready to spend more money for VR game experience, but everyone does not have any credit for VR office. You have to let everyone accept it without any basic conditions. The value of VR office is wishful thinking. If it does not exceed the productivity of computers, why don’t I buy a computer for $1,500?
And just look at the connect conference, in addition to showing that you can see several extended virtual screens through VR, where did you show the actual application scenarios of real VR offices? None of the employees in the office background you recorded were working with Quest Pro, and Quest Pro also castrated the depth sensor. How can you make the VR office product route convincing? Therefore, it is completely foreseeable that the public will have a poor impression of the entire connect keynote speech.
But overall, Meta Quest Pro's pricing target is indeed very clear. Even though they have done price expectations management before, it is obvious that they have not spent enough effort on this point, giving everyone a space for vague and imagination.
Interestingly, let’s think of it from another perspective, Meta is actually also conscientious, I’m afraid that you VR players will get there if they grit their teeth. Then the price will be raised to a higher level, so that you can completely cut off this idea. Rich people are not short of this little money. Even if they buy it with dirt, they will definitely have other purposes for themselves. For ordinary VR players, just wait for quest3 with peace of mind.
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