On January 18, there were media reports that the previously buzzing Meta and Tencent would announce the termination of their cooperation in the XR business.。

Tencent executives received a written document from Meta last month, according to people familiar with the matter.。Meta said it would suspend its current cooperation with Tencent on this generation of VR hardware。

As early as last July, it was reported in the media that Meta was in talks with Tencent about cooperation, seeking to reopen the door to the Chinese market with its Quest series of headsets.。

It is reported that the original cooperation between Tencent and Meta is to launch a "Quest 3 entry version" in the Chinese market.。The parameters of this version are compared to Quest 2, except that the chip will be upgraded, the other parameters are almost the same as Quest 2。

Meta's 2020 Quest 2 weighs 503 grams, is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chip, and has 6GB of memory。Quest 2 has a resolution of 1,832x1,920 per eye, a refresh rate of 72-120Hz, and a battery life of 2-3 hours。In terms of storage, there were initially two versions of 64GB and 128GB, after the 64GB version was discontinued, the existing 128GB and 256GB two versions can be selected, priced between $400-500。

According to previous reports, if the cooperation between the two goes well, Tencent is likely to become the exclusive seller of Meta Quest series headsets in China.。But now it seems that Tencent is unlikely to get the exclusive sales rights to the Chinese market.。At the same time, Meta's process of reopening the Chinese market also pressed the pause button。

According to reports, the reason for the suspension of the cooperation between the two sides in the XR business may be that Tencent and Meta related teams have different ideas on the details of the project, and there are contradictions and conflicts.。However, the cooperation between the two sides has only advanced to the planning stage, and no projects have yet landed, so the loss is not great for both sides.。

But it is worth noting that the cooperation with Meta "yellow," for Tencent's XR team, may be a dangerous signal。

Back in February last year, it was reported that Tencent was preparing to lay off all positions on its XR team, which has more than 300 employees, who will have a two-month "buffer period" to seek internal job transfers or external priority referral opportunities.。Tencent subsequently denied rumors of the dissolution of its XR team and stressed that it would not give up exploring XR, although the company admitted it was reorienting.。

If Tencent and Meta can "hold hands," although they are only exclusive sellers at first, with the deepening of cooperation, it is not impossible for the two sides to carry out more cooperation in games or other XR research and development.。But now that the cooperation is gone, Tencent may re-evaluate its XR team internally。

In addition, China's VR head market is now relatively weak, and growth is in a bottleneck.。According to Counterpoint data, in the first half of 2023, VR shipments in the Chinese market fell sharply by 56% year-on-year, ending two consecutive years of rapid growth.。

As the "leader" in China's VR headset market, Pico's shipments fell more than 50% year-on-year in the first half of 2023.。In this case, despite still occupying 50% of China's VR headset market, Pico has been ruthlessly laid off by its parent company ByteDance.。At the end of October, Pico announced the layoffs of hundreds of Pico employees.。

Whether Tencent's XR team will follow in Pico's footsteps is still unknown.。