Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 491 The arrival of a new virtual era!
Gu Zhiming is running around outside, doing various tasks for the mass production of universal virtual equipment, and many of the supply chain manufacturers below love and fear Gu Zhiming!
What I love is that as the senior vice president of Zhiyun Group and the person in charge of the supply chain, many of Gu Zhiming’s decisions can even be said to have affected the life and death of many supply chain companies.

What I am afraid of is Gu Zhiming’s extremely high requirements for the supply chain!

Zhiyun Group’s supply chain system can be said to be the most demanding supply chain in China and even in the world!

And the stringent requirements of this supply chain are not reflected simply in price. In fact, in Zhiyun Group's supply chain, price is only one of the measurement factors, and it is not even an important factor.

The demanding nature of Zhiyun Group's supply chain is mainly reflected in its high technical standards!

Zhiyun Group is rushing forward. The new products it launches every year have huge technological improvements. This technological improvement is not only made by Zhiyun Group itself, but many of them are developed by supply chain manufacturers according to the requirements of Zhiyun Group.

Once the technological progress of supply chain manufacturers cannot keep up with the pace of Zhiyun Group, they will be abandoned by Zhiyun Group without hesitation.

This kind of technological competition is actually the most demanding and is the core factor that creates tremendous pressure on many supply chain companies.

Because this means that supply chain companies need to maintain huge R&D investments, otherwise they will not be able to produce spare parts that meet Zhiyun Group's technical standards.

But research and development does not always produce results!

In fact, every year there are supply chain manufacturers that are eliminated because of huge R&D funding but fail to obtain corresponding R&D outputs.

So this requires a large and stable capital chain, as well as a little bit of luck.

Of course, if supply chain companies can achieve technological breakthroughs, the rewards will be extremely rich!
The huge order from Zhiyun Group will cause the supplier's revenue and profits to soar rapidly... The prices given for early orders will also be very good, allowing the supplier to maintain a relatively high gross profit.

Large orders and relatively high gross profit margins will lead to a rapid increase in suppliers' overall revenue and profits.

Therefore, success is just one step to heaven...If you fail, sorry, what awaits the company is only a sharp drop in revenue and profit, and it will fall out of the leading position in this branch of the industry.

Therefore, it is not easy to be a supply chain manufacturer of Zhiyun Group, and the pressure is very high.

And Gu Zhiming's personal inspection will naturally bring greater pressure to these suppliers.

While Gu Zhiming was busy outside, at the Zhiyun Group headquarters, Ji Chenghe was also working with the marketing department to formulate various marketing plans.

Various message guides starting from now on will be used to warm up in advance.

Then to the various arrangements for the press conference.

The most important thing is the advertising and marketing activities after the official release of the universal virtual device, as well as the early flagship store distribution and experience, etc.

The senior management of Zhiyun Group hopes that after the official release of Wanxiang Virtual Equipment, it will cause a huge sensation around the world, thereby bringing in enough sales to lay the foundation for the entire virtual industry.

Even Ji Chenghe and his colleagues had a heavy task. They needed to ensure that within one or two months, the news of Zhiyun Wanxiang virtual equipment would spread all over the world and let as many people as possible know about it.

At the same time, we need to spark a big discussion and arouse people's curiosity and expectations about the virtual world.

Then, through the actual experience of people in the early experience centers, and by spreading this feeling around the world, this curiosity and expectation can become real, thereby attracting potential customers to place orders, whether it is a rare wealthy individual purchase, or an investor who wants to enter the virtual industry and open a virtual equipment experience center.

In short, the ultimate goal is to sell more virtual devices!

At the same time, we can use the huge momentum created in the early stage to attract more content manufacturers to join in and enrich the content ecology of virtual devices.

It is far from enough to only have the two games and some simulation software provided by Yihai Technology in the early stage... Although Yihai Technology has stated that they have urgently developed a batch of content projects with relatively simple content but short production cycle, which are expected to be released one after another after the device is launched on the market.

But this is still not enough!
Even though Yihai Technology has strong development capabilities, it is only one company.

Zhiyun Group also needs more content manufacturers to join the content ecosystem of virtual devices to create a rich and exciting virtual world content ecosystem.

This is also why Zhiyun Group has already invited many other large Internet companies, including several domestic and overseas.

However, this is still not enough.

As the news that Zhiyun Group is about to release virtual devices has been officially announced, Ji Chenghe also cooperated with Zhiyun Group's software and Internet division to hold a "Virtual Internet Developer Conference" for medium and large Internet manufacturers.

Although it was a temporary invitation, all the major Internet companies that received the invitation, whether they were in the social networking, gaming, or other content industries, immediately booked air tickets and rushed to Shenzhen to prepare for the meeting.

Zhiyun Group is preparing to enter a new virtual device track...although the outside world is not quite clear about what technical route Zhiyun Group's virtual devices are based on and what they look like.

However, Zhiyun Group's serious promotion with such a huge momentum is enough to prove Zhiyun Group's confidence in this virtual device.

The door to the virtual world has been opened by Zhiyun Group, and a brand-new industrial chain has begun to unfold slowly. Regardless of the future potential, they cannot be ignored.

At least in the early stages, especially before Zhiyun Group's virtual equipment fails, they will not ignore it.

After all, no one dares to say what the virtual equipment developed by Zhiyun Group will become in the future.

If a completely new virtual world is created and virtual games or other types of virtual content ecosystems are developed in the future, you will regret it if you don’t join in now.

When the mobile Internet era arrived, many traditional Internet companies failed to keep up with the pace, underestimated the huge potential brought by smartphones, and eventually declined.

And no Internet manufacturer is willing to fall behind the times...even though Zhiyun Group's virtual devices are still secretive and the future is unclear.

Besides, Yihai Technology has already entered the virtual Internet industry. If they are not afraid, why should I be afraid?
Just rush forward!
Especially for some game manufacturers or large Internet companies with game businesses, they pay more attention to the virtual device developed by Zhiyun Group.

After all, it is a virtual device, and just by the sound of it you know it is very suitable for playing games.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know, it’s all written in science fiction novels…

Does this mean that the future gaming market will shift towards the virtual gaming market?

This is a change that many game manufacturers are worried about and looking forward to.

——————

As a result, Shenzhen Airport welcomed a large number of executives from Internet companies, all of whom were rushing to attend Zhiyun Group's "Virtual Internet Development Conference."

This also attracted the attention of a large number of media reporters, and many reporters took the opportunity to interview a large number of Internet executives who attended the conference.

People from Tencent, a social networking and gaming giant, told reporters that they are very optimistic about the future development of the virtual Internet. They also said that Tencent has established multiple virtual world projects, including the transfer of social software to virtualization, and is preparing to launch a new virtual device version of social software, allowing people to connect with friends in the virtual world and smoothly communicate and share!

At the same time, they also revealed that they are developing a number of virtual games, including a virtual version of a very popular multiplayer battlefield shooting game, and revealed that it will be produced using the current top-level simulation game engine, and its picture quality will exceed any previous traditional flat game.
Another major domestic game manufacturer, Yangzhu Technology, said that they are developing a virtual game based on the theme of Journey to the West, using the most advanced simulation game engine and top-notch graphics to allow people to experience the many shocks of Journey to the West firsthand.

Another large domestic game manufacturer, Wanjie Technology, said it has launched the research and development of a virtual game with fairy-tale themes, and said that in the new virtual world, players can truly experience the feeling of being a fairy riding a flying sword, riding a dragon, phoenix, or crane and soaring into the sky!
These large manufacturers have actually received direct cooperation invitations from Zhiyun Group and obtained the "Zhiyun Simulation Engine" developed by Zhiyun Group specifically for virtual devices... All the above-mentioned games are actually developed based on this simulation engine.

Many foreign manufacturers are also unwilling to lag behind. Many large manufacturers have obtained simulation engines in advance and have launched corresponding projects one after another.

Their vision is just as sharp and is not much worse than that of domestic Internet manufacturers!
They also see the huge future potential of virtual devices...now is the best time to get in on the action.

Although everyone knows that it may not be profitable in the early stages, this is for the future!
Everyone is betting that Zhiyun Group’s virtual devices will sell well in the future and create an enormous virtual Internet market!
With the official start of the Virtual Internet Developers Conference!
Qu Xuewen, vice president of Zhiyun Group and responsible for various virtual businesses, came on stage and gave a lot of explanations on the development of the content platform for virtual devices.

It is mainly aimed at developers, including the "Zhiyun Simulation Engine", and announced that the simulation engine will be permanently licensed for free to virtual games or other virtual content running on Zhiyun virtual devices.

Any enterprise can apply to Zhiyun Group for authorization to use!

Of course, games or other content developed using this engine can only be used on Zhiyun virtual devices... It's not a software limitation, but there are no other similar virtual devices.

Any content developed using this engine will actually be exclusive to Zhiyun Virtual Devices.

So Zhiyun Group does not charge any fees. Not only does it not charge any fees, but it also provides a lot of technical development software and guidance materials.

At the same time, the exclusive content platform for Zhiyun virtual devices, "Zhiyun Virtual APP Mall", was also announced.

The platform will be developed and operated by Zhiyun Mall Technology Co., Ltd. under the software and Internet division of Zhiyun Group. The platform is directly built into the operating system of the virtual device, and all software of the entire system can only be downloaded from this platform. This is similar to the Zhiyun APP Mall and is a closed ecological platform.

Zhiyun Group wants to collect a share of the profits!

In addition to these contents that many developers are concerned about, Qu Xuewen also announced that in order to further expand the influence of virtual content.

In the future, some virtual content will support the current Zhiyun VR glasses and other VR glasses that meet the requirements on the market. As long as the other party's system supports it, Zhiyun has no restrictions in this regard.

Of course, this support is limited to viewing pure picture content and regular operations, and it is viewing with reduced picture quality!
Therefore, the application in this area is mainly limited to some virtual social software, virtual video content, etc. that do not have high hardware requirements, but does not include core games.

To put it bluntly, you can only watch but not play, and what you watch is pure video!
This pure video is very different from the screen presentation on the virtual device.

There is no way around it. The Yun VR2 under Zhiyun Group is priced at just over yuan, and it is already considered a high-end product among VR glasses. It is also the most expensive VR product on the market.

However, even with Yun VR2, there is still a huge difference in hardware performance and the helmet display on the omnidirectional virtual device... The huge difference in the screen is a small matter. The most important thing is the picture support hardware of Yun VR 2, that is, the graphics card is still the built-in small graphics card.

However, in order to support its image presentation, the helmet display on the omnidirectional virtual device uses a graphics card array consisting of four X5 graphics cards. This thing is also very expensive, with a selling price of more than 2 yuan. These four gaming graphics cards alone cost more than yuan, which is more expensive than two Yun VRs combined!
However, even four X5s, the top-level consumer graphics cards that Zhiyun has not yet announced, cannot support the huge computing power required by Zhiyun's simulation engine for physical simulation. Therefore, this part also requires the mobilization of the computing power of the central computing center.

This means that it is not possible to take out a single helmet display and sell it to the public at a cheap price of tens of thousands of yuan so that people can experience a simplified version of a virtual game.

However, Zhiyun Group's virtual device project team does have a simplified version of the plan, which is to remove the costly motion system and only have a helmet display, and then support an immersive picture experience, plus some physical simulation performance. As for operation, you can continue to use traditional handles or keyboard and mouse.

In this case, you can use a helmet display and a supporting host to present it. This host has two X5 graphics card arrays, CPU, memory, flash memory, and a relatively cheap APO4500 computing power card.

Then the selling price can be relatively cheaper at 200,000!
However, in this case, although this beggar version can experience virtual content and operate in traditional ways, it loses the biggest advantage of virtual devices: action!

Action is very important!
With motion support, people can be immersed in it, as if they were in the real world.

What kind of virtual world is it if you can’t perform various actions yourself?

If you just look at the picture and then use traditional operations, it will look very weird... Basically, it is not much different from playing games with VR glasses now, except that the picture is better.

Therefore, it is still unknown whether the traditional operation trial version priced at RMB 200,000 can have a market... The virtual equipment project team of Zhiyun Group simply thought that it would not require much additional R&D costs anyway, so they might as well create another one.

As for Xu Shenxue and other senior executives of the group, they place their hopes on the future reduction in various hardware costs, especially the cost reduction brought about by the continuous decline in the costs of various types of chips, and finally gradually reduce the selling price of virtual equipment.

Now it is 800,000, but what about three years later? Can it be done with 400,000?

In a few years, can we reach 200,000 or even 100,000?
At worst, I can just sell the old model!
As more and more old models are purchased, the cost will inevitably continue to decline, so there is hope that the cost can be significantly reduced in the future.

This is the idea of ​​Xu Shenxue and other senior group executives. While the virtual equipment project team is doing this, they are also trying to use more methods to allow more people to experience it, increase sales, and thus reduce costs.

In short, do everything you can, and leave the rest to the market!
----

A virtual world developer conference conveyed a lot of important information to the outside world. A group of media reporters began to issue various press releases to the outside world before the meeting was over.

"Zhiyun announced the world's first virtual game development engine, 'Zhiyun Simulation Engine', which has perfect simulation performance of the physical properties of the real world!"

This is bragging...even Zhiyun Group itself doesn't dare to brag like this.

The real world is so complex that a mere simulation development engine cannot possibly simulate the real world, not even one ten-thousandth of it.

To simulate the real world, the computing power required is too much...

Zhiyun Simulation Engine just tries to make the images and some effects look like the real world!

Looking like and simulating the real world are two different things!
The former is to paint a picture, and the latter is to create a world, which belong to different dimensions.

However, many self-media simply ignored these and directly praised it as simulated reality. Some even said seriously that the game effects produced by Zhiyun's virtual simulation development engine have achieved 80% or even higher simulation of the real world.

For the sake of traffic, I don’t even think twice before bragging!
Another point that the media is concerned about is that Zhiyun Group announced that some virtual content in the future will support some existing VR glasses. Although it can only support some virtual content and can only be used to watch pure images...but this still makes many people guess a general feature of Zhiyun Group's virtual equipment.

That is Zhiyun Group’s virtual device, and its picture presentation is very likely to adopt VR glasses or helmet modes, rather than the various powerful brain-computer interface modes previously rumored.

Many people have previously vowed that Zhiyun Group has solved the non-invasive brain-computer interface technology, which allows people to complete information transmission between the human brain and virtual devices through brain waves without surgical implantation of flexible electrodes.

So this is how we can make a virtual device!

This is pure nonsense. Zhiyun Group is still in the exploratory stage in the field of brain-computer technology. Invasive technical solutions have just started and are still very imperfect... otherwise they would have been promoted and applied long ago.

As for non-invasive brain-computer interface technology, the current research and development progress is even slower.

This involves many extremely complex issues such as the human brain, neural signal transmission and recognition, and it cannot be solved in one or two years.

There are still a lot of problems.

Even though Xu Shenxue controls the scientific research system and promotes the development of various black technology, he dare not say that he can solve these problems within ten years.

However, Xu Shenxue also believes that with the continuous development of technology, it will be possible sooner or later!

Now, let’s get an omnidirectional virtual device to play with and initially pry open the door to the virtual world!
As a lot of news appeared in various news media, both true and false, the news of Zhiyun Group's virtual equipment spread widely around the world.

Not to mention the various widespread discussions in China, the country that is most concerned overseas is the United States, with all kinds of discussions and analyses.

There is also discussion about whether Zhiyun Group's virtual device will enter the US market in the future... This aspect is still unknown.

Zhiyun Group is preparing to launch its own virtual equipment into the US market as a training simulation device, just like aviation simulators, automotive simulation training equipment, etc. However, the US is currently in the approval stage and has not given a clear result.

This involves the question of whether this universal virtual device can be regarded as a smart terminal device!
The US market's sales ban on Zhiyun Group is not comprehensive, but is limited to smart terminals, software and Internet businesses, mainly mobile phones, computers, tablets, smart watches, AI glasses, Bluetooth headsets, and smart homes.

That is, a series of products under the smart terminal business of Zhiyun Group!

However, it does not include enterprise services, chips and other products.

Although Zhiyun Group’s intelligent robots cannot be sold to individuals in the United States, they can indeed be introduced as business production equipment for enterprises and then rented to consumers…

Zhiyun's intelligent robots are classified as "mechanical equipment" in the US market... just like Xiaojiang Technology's drones, which are not positioned as drones in many overseas markets, but as a type of filming equipment. This is a case of everyone trying to cover up their own mistakes.

The reason why intelligent robots can be listed in the United States is that there is no competing product. At the same time, the United States also hopes that the entry of Zhiyun Robot's products can stimulate the domestic robot market and prompt domestic companies to develop similar products...When American companies also develop similar robots, Zhiyun's robots will definitely be banned from sale!

But now in the field of robotics, the United States has no alternatives, so it turns a blind eye.

Zhiyun Group's Wanxiang Virtual Equipment is also preparing to follow the same model to enter the US market, but whether it can obtain approval remains unknown.

The market in the United States is rather special, but it is much more convenient in the markets of other overseas countries such as Europe, Japan, South Korea, etc. Basically, Zhiyun phones can be sold wherever they can be sold.

However, due to the limitations of initial production capacity and the high price of the product, Zhiyun Group's universal virtual equipment is only intended to target domestic markets and developed regions such as Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Canada.

By the end of November, Zhiyun Group had completed the preparations for the release and sale of Wanxiang virtual equipment.

The flagship store of the Virtual Experience Center in Shenzhen has also been renovated, and dozens of omnidirectional virtual devices have been transported in and installed in a covert manner!

Many media reporters at the scene were trying to take photos to obtain relevant information, but Zhiyun Group simply loaded the equipment into large boxes and shipped it in. All outsiders could see were large boxes, and they had no idea what the virtual equipment inside looked like.

This also aroused people's greater curiosity!

Amid much anticipation, on December 8th, Zhiyun Group officially held a press conference for the launch of Universal Virtual Equipment!
For a time, the whole world paid attention!
The scene reminded many people of the time when Apple released its first smartphone, and also reminded people of the time when Zhiyun released the S9 mobile phone!
This means that a brand new era is about to come!

And this era will be the virtual era!
(End of this chapter)