As the carrier of virtual reality interaction, the concept of meta-universe continues to be hot, and Internet giants have laid out related fields one after another.

According to the heavenly eye, a few days ago, NetEase, Inc applied for the registration of trademarks such as "NetEase Yuan Universe", "Lei Huo Yuan Universe" and "Fuxi Yuan Universe"; Baidu, Inc. applied for the registration of the "metaapp" trademark, which may lay out the Yuan Universe.

However, the capital markets do not seem to be interested. As of Tuesday's close, Baidu, Inc. was down 4.73% at $162.27 per share, while NetEase, Inc was down 2.33% at $100.29 per share.

The first year of Yuan Universe

The concept of "meta-universe" comes from American science fiction writer Neil Stephenson's work Avalanche, which tells the story of a virtual digital world parallel to the real world. "put on headphones and eyepieces and find the connection terminal. You will be able to enter the virtual space simulated by computer and parallel to the real world in a virtual split. "

The oasis in the movie "number one player" is a portrayal of the meta-universe, similar to the "utopian" world.

The "2020-2021 Yuan Universe Development Research report" released by the New Media Research Center of Tsinghua University points out that behind the popularity of the concept of meta-universe is the platform form of the involution of the Internet industry.

At the present stage, Internet manufacturers lack a breakthrough in content carrier, communication mode, interaction mode, sense of participation and interaction for a long time, which leads to "undeveloped growth" and needs to find new growth points.

In addition to NetEase, Inc and Baidu, Inc., byte beat, Tencent and other manufacturers are also laying out meta-universe-related industries.

In February last year, Tencent invested 150 million US dollars in the G-round financing of Roblox, the former a hot concept stock in meta-universe. Roblox continued to rise after its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in March, and so far its market capitalization has fallen from its peak, but it still stands at $45.7 billion.

Byte Jump invested in Qiankun, the Chinese version of Roblox, in April this year, with an amount of about 100m yuan. At the same time, Byte Jump intends to acquire VR manufacturer Pico.

Mihayou set up a joint laboratory with Shanghai Ruijin Hospital to establish digital therapy based on virtual reality technology. Lilith and other domestic manufacturers are also following the layout of the meta-universe concept industry.

Heavenly Eye check shows that the number of entries of meta-universe concept company has reached 665.

In addition, Facebook Inc recently announced that he would change the name of the company to Meta and transform it from social media to Metasmos. Its CEO Zuckerberg said that in the next five years, he wants to be a meta-universe company and set up a team of tens of thousands of people to develop meta-universe.

Tencent CEO Ma Huateng said in the internal publication, "an exciting opportunity is coming, the development of the mobile Internet for a decade, is about to usher in the next wave of upgrading, we call it the all-real Internet." "

Huaan Securities believes that in recent years, with Facebook Inc, NVIDIA Corp, Tencent and other domestic and foreign big companies have laid out meta-universe one after another, under the joint promotion of upstream software and hardware such as VR/AR and AI engines to reduce costs and increase efficiency, as well as downstream content and application richness, the "meta-universe" application scenario is expected to gradually fall to the ground.

The Open Source Securities Research News pointed out that the concept of meta-universe is huge, and the economic system and decentralized mechanism in its construction elements may face regulatory uncertainty, but its characteristics of "massively multiplayer online, immersive, virtual and real interaction" may drive the rapid development and integration of open world games, VR, AR and other fields, and will also become a commercialized or faster landing field in the next three years.

PricewaterhouseCoopers expects the metacosmos market to reach $1.5 trillion by 2030.

Hot spot or value Investment

Meta-universe is hot, and related concept stocks have become a hot topic in the capital market.

Wind meta-universe pointed out that in the past two trading days, 24 of the 84 concept stocks fell and 61 rose. Danghong Technology has the largest cumulative decline, reaching 8.43%, while Zhongqingbao has the largest cumulative increase, reaching 22.27%. Over the past 120 days, the cumulative increase has reached 272%.

However, Zhongqingbao announced on the evening of November 1 that meta-universe is a huge concept and model, which is still in the preliminary exploration stage, the concept is relatively shallow, the corresponding products are still under development, and there is great uncertainty about related matters. At the same time, it denies that the company has the concept of rubbing.

Caesar Culture also said in the interactive platform that the game background environment code-named "Animal Planet" is completely designed in accordance with the meta-universe model, with three dimensional elements of time, environment and ecology, as well as the introduction of NFT technology. This also means that the landing of the game cannot be completed in a short period of time.

The above Tsinghua University report believes that the conceptual layout of meta-universe is still concentrated in the field of XR and game social communication, the ecology of technology and content are not yet mature, the entrance to the scene needs to be broadened, and there is still a long process of "de-foaming" between ideal vision and realistic development.

Zuckerberg pointed out that it will take 10 to 15 years for the fruits of the meta-universe concept to fall to the ground.

Ma Jie, vice president of Baidu, Inc., also said at Baidu, Inc. 's AI Open Day that "if the concept of meta-universe is to come true, it involves not only pictures, but also the demand for interaction among many people." Meta-universe has a broad prospect, but its development still needs to be calm and pragmatic.

In this regard, some analysts believe that at this stage, the development of meta-universe is in the early stage, and the relevant investment should return to rationality. Publicity in the research and development of the game, some companies have the suspicion of hype to rub hot spots, to achieve the purpose of "cutting leeks".