Pico Interactive

Report: TikTok Parent Lays Off Hundreds at VR Subsidiary Pico Interactive, Tencent Scraps VR Plans

February 17, 2023 From roadtovr

TikTok parent company ByteDance is reportedly laying off what South China Morning Post maintains will be “hundreds of employees” working at its VR headset manufacturing subsidiary, Pico Interactive. A separate report from Reuters also maintains Chinese tech giant Tencent is scrapping its plans to release a VR headset.

According to two people with knowledge of the Pico layoffs, a substantial portion of the VR headset maker is expected to be affected. The report maintains that some teams will see as much as a 30 percent reduction, while some higher-level positions are also expected to be affected.

After being acquired by ByteDance in August 2021, Pico job postings revealed the company was making a sizable expansion into the US to presumably better compete with Meta on its home turf.

Shortly afterwards, the China-based company then released its latest standalone headset, Pico 4, in Europe and Asia to consumers. Seen a direct competitor to Meta Quest 2, Pico 4 still isn’t officially sold in the US; the headset is currently only available across Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and most countries in Europe.

It was also reported by Chinese tech outlet 36Kr that Tencent, the massive Chinese multinational, was disbanding it 300-person strong XR unit. The company has since refuted this claim with Reuters, stating instead it will be making adjustments to some business teams as development plans for XR hardware had changed.

Citing sources familiar with the restructuring, Reuters reports that Tencent is abandoning plans to release a VR headset due to a sobering economic outlook.

This follows a widening trend of layoffs which have affected nearly every big name in tech, including Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. Microsoft recently announced it was shuttering its social VR platform AltspaceVR in addition to its XR interface framework, Mixed Reality Toolkit. Meanwhile, Microsoft has also had trouble fulfilling its end of a US defense contract which uses its HoloLens AR headset as the basis of a tactical AR headset.

It was also revealed late last year that Meta was planning to cut discretionary spending and extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter, alongside a layoff which affected nearly 11,000 employees, or around 13 percent of its overall workforce.

Pico 4 Shipments Delayed in Europe Due to High Global Demand

October 18, 2022 From roadtovr

Pico released its standalone VR headset Neo 3 Link this summer, marking its first real push to launch a consumer device outside of Asia. Now it’s getting ready to ship the follow-up standalone Pico 4, and the company seems to be struggling to keep up with demand in some regions.

Pico opened up pre-orders of Pico 4 in late September with the aim of initially releasing the headset today across several regions, including 13 European countries, Japan, and Korea.

Note: there’s still no word on whether Pico 4 is coming to the US, although Pico Interactive, owned by TikTok parent ByteDance, is expanding to the US to compete with Meta.

Pico says in a recent tweet however some European customers may see delays in shipment due to high demand:

“Due to unprecedented global demand, there will unfortunately be delays in fulfilling some customer pre-orders in the EU region. We are working tirelessly to ensure that demand is satisfied by the end of October,” Pico says.

Continuing: “We strongly recommend that you keep your back order in place at your preferred retailer as we will be prioritising existing back orders first. If you are affected, please accept our sincerest apologies. We are doing everything we can to resolve it as quickly as possible. In the meantime, if you can’t wait any longer to get your hands on a PICO headset, Neo 3 Link is available and in stock right now.”

In Europe, Pico 4 is strongly positioned to compete with Meta Quest 2. At €430 for the 128GB model and €500 for the 256GB model, Pico 4 not only beats Quest 2 on pricing, but also goes toe-to-toe in the specs department while providing a slimmer profile thanks to the addition of pancake lenses.

Last month the company also announced Pico 4 Pro, an enterprise-focused variant due out later this year which adds three internal cameras for eye and face-tracking. Pricing and launch of that device is still unclear, although it may be looking to take market share away from the recently announced Meta Quest Pro, which is priced at an eye-watering $1,500.

Pico 4 & Pico 4 Pro Standalone VR Headsets Spotted in FCC Filing

July 25, 2022 From roadtovr

Pico Interactive, the VR hardware subsidiary to Chinese tech giant ByteDance, is apparently getting ready to release a new series of standalone VR headsets.

As first reported by Protocol, Pico filed the devices with the FCC late last week, saying in the filing that it intends to launch both a Pico 4 Pro and Pico 4 standalone headsets.

Both headsets are identical in specs “except additional eye tracking & face tracking function for Pico 4 Pro,” the company says in the filing.

As noted by Protocol, Pico appears to have called the new hardware ‘Phoenix’ in the FCC filing, and it’s reported to run on Android Q via a Qualcomm processor. FCC filings are typically vague as to not give away too much information pre-launch, so we’ll just have to wait to see how much of an upgrade it is over its latest.

It’s uncertain whether ‘Pico 4’ is the final naming scheme, or whether it’s a shorthand for Pico Neo 4, although it’s clear the company is looking to bring competition to basically the only real name in consumer VR standalones: Meta. Since its founding in 2015, Pico pretty much only targeted consumers in China and enterprise users in the West. That was before it released it Neo 3 Link in Europe back in May, a device that features near spec parity with Quest 2.

At the time, we surmised Pico was quickly eyeballing North America with its Neo 3 Link in an attempt to earnestly compete with Meta there, although now it’s possible the company is looking to one-up the competition with the new hardware before it makes landfall on Meta’s home turf.

The filing doesn’t reveal to what extent Pico 4 will be able to match Meta’s upcoming Project Cambria, which is a VR headset capable of doing augmented reality tasks thanks to its mixed reality passthrough camera sensors. The price of Cambria is set to be “significantly higher than $800” though, so there may be some wiggle room from a name that’s so far unknown to consumers in the US.

Cambria is said to include both eye and face-tracking, so it will be interesting to see how Pico intends on competing (likely with Pico 4 Pro), whether it be by pushing specs slightly beyond Quest 2 or going for full spec parity with Cambria.