Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Strategy is strategy, and practice is practice.

Achilles, a hero in ancient Greek mythology. Because he was immersed in the River Styx upside down at birth, he gained an extremely powerful immortal body, but his pinched heel became his only death point, which did lead to his defeat in the duel.

Nowadays, there is a growing view that hardware is the Achilles heel of Tencent, a giant.

At a time when VR is in the limelight, any hint of hardware will be associated with the concept of meta-universe, which will attract special attention, especially when the protagonist of the incident is still Tencent. Just today, the cloud game handset launched by Tencent and Logitech will be officially launched, as if trying to make up for the hardware.

However, in the view of Core Competition, this handset is not closely related to Tencent's meta-universe strategy, and it has not risen to the core of the group at the strategic level, but Tencent's passivity in hardware has indeed reached a level that can not be ignored.

01. Tencent is not on a whim. In fact, before reaching a cooperation with Logitech, Tencent has made many attempts in the handset direction.

At first, Tencent chose to develop its own handheld machine, and although it has not been publicized or confirmed officially, according to the data of the State intellectual property Office, it can be seen that Tencent applied for an appearance patent called a game console in March 2021.

As can be seen from the model diagram of this product, the handset uses a Xbox-style staggered joystick layout, with Win10 icon and PC Console printed on the back, which is supposed to provide players with a mobile experience of PC games and is expected to support game streaming.

Although the patent for this handset has been officially issued, there has been no news about its progress or launch, which is likely to lead to the overall miscarriage of the project. There is no way to verify the specific reason, but Tencent's exploration of the handset has not stopped there.

After giving up self-research, Tencent turned to the most familiar way of investing. The OneXPlayer, developed and designed by Shenzhen No.1, funded by them, is another attempt by Tencent on the Win10 handset.

The OneXPlayer has an 8.4-inch IPS display and supports 10:00 touch. Processors and graphics cards use multiple models of Intel 11 Core, as well as core Iris Xe, which can theoretically play most 3A games with a 60-fps screen, and the hardware specifications are very powerful.

At present, the price of this series of handheld phones between JD.com 5699 and 8999 still deters players, and does not produce a large market volume and sales volume. In fact, this kind of scheme using Windows system is the mainstream form of domestic handset at present. It mainly provides the mobile experience of games on PC, and can achieve basic office requirements, so it may be more appropriate to call them portable PC. And the best of them is Steam Deck, which has the shortest launch time.

Relying on the virtuous circle between hardware and content to build a mutually exclusive commercial moat is a successful model repeatedly verified by the overseas gaming industry in the past few decades. This is why G Pang will compare Steam Deck to the original iPhone, hoping to form a complete ecology with Steam based on this hardware.

In order to achieve this goal, Steam Deck launched with "the world's most powerful and fully functional handheld game computer" as a gimmick to play 3A games such as "Ghost crying 5", "Control" and "death stranding" through the stacking of materials at the hardware level. Due to the pursuit of performance, the handset can only compromise on weight and range. A number of evaluation institutions have measured that if you run a 3A game, you will run out of power in only 1.5 hours, and the battery life is far from satisfactory.

At the content level, the handset can be connected to Steam's massive game library. Because the 3A-level works will basically choose to be first released on the host side, and the PC side will be used as a supplementary channel. So Steam Deck won't have a big impact on Sony and Microsoft. For Nintendo Switch, because of the uniqueness and non-replicability of Nintendo's first party products, it is difficult for Steam Deck to challenge its content for a short time. Even there is a big difference between them in the target user group.

At present, the user base of Steam Deck is mainly Steam users who want to play purchased games on mobile. So the Steam Deck is not so much a device that can reach new users as it can provide a new way of playing games for existing Steam players. Due to the problem of battery life, the most appropriate scenario may be to play some independent games with low power consumption at any time.

02. Is the handset a fake demand? From the author's point of view, expensive mobile game devices such as handsets can not be called pseudo-demand, but they are by no means a promising good business.

Take the black shark, which was recently revealed to have failed to be incorporated into Tencent, as the first manufacturer to launch the subcategory of games / e-sports mobile phones, the market share of black sharks once exceeded 50 per cent. However, the product positioning, so that this market segment can not support a company to become bigger and stronger space.

According to Canalys, the total number of mobile phone shipments in the game market in 2020 was only about 1.6 million, less than 1/20 of Hongmi note8. Even with a 50% + market share, black sharks are unable to change the limitations of market segments. Not to mention the end of the head mobile phone manufacturers, after the sudden intensification of competition, it is already difficult to survive.

Game / e-sports mobile phone, mainly for gamers. In order to ensure first-class computing performance, like the flagship models of various brands, they all use the latest Snapdragon chip, but this means that the performance cannot be far behind that of the flagship machine. It can only make a fuss about heat dissipation, screen refresh rate, physical shoulder keys and so on. It is true that the game experience has been improved, but the performance-to-price ratio is very low. Users spend even more than the price of the flagship machine, and only get a slightly stronger game experience, and far less than the comprehensive ability of the flagship computer.

Whether this situation looks familiar or not, the Win handsets on the market are also facing the same awkward situation. Whether it is the OneXPlayer series of No.1 or the Win Max series of GPD. From the point of view of game performance, the price of 6-7K is not cost-effective, so players who pursue the game experience should choose a game host with lower price and stronger performance. Players who pursue portability and more use of scenarios will also find that traditional gaming instincts do better.

From this point of view, the Steam Deck of V Society is the most likely product to achieve commercial success. But even so, Steam Deck is more of a supplement to the existing gaming methods for Steam users and can become a strategic product line, but there is no way to support a company's operation.

If it is profitable for V Society to be a handset or a Steam-based user base, why is Tencent involved in the field of handset?

It is said that for the hardware entrance of the next era, a product for a small range of specific people obviously can not carry such a weight, XR equipment is the choice of the current industry. It is said that in order to expand the cross-end scene of the game, Tencent does not have any first-party PC masterpiece, and the users and content volume of WeGame are not as imaginative as Steam.

Combined with the biggest selling point of this handheld is the cloud game, which is more like a technical test platform, and the most likely consideration should be through linkage with terminal devices. On the one hand, it reduces the end-to-end delay in cloud games, on the other hand, the handheld operation can better adapt to PC / host games than mobile phones, and enhance the full-link game experience.

From this point of view, Tencent may be one of the few game companies in China that continue to invest and try in the field of cloud games. In the environment of reducing costs and increasing efficiency in the industry as a whole, new cooperative handsets can also be launched, which also releases a signal that the cloud travel route of the START system has not been abandoned.

On the cloud travel route, START unveiled a new START ENGINE at this year's TGC conference, demonstrating its strength in cloud rendering. In the living room scene, START continues to innovate on the aurora cloud game box and launches a cloud game acceleration router that continues to infiltrate the living room scene.

In addition, previous self-research attempts and agency experience may make Tencent realize that every hardware field has its own inherent development path, and the alliance with industry manufacturers may become the most conventional first choice for Tencent to cover the hardware field.

It is reported that the cooperation with Logitech is led by Tencent's intelligent innovation business unit, which once belonged to Tencent's mobile Internet business group and has experience in R & D of hardware such as intelligent speakers. Later, due to the structural adjustment, it was incorporated into the IEG business group, which led the cooperation between Tencent Games and ROG and other hardware manufacturers.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to START, this cloud gaming phone is also connected to Microsoft's cloud gaming service. Based on the higher acceptance of console devices and 3A games by core overseas players, the handset may have greater publicity investment in overseas markets, with a view to building the user ecology and distribution base of Tencent's globalization strategy.

At present, however, the strategic level of this cooperation should remain at the enterprise group level. It is not enough to rise to the group's core strategy until sales reach the threshold of 20 million or show amazing potential in overseas markets.

03. Tencent's Achilles handheld is not enough to affect Tencent's core strategy. Tencent has missed the time window for entering VR devices, which is the source of concern about Tencent hardware in the market, especially when it lags behind compared to byte jumps.

What will be the impact of missing VR on Tencent? What kind of company is Tencent?

Tencent's most well-known tag should be gaming companies or social companies, because these two businesses are closest to Volkswagen. But from the perspective of core competitiveness, social networking is the cornerstone of all Tencent's To C business. Wechat and QQ have given Tencent a network of acquaintances so that its gaming business can always get lower customer acquisition costs, stronger user stickiness and more penetrating operations than its competitors.

Social networking is the basic disk of Tencent, and Tencent will continue to lead social networking in every technological change at all costs. The resources it is willing to invest in social networking are unmatched by other companies.

Among the many social types, acquaintances have the strongest social stickiness and the deepest moat. For strangers to socialize, users are looking for new experiences and constantly updated objects, so they are willing to change App, but it is difficult to replace acquaintances. The connections made in the social interaction of strangers will then be transferred to Wechat.

So in the domestic market, on the surface, the competition between the two giants of Tencent NetEase has never stopped. But in fact, NetEase can not shake the foundation of Tencent, even if the failure of a product may reduce Tencent's influence on a certain type of game for a period of time. But as long as the social foundation does not collapse, there will always be a game that can get the game back, and the fault tolerance rate of a single product is much higher than that of other manufacturers.

In terms of the sense of pressure given to Tencent, NetEase, who has been fighting for so many years, may not be as good as the fledgling byte game. As the most widespread time killer, Douyin series short video App first squeezes out the original game part of users in terms of time.

More importantly, Douyin's short video content has become an important part of people's social content, and the IM and video call functions provided by App are trying to transform the entertainment and social interaction between acquaintances from Wechat to Douyin. Sharing interesting videos with friends can be done in App, so there's no need to go for a ride on Wechat.

Moreover, Douyin, like Wechat QQ, not only connects social functions, but also connects entertainment, payment, offline experience and many other services, and has become an important medium for the whole ecology, which is enough to arouse Tencent's fear and hostility. At the game level, Tencent has achieved strict defense against byte jumps, but Tencent is a bit slow on VR hardware.

As early as 2020, Ma Huateng put forward the concept of the all-true Internet. Although there are differences in naming, the core of the more immersive and interactive experience is homologous to the meta-universe. However, Tencent did not choose to run the enclosure on VR hardware for the first time, just like Meta, which also has a social background.

One of the important reasons for this may be that the conflict between social business and hardware platform made Tencent hesitant. For acquaintance social products like Wechat QQ, the most important thing is to connect every user's social links as much as possible, so that users can find all their friends on Wechat QQ. To do this, Wechat QQ needs to be available on all brands of devices.

With the current level of users of Wechat QQ, probably no mobile phone manufacturer dares to turn it down. But when it comes to a new hardware platform, especially an immersive one, it is uncertain whether Wechat QQ can still turn green all the way.

Unlike smartphones, VR's immersive experience is reflected not only in content, but also in its physical form. When the user wears a pair of fully wrapped glasses, it is difficult to operate the phone visually. Due to the trouble of wearing and stripping, it is equivalent to the time when users use VR headers are separated from the phone and the social software in the phone. This gives all hardware vendors a vacuum opportunity to build social scenarios within VR.

If Tencent does not make hardware, it will at least be able to launch most of the hardware platforms with the power of Wechat QQ users. Once Tencent shows its coveted heart on VR hardware, a software and hardware ecosystem will be opened, and the new Apple in VR, which covers almost all domestic Internet users, is something that all hardware manufacturers do not want to see. Wechat QQ will most likely be strongly rejected and blocked on these platforms.

So Tencent's unusual slowness in VR hardware is understandable, and it doesn't matter if you don't get into the hardware. As long as you continue to master social networking, you will still have confidence in successful replication in meta-universe. However, the decisive end of byte gave Tencent a backstab, the rapid development of PICO, and the fact that short video content was more landing and communicative than the game in the early days of the meta-universe, all reminding Tencent that it had lost its hand and that its opponent wanted to kill Tai long.

Whether byte is allowed to have a say in VR hardware or enter a hardware field that is not good at, it will lead to the loss of social foundation in the next era, which Tencent cannot tolerate. Tencent, which is in a dilemma, has made its own choice: etc. Tencent intends to buy black shark to do VR hardware at the beginning of the year, and the action that it chooses to give up recently can also be verified from the side.

The initial installed capacity of PICO and the overall grim macroeconomic environment slow down the momentum of meta-universe and give Tencent the opportunity and space to wait for the opportunity. Wait until the window of meta-universe really arrives, wait until mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung intensify the intensity of competition, and wait until byte can not hold up the continuous investment of PICO and slow down. At that time, Tencent will make its own choice whether to join the hardware fight or overtake on the bend through cloud games.

Conclusion Tencent chose to launch a cloud game handset, which is an attempt to grasp the core user ecology and distribution channels in the global strategy in the short term. In the long run, the cloud game technology behind the handset is a necessity for Tencent to build a fully authentic Internet. Therefore, no matter how Tencent makes its choice in hardware in the future, it is necessary to release the cloud game handset this time.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:Coreesports, author: Wu Di

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