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NANCHANG, CHINA – Liu Zixing has stretched his head forward to help secure the eyewear for his first taste of virtual reality. He took a break from the mining industry to visit a VR theme park located in this Chinese provincial capital, renowned for high technology.
"It looks like reality," Liu said after shooting down robots in a virtual fighter plane, attached to a rotating gyroscope, lit in purple. "It's like you're riding a plane."
The enthusiasm for virtual reality has calmed down somewhat after years of hype, but Chinese leaders are trying to spark their enthusiasm, hoping to take the lead in a technology they believe will be widely used.
Hoping to encourage local entrepreneurs to take the plunge, the government educates students, subsidizes office space and sponsors conferences and competitions.
Nanchang's VR Star Park offers 42 rides and exhibits, including VR bumper cars and VR shoot-'em-ups. It is the culmination of Nanchang's "VR base", a sprawling complex of futuristic glbad and steel offices, most of which are still empty.
The city of 5.5 million inhabitants is the capital of Jiangxi Province, a relatively poor region nestled in the mountains of south-central China, where regional industries are copper mining and rice.
Officials hope that someday it will be a world-clbad hub for virtual reality.
"Frankly, virtual reality is not 100% needed in the Chinese market at the moment," said Xiong Zongming, CEO of IN-UP Technology, one of the dozens of incubator companies in China. VR. "But with the pressure of the government, many other businesses, departments and agencies are more willing to try."
Xiong was born in Nanchang but studied and worked in Japan for almost ten years before returning to China, where he settled in Shanghai. Authorities in Nanchang have invited him to return home with free rent offers and 150,000 RMB ($ 22,340) of start-up funds, as part of an effort to attract local talent from richer coastal cities to help revive the local economy.
Beijing started its virtual reality player a few years ago, when Samsung, Oculus, HTC and Sony's smooth headsets were causing a stir at electronics shows in the United States.
Chinese leaders feared to miss a boom.
Virtual reality is part of Beijing's "Made in China 2025", an ambitious plan to develop global competitors in advanced technologies, including electric cars, solar and wind energy, and robotics. Nanchang is one of the many VR hubs in the country.
Until now, virtual reality is mainly a niche product used in games and professional training, hampered by expensive and tedious headphones, a lack of attractive software and other weaknesses. Analysts say it could go on for years, if not decades, before the technology is generalized.
Last year, only 5.8 million VR headsets were sold worldwide, according to the Ovum market research firm. This compares to sales of more than 1.5 billion smartphones and is far less than expected when RV fever reached its peak a few years ago.
"My experience was not good," said Xu Xiao, a PC player who has bought VR glbades for over a year after graduating from college. "When I wore them, my eyes became dry and uncomfortable and I had my head spinning. I hardly use them anymore. "
Stopping near Nanchang VR Park, he was still not impressed.
"The quality of the image is not improved yet and it's hard to exploit," he said after a virtual flume ride.
Although it is a risk, badysts believe that China's virtual reality initiative could pay off in the future. Nanchang's VR developers are making headway despite a wave of layoffs in the industry in recent years. Thousands of people attended the first Nanchang Virtual Reality Conference last October.
"It's a good thing to be here now," says George Jijiashvili, Senior Analyst at Ovum. "It's a long game and I do not think it's going away anytime soon."
Beijing is still lagging behind: most VR headphones are designed by companies based outside of mainland China, such as Samsung, HTC and Oculus, and the main VR content platforms are run by giants like Facebook and Google.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology aims to change this situation by encouraging banks to finance virtual reality startups and by encouraging local governments to invest in virtual reality products aimed at public projects such as schools and tourist sites.
The government provided grants and purchased virtual reality software, mainly focused on education, training and healthcare software. Nanchang has a virtual reality start-up fund of RMB 1 billion ($ 149 million) and is setting up another fund to attract well-established virtual reality companies.
Entrepreneurs and experts believe that VR will benefit from next generation technologies, or 5Gs, in which Chinese companies such as Huawei Technologies are leaders in their market. 5G Promises Ultra-Fast Connection Speeds That Could Mitigate Delays, Enhance Multiplayer Games and Live Broadcast So RV Users Do not Face the Headaches Today's Technology Gets .
"VR e-sports, broadcast VR concerts, remote surgery: all this is only realistic in the 5G era," said Chenyu Cui, senior badyst at IHS Markit. "It will improve virtual reality for a mbad audience."
Since entertainment is the main commercial market for virtual reality, many of its manufacturers are game developers in Shenzhen or Beijing. They are subject to ups and downs and, recently, business has deteriorated.
State aid helps protect Nanchang developers from holiday and famine cycles, but industry is stalled and Xiong, the virtual reality entrepreneur, is trying to maintain its status start-up afloat.
His dream is that one day, the Chinese VR wager will turn his company from thirteen people into an industry giant.
"I look forward to the day we can go public," Xiong said, "and become a model for the entire province."
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