(Chinese Version)

Editor’s Note:

The emergance and acquisition of Oculus must have been a symbol in the global VR industry. It is expected that VR industry will continue to boom in the next few years. Whether we admit it or not, the fad for VR has reached an unprecedented level. VR, the next generation platform for terminal devices after smartphones, has already attracted thousands of millions of investors and entrepreneurs.

Statistics suggest that the business model for Chinese VR industry is getting more and more mature, and the total scale is also expanding. As a matter of fact, several segment areas have already sprung out in the VR industry. That’s why there are already quite a few potential areas for entrepreneurs to play a role along the supply chain, such as hardware-making, content-producing and platform-supporting. Although it takes time to build up the entire ecosystem, both investors and entrepreneurs have more time to observe the industry and make judgments accordingly.

In “Another Perspective to See the World: VR Forum” co-held by TMTpost’s TiGeek and PEdaily.cn, two leading entrepreneurs and investors in the Chinese VR industry shared what they observed in the industry with the audience.

Cui Haiqing: Only those with real innovative ideas can seize the opportunity and succeed in the Chinese VR industry

“In-depth Understanding of VR” was the speech topic of Cui Haiqing, co-founder of Baofeng Mojing. As one of the veteran innovators in the Chinese VR industry, Mr. Cui responded to several controversial topics over VR simply and accessibly. Why is VR so popular all of a sudden? What can we do with a VR hemlet? Can this hemlet change the future course of human beings?

For Mr. Cui, the current development of VR industry is only laying a foundation, while it is content that will boost the entire industry. At present, VR games and VR films & TV series are two of the most widely-known kinds of VR contents.

Mr. Cui and his team started their research in 2013, and made their first product “Baofeng Mojing” (which means “Baofeng magic glasses” in English) in 2015. It’s already one year after its release, and the product won wide recognition by many users. At the same time, a separate company was established based on the product. According to Mr. Cui, ways of thinking (completely different from those in the Internet industry sometimes) might be more important than R&D skills in the development of VR products. Only those with real innovative ideas can seize the opportunity and succeed.

Speaking of VR social networking, Mr. Cui pointed out that traditional instant messaging tools (such as Facebook, QQ and WeChat) that can help people contact with their friends instantly have already replaced text messages. However, VR social networking is completely different, since it deals with communication in another world or even space.

For Mr. Cui, the Chinese VR industry boomed in recent years, and there would be news about the VR industry every month, and revolutionary changes every year. Mr. Cui believed that VR was to really transform the world we live within the next five, eight or ten years.

Wang Xiao: Time is enough to get prepared before the boom in the Chinese VR industry

Wang Xiao, founder of Unity Ventures, began to focus on VR when the first generation of Oculus was released, since he saw another “screen” besides that of PCs, TVs and smartphones, which was the signal for any revolutionary change in the Internet industry.

Mr. Wang predicted that it would still take some years for the Chinese VR industry to boom, and that VR technologies would be spread to the public at least until the first half of 2018. For him, it was always a good thing to enter the market two or three years before the boom. When the market was already fully developed, small-sized entrepreneurs might find it pretty hard to stand out in face of competition from Internet giants.

According to him, VR should be fundamentally about the connection between the virtual world and the physical body. He also pointed out that there were three major potential areas for investors: input, output and content. While input is about virtual game handles, Kinect, treadmills, output is about sound. However, content for games and films & TV series is the hardest part, and few entrepreneurs could stand out in this area.

Still, there were investment opportunities in input sector. For example, Mr. Wang and his Unity Ventures invested in a virtual treadmill, which could be used to reflect players’ actions from reality to games. Although the performance still needs to be improved, players could almost play such games smoothly.

In addition, he pointed out that there could be risks when investing in games: so many people are developing games, yet so few of them succeed. Mr. Wang warned that one should get well-prepared when deciding to invest in games. Only when you have enough resources and an and excellent R&D team to back up can you make up your mind and invest in their sector.

It’s easy to follow suit and rush to invest in the market, yet it’s really difficult to choose a proper entry point.

PEdaily.cn, a leading web portal in China’s venture capital and private equity industry. As the most visited and influential web portal in the Chinese venture capital circle, PEdaily.cn focused on sharing timely industry news, abundant data, and in-depth analysis with its users.

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[The article is published and edited with authorization from the author @TiGeek, please note source and hyperlink when reproduce.]

Translated by Levin Feng (Senior Translator at PAGE TO PAGE), working for TMTpost.