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Few digital products have bucked the trend and increased their prices by more than 30% nearly two years after their release. Meta Quest 2 dares to do so.

Meta Quest 2, a VR (virtual reality) all-in-one machine, was officially unveiled in September 2020. At that time, it was named oculus Quest 2. Later, as the parent company of Facebook changed its name to meta, it was renamed meta Quest 2.

From August 1, the price of Quest 2 will be raised by $100. The price of 128G model will rise to $399 (about 2688 yuan), and that of 256g model will rise to $499 (about 3361 yuan). At the same time, the price of official accessories will also rise. For the reasons for the price increase, mate gives two reasons: first, the supply chain cost of the product rises; Second, the price rise will enable meta to continue to invest and promote the long-term development of the VR industry.

Quest 2 has few rivals

If consumers want to buy a VR all-in-one machine that is fun and cost-effective, Quest 2 is almost the only right choice.

In terms of price, Sony PS VR sells for 2999 yuan, but you need to buy another ps4/ps5 game console for several thousand yuan to play VR games. The price of HP revb G2 all-in-one machine is $599 (about 4035 yuan). At present, the cheapest pc-vr head display vive cosmos on sale at HTC is priced at 5899 yuan, and the VR all-in-one vive focus 3, similar to Quest 2, is priced at 9888 yuan. Even if the price rises by more than 30%, the price of Quest 2 is still cheaper than the competitive products.

HP reverb G2

In terms of VR content supply, there is little gap between VR applications provided by several manufacturers.

As of the first half of this year, meta quest store, which has been strictly audited, has more than 300 VR applications, of which about 60% are games. At the same time, meta also launched "app lab", a mode of distribution without official approval. At present, the number of VR applications distributed through app lab is more than twice that of quest store. There are more than 2000 VR applications related to meta, and Quest 2 can also use more than 3000 VR applications on steam, a well-known game application store.

Sony PS VR only supports VR games and content in its Playstation store. HP did not build its own entertainment content platform, but let consumers connect to steam VR. HTC built its own store HTC viveport. In a publicity material for HTC 2020, it said that viveport (at that time) had nearly 2000 VR applications and games. Similarly, HTC's VR products also support steam VR.

HTC VIVEPORT

Judging from the market reaction, "cheap" Quest 2 is the most popular. It won 80% of the market share last year, and there is a strong upward trend. According to the report from IDC, a market research organization, among the 3.56 million VR head displays shipped in the first quarter of 2022, the share of Quest 2 is close to 90%, and the cumulative sales volume so far has been close to 15million.

Meta spared no expense for the meta universe

Even if the price rises by $100, it will eat up almost all the shares in the VR hardware market, but the income brought by hardware is far less than the investment of meta.

Meta's financial report for the second quarter of this year showed that its reality labs virtual reality business achieved a revenue of $452million and a loss of $2.81 billion in the quarter. The only thing that is "gratifying" is that its revenue increased by 48% year-on-year, and the growth rate continued to rise compared with the first quarter.

In fact, reality labs is an important part of meta's metauniverse at present. When it was renamed in October last year, meta CEO Zuckerberg said that the company would "all in metaverse", and virtual and augmented reality head displays would become the main next-generation computing platforms, and huge investments would be made in technology and prototypes in the next few years. Meta then recruited a large number of employees from reality labs. Last year, it recruited more than 13000 employees, and nearly 6000 employees in the first quarter of this year.

At the same time, meta also acquired VR companies and start-ups that developed core headphone technology in the market.

However, in the second quarter of this year, meta reported a year-on-year decline in quarterly revenue for the first time. The company's revenue was $28.82 billion, down 1% from $29.07 billion in the second quarter of 2021. This is also the first time that meta (Facebook) has reported a year-on-year decline in quarterly revenue since its listing in 2007. Since 2021, the company's share price has fallen by nearly half.

In response to the slowdown in revenue and sustained investment, meta announced in May this year that some departments of the company had suspended recruitment. In July, the news that meta will lay off 10% spread widely, including the "Star" Department of reality labs.

The whole world is waiting for apples

Quest 2's next-generation product, meta's internal development code is "project Cambria", which is rumored to be launched in the second half of the year. The price is expected to be $799 (about 5389 yuan), and even as high as $1500 (about 10116 yuan).

Sony also recently announced the new details of the second generation of PS VR, including perspective function, customization function, VR and theater mode, but these functions have been implemented on Quest 2.

When the VR hardware market lacks bright spots, many consumers are waiting for Apple's ar product release.

For many years, there have been rumors that apple is actively developing some form of ar/vr device. Compared with similar products in the market, Apple's ar/vr head display (all-in-one machine) is more fashionable in appearance, lighter in weight and comfortable to wear. The latest news is that Apple's ar/vr head display (all-in-one) will be released later this year, but the more conservative guess is next year.

As for apple, Zuckerberg recently stated publicly that the competition between meta and apple in the "meta universe" will determine the development direction of the Internet.

At a recent staff communication meeting, Zuckerberg said that meta would position itself as a more open and cheaper universal product.

Domestic new products successively appeared in the second half of the year

In China, because Apple's ar/vr has not been launched and Quest 2 has not been officially launched, the market pattern is completely different.

According to IDC's report, in the first quarter of 2022, 257000 VR head displays were shipped in the Chinese market, with a year-on-year increase of 14.8%, of which 228000 VR all-in-one machines were shipped, accounting for 88.9% of the overall VR shipments. Pico neo3 of ByteDance's bird look technology, iqiyi's adventure dream and Adventure 3 were the top three product models shipped in the consumer market.

At the same time, market dynamics show that Chinese manufacturers continue to increase their investment in the consumer market, and have made adjustments to consumer demand from the perspective of product form, price positioning, content products and so on. Manufacturers who previously specialized in the commercial market also have plans to launch new consumer grade head-on displays this year.

In addition, new all-in-one VR products will be launched in the second half of the year. IDC said that the unit price positioning of the new products will be higher than that of the entry-level products launched last year, especially the short coke products will appear in the second half of the year.