In the past two months, news of layoffs at PICO has been circulating in the industry.
The first rumor was:
The PICO business will be shut down, with more than 80% of the workforce being cut and involving thousands of people in the company.
On November 8, Pico officially responded on Weibo that the rumors were false. However, at present, the company is indeed making organizational structure adjustments, and the short-term investment and related team size will be reduced, involving more than 300 people, accounting for only about 23% of the company's overall size.
Originally, after the response, the turmoil stopped.
But a few days ago, foreign media The Information suddenly broke the news, sayingPICO has laid off more than 400 people, including the content cooperation team, and more than 600 people have been planned for internal positions at ByteDance
In other words, PICO currently has just over 800 employees. At its peak, the number of PICO employees exceeded 2,000 and grew to more than 2,200.
At the same time, the information also revealedThe Pico 5, which was originally planned for release, was also canceled in favor of following the MR product route of Apple's Vision Pro, and the project with the internal codename Swan is already in development
And the news of such a drastic adjustment of personnel and products may not be unfounded:
Because the pico device can't be sold anymore.
A few months ago, a number of domestic research institutions issued a number of domestic research institutions in the second quarter (Q2) XR equipment sales report, all pointed out the current situation of poor sales of VR equipment.
And Counterpoint's latest Q3 2023 Worldwide XR Device Shipment Report illustrates this point once again.
In terms of the overall development of the global market, although the report does not disclose specific shipment figures, it does give a trend of shipment growth during the quarter:
Global XR device shipments in Q3 2023 fell 29% year-over-year, the lowest shipment since Q4 2020.
Although PICO still ranks third in terms of shipments with a market share of 9%, its shipments will be greatly affected given the significant decline in shipments as a whole during the quarter.
Source: Tech Advisor
With PICO out of the way, let's move on to the report.
Meta is sluggish, with a market share of more than 50% for the first time.
Meta sales**, on the one hand, were affected by the launch of Sony PS VR2, which seized part of the market. Another big reason is that the newly released Quest 3 only hit the market in October this year, and the statistics on sale are still old devices.
By Q4, with the Quest 3's sales boosting, its numbers should pick up.
At the same time, Meta is also starting to focus on the Chinese market.
For two consecutive years, Meta has participated in the China International Import Expo (CIIE) and is open to experience Quest.
It has also reached a partnership with Tencent, which will become the exclusive headset for the Quest 3 low-spec headset by the end of 2024.
As for the effect, we can only wait and see.
Sony PS VR2, on the other hand, shows a posture of opening low and walking high.
Before the launch, Bloomberg said that the Sony PS VR2 was quite different from the actual announcement, and Sony had reduced its expected sales in the first quarter of sales from 2 million units to 1 million units, and estimated that the total shipment of Sony PS VR2 from April 2023 to March 2025 would be 1.5 million units.
Source: Live Science
However, Sony officially replied, saying that it would not cut the production of Sony PS VR2, and the popular games "Gran Turismo 7", "Horizon Call of the Mountain" and "Resident Evil 8: Village" were widely sought after by consumers.
Source: PlayStation Universe
After 6 years, the long-overdue Sony PS VR2 has actually made a lot of improvements in hardware specifications and functional experience, such as:
Higher display rate, faster refresh rate, wider field of view: OLED display with 2000x2040 resolution per eye, up to 120Hz refresh rate, 4K HDR and 110° field of view, and perspective display.
More avant-garde technical features: Eye tracking, more friendly interactive operation, 6DOF motion sensing tracking, headset haptic feedback, 3D sound effects, full game experience.
Source: The Shortcut
Judging from the data report, the Sony PS VR2 has indeed achieved good results. With Sony PS VR2, Meta's long-term market monopoly was broken.
However, the Sony PS VR2 still has its fair share of issues.
For example, it is more expensive than the PS5 console**, the requirement that the PS5 console must be required, and the incompatibility of the previous generation of games will also limit the shipment of Sony PS VR2.
Combined with previous data reports, the overall performance of XR devices in 2023 will obviously be lower than market expectations.
The reason for this is nothing more than the common rhetoric that the leading manufacturers are not innovative, there is not enough novel content, and the consumer market is weak.
VR, which accounts for the core contribution of XR equipment, has been up and down for many years, especially PICO, and the adventure VR with a worse ending, with a huge amount of real money** investment, which has never been able to return stable sales and revenue.
This undoubtedly makes VR more pessimistic.
The upcoming Apple Vision Pro seems to be the current savior, and it's no wonder that Pico is rumored to be going this route.
And if the Vision Pro can go in a new direction, only Apple will succeed. With its strong software, hardware, and ecological power, almost no one can catch up in a short period of time.
Of course, we've also seen a lot of positive things for the XR industry in 2023.
For example, the AR glasses that have emerged in China, the current sales can only be classified as others, but the growth trend has emerged.
In the domestic market in the first half of 2023, AR equipment shipments were 680,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 142%.
It remains to be seen what the overall XR market outlook looks like. What is certain is that XR is still in the early days of the industry, and the blue ocean is still to be explored.
On the eve of Singles' Day, the manufacturer Rokid announced that it had won the industry's first order of 20,000 units, an order for TOC's consumer-grade AR glasses.
The continuous deepening and optimization of product wearing comfort, experience, and scene also allows us to see new machines.
Extended reading: Refresh the new record of a single order in the AR industry, and the rain will finally become sunny after daysThunderbird Technology launched X2 binocular full-color MicroLED optical waveguide AR glasses, gaming, creating, and socializing, outlining the representative scene applications of AR glasses.
Extended reading: Thunderbird X2 debuts, using 3+1 elements to sample consumer-grade real AR glasses Singularity is close to the first AR glasses Qidi One, playing multi-modal interaction, and initially testing the water on the large model of glasses.
Extended reading: Singularity is close to the first AR glasses to be unveiled at the Expo, and the on-site experience is remarkableMeizu Technology launched the MyVU AR glasses weighing only 43 grams, which is almost the same weight as myopia glasses. And it integrates the operating system Flyme AR, Flyme AI large model, etc., which are designed for AR glasses. There is also MyVU Discovery Edition, which has stronger display, interaction and playability.
Further reading: Meizu MyVU AR glasses experience, the world's lightest mass-produced resin optical waveguide, and the main writer with the blessing of a large model: Dada.
Edit: Statement.
Title image: PICO 4, source: Ardent Collective