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ByteDance’s Pico VR unit is cutting hundreds of jobs after ramping up competition with Meta

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/...-hundreds-jobs-after-ramping-competition-meta
  • Some teams will see nearly a third of their staff cut in the latest round of lay-offs for the TikTok owner, people familiar with the matter said
  • ByteDance acquired the headset maker in 2021 in a bet on VR and recently launched the Pico 4, which has compared favourably to Meta’s Quest 2

    https://www.scmp.com/topics/bytedance?module=inline&pgtype=article
ByteDance’s virtual reality headset maker Pico is conducting a round of lay-offs expected to affect hundreds of employees, according to two people familiar with the matter, hitting a subsidiary once seen as an avenue to future growth outside short video apps TikTokand Douyin.

The job cuts could affect a substantial portion of Pico, with some teams trimmed by as much as 30 per cent, one of the people said. Some higher-level positions are affected, the other person said without going into specifics.
Most former employees will be compensated based on the number of years they have served plus one month’s salary, the first person said.
ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The latest lay-offs come just months after the subsidiary, which ByteDance acquired in 2021 for an estimated 5 billion yuan (US$772 million), launched its flagship Pico 4 stand-alone VR headset in September. The company launched the device with high hopes for market growth, and it drew favourable comparisons to Meta Platforms’ Quest 2, which is not officially available in China.
Pico founder and president Henry Zhou told Chinese media last year that the firm expected to eventually sell more than 1 million units of the headset.

With a smaller global reach than Meta’s, Pico is currently selling in China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and 13 European countries.
The company has not revealed sales or shipment numbers, but third-party analysis suggests it is gaining market share at the expense of Meta, whose share had fallen to 75 per cent in the third quarter of 2022 from 90 per cent at the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, Pico’s share tripled to about 15 per cent in the same period, according to market intelligence firm IDC.

Pico has not mentioned any plans for a launch in North America, where it has yet to sell its headsets, but it posted a job listing last year that included responsibilities for “sales and marketing of Pico’s overall product in the US consumer market”.

I again have to question how much money do companies need to lose to actually compete in the VR market instead of just aiming for a niche audience with low production and minimal marketing.

From Zucker losing almost $14 billion last year, to whatever losses Byte Dance lost here resulting in numerous cuts, while also expecting to sell 1 million headsets they were not able to reach, was that the breakeven point or would that just justify the losses? Since they failed to reach that metric they are probably even further in the hole. Then you have HTC which is now producing limited units for their new headsets to prevent money losses, several brands dropped out, etc.

I'm not entirely sure if "really" competing in this market all-in is sustainable. I mean we have DPLR cutting shipments, TCL, Samsung, Apple, Bigscreen, and others are coming soon, but how much are they prepared to lose in order to sell 1 Million headsets or more and steal marketshare from the leader, that same leader lost near $14 billion dollars just in 2022 alone and JUST on things related to the headset directly, not separate software development and etc.

How much will Sony and Samsung need to sell to reduce losses, how much to break even? How much to bring in profits? But if they spend millions on software, marketing, tools, etc, then will that even matter? Zucker may have shipped 8 million Quest 2's last year maybe 9 of the 9.6 million shipped headsets worldwide in 2022, but he still lost almost $14 billion in cash. The market is not in a healthy position right now if your goal is to gain marketshare.

It seems like the current VR market is, do your best upfront to see if you can keep going, and if that doesn't work out start cutting investment to reduce losses until things stagnant and there's not much support.
 
Sony has been profitable in their VR efforts. If you buy a PSVR, you buy a PS5, if you buy a PS5, you buy playstation software.

Sony is also extremely reliant on word of mouth, and the typical console gamer’s awareness. Rather than matching facebook huge advertising efforts to get normies.

I think it would be important for PSVR… for Dreams to have a sandbox VR mode similar to Minecraft, strong 3D movie support(for cinephile enthusiasm), and a AAA exercise game/platform.
 
Sony is also extremely reliant on word of mouth, and the typical console gamer’s awareness. Rather than matching facebook huge advertising efforts to get normies.

Sony literally had a huge marketing campaign for PSVR1, to get the normies, and is not picking up ads now for what I assume will be another major marketing campaign.

what is their play anyway?

I mean the answer to this question is in the OP.
 
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