Workers are seen at Tencent Scraps Plans for VR booth at the China Internet Expo conference in Beijing, China. Reuters/Wang Tingshu HONG KONG, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Tencent Holdings ( 0700. HK ) has abandoned plans to develop virtual reality devices as Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings faces cost-cutting and a triple spinoff from its Metaverse division…
Tencent Scraps Plans for VR
The world’s largest video game publisher has big plans to develop virtual reality software and hardware in its XR “augmented reality” division, which it launched in June and employs teach trends about 300 people. It developed an idea for a portable game controller similar to the Circle.
But the challenge of generating revenue quickly and the need to invest heavily to produce a competitive product prompted it to change strategy, two sources said. According to internal estimates, the XR project should not be profitable until 2027.
Because the information is confidential, we have asked not to identify the source.”He no longer fits the company’s new strategy,” the first source said. Earlier this year, Tencent planned to acquire Black Shark, a gaming phone.
Opportunities and China Technology
According to a second source, the department has both renewable and non-renewable energy programs. Maker with expertise in supply chain and storage that could expand its hardware and add 1,000 people to the device.
Tencent declined to comment on the Black Shark deal or whether it broke Beijing’s investigation. Regarding the status of the XR division, the company told Reuters on May 24 that it had changed several working groups due to changes in hardware development plans.
Tencent Scraps Plans
The company also said it won’t be shutting down XR devices on Thursday. Tencent shares fell 2.5% after the Reuters report. The launch of the XR device comes amid growing global interest in the concept of connecting to virtual worlds and is a rare addition to Tencent’s popular line of gaming devices that power software and social media applications.
It also competes with Western companies such as Meta Platforms ( META.O ) and Microsoft ( MSFT.O ), which developed its own Metaware and had its own virtualization hardware projects. Tencent entered virtual reality seven years ago and revived interest in the field in 2021 after seeing new developments in thinner lenses and more powerful designs. Strong sales of MetaCoast headphones also helped.
VR Hardware as Metaverse
Company founder Puni Ma criticized senior management for not doing enough at the year-end meeting in December and said the company needed to focus on short videos for future growth.
Several tech companies, including Meta and Google, have announced layoffs as they look to cut costs amid fears of a global recession. , a maker of virtual reality (VR) headsets owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, said on Friday it was laying off some people after location media reported earlier this week that Hundreds of jobs have been lost.