On June 5, 2014, the annual E3 Game Show officially kicked off at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The Los Angeles Convention Center is located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, next to the Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, and the Nokia Theater, the Emmy Awards Auditorium. The entire convention center consists of 5 exhibition halls, and the E3 electronic entertainment exhibition mainly uses the South Hall, North Hall and Kenya Hall.

The north and south halls are mainly composed of internationally renowned game company exhibition areas, of which the upper and lower horizontal passages are connected. The Kenya Pavilion is home to a number of small game publishers and production teams.

As the world's largest game show, E3 has a number of game companies launching every day, announcing the expansion of the game, the trailer of the game, and even some trial activities. The press conferences of several large companies such as EA and Microsoft are staggered, which can avoid time conflicts and allow the media to report more fully.

This year's E3 had more visitors than any previous edition and attracted more attention than any previous edition. This year, E3 is not only focused on the gaming industry, but also on the Internet community. I thought that the reporters who reported to E3 were all reporters from the gaming circle, and there were few other media, but this year, reporters from the Internet circle rushed to E3 in droves, and even top media such as the Associated Press and Reuters also sent special reporting teams.

The reason why this year's E3 was able to attract so many top media outlets was that both Century Summit and Google announced their VR prototypes at E3. Since the beginning of this year, the concept of VR has been hyped up and has become a topic of great concern in the Internet circle. Now that Century Summit and Google will release their respective VR prototypes at E3, the technology media is naturally highly concerned, and they all believe that this is another confrontation between Century Summit and Google after the mobile phone system.

In fact, it is not the first time that E3 has been used as a stage for the release of VR prototypes. At E3 2012, John Carmack showed off a video of Doom 3 in 3D from Oculus. Oculus received a lot of attention for this, and in September Oculus VR began raising money and won the Best Hardware award at E3 in 2013, beating out the PS4 and Xbox One for the finished product, which has almost always been the preserve of consoles.

This year, both Summit of the Century and Google will release their respective VR glasses, and these two VR glasses are sure to be strong contenders for the best hardware award. Some media commented that whoever can win this year's best hardware award will be the winner of this war.

However, the vast majority of media and industry insiders believe that Google will be the winner of this war. After all, Google is a technology company and is famous for its technology, while although the peak of the century is an Internet company, it is mainly engaged in the film and television entertainment industry, and its technology cannot be compared with Google.

At 9 o'clock in the morning, Google's press conference officially kicked off in the North Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center. Countless reporters came to the scene, including many Chinese journalists. The crowd of black crushed people was almost overwhelmed. As far as the eye can see, you can see a dense network of long guns and short cannons, as well as cameras that broadcast live.

Google took the VR prototype event very seriously, not only via a live webcast on YouTube, but also hosted by Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt.

After the press conference began, Eric Schmidt stood at the center of the stage and smiled: "VR has been hailed as the next big thing in the tech world. The entire technology industry is investing heavily in VR, which has a broad imagination not only in the field of gaming, but also in many fields such as life, education, and healthcare.

However, now the popularization of VR is facing two problems, one is technology, and the other is price. VR is now available for around $700, and for a good user experience, you need a powerful computer to work with. Even if you own such a computer, you may need to upgrade, such as buying a new graphics card, which can add another $300 to $800 financial burden. The high price is a huge barrier to entry for the popularity of VR.

Google wanted to find an immersive experience that would allow everyone to experience virtual reality in a simple, fun, and inexpensive way. Through the tireless efforts of Google engineers, we found a solution. Consumers can own VR glasses for only $20 and experience the shock of technology!"

As soon as these words came out, the whole scene was deadly silent, as if the air was frozen!

The figure of $20 was like a lightning bolt struck the hearts of everyone at the scene, making them all stupid.

VR is a high-tech product, and the VR on the market today basically costs $6,700, and the cheapest piece is $3,400, but now Google has announced that you can have VR glasses for only $20. It is equivalent to selling for 300 yuan for Apple mobile phones.

Almost everyone couldn't believe their ears, and wondered if they had misheard or Schmidt had mistaken the word and said $200 for $20.

But Eric Schmidt saw that everyone was stunned, and repeated with a smile that Google's VR glasses were only $20!

The whole scene was in an uproar, like boiling a pot, and the whole audience was boiling!

"VR glasses are only $20, oh my God, how is that possible?", "The screen of the VR glasses and the electronic components cost more than $20! How is this possible?", "Schmidt said $20, it shouldn't be a slip of the tongue!" ......

Schmidt on stage waited for the commotion to subside gradually, and then smiled and uncovered the mystery: "You may think it's incredible, how can a high-tech product like VR glasses be only $20, but I can tell you that Google can really do it." Our solution is to use the mobile phone screen as the VR display, and use the mobile phone as the host computer on behalf of the VR. As long as you have a large-screen mobile phone, you can feel the charm of virtual reality by attaching it to our VR glasses. I'll show you. Speaking of this, Schmidt said to the backstage: "Please ask the staff to bring up the phone." ”

As soon as he finished speaking, a beautiful girl came up with a tray in both hands and stood next to Schmidt. Schmidt directly picked up a piece of cardboard and a mobile phone on the tray and introduced: "Our VR glasses are mainly composed of cardboard, lenses, magnets, and mobile phones. I'll assemble it now. ”

Schmidt began assembling the VR glasses, first attaching the cardboard shell of the VR glasses to form a viewfinder and a slot for the phone, then fitting the lenses and putting the phone into the slot, and then using Velcro and rubber bands to secure the phone to the back of the eyepiece, and a paper VR glasses were installed. The whole process takes less than two minutes.

The scene was silent, and the reporters looked at the VR glasses in Schmidt's hands, not knowing what to say, and it was really difficult for them to associate the extremely rough, fast-food box-like thing in front of them with a high-tech product like VR.

Schmidt was unimpressed, beckoned the staff and asked them to send 200 VR to the guests and reporters on the spot. He was on stage to instruct how to assemble and how to use the VR glasses in his hand.

When the 200 reporters and viewers assembled the VR glasses and actually wore them on their heads to watch the video, they were all surprised. They didn't expect that with two lenses in a rudimentary hard box and their own mobile phone, they would be able to experience the feeling of watching a 3D movie in a movie theater. Especially when they enter Google Earth, they can see Google Earth images of mountains, rivers, tall buildings, bridges and other Google Earth images in 3D, which has an immersive sense of substitution.

Two hundred trial users have the same idea in their hearts, Google's VR glasses are so cheap, the effect is not much worse than the VR glasses on the market, but the price is only 20 US dollars, and it will definitely be popular after it is listed!

At the end of the press conference, Schmidt threw out an even more shocking news: "At 12 noon today, Google will publish the detailed parameters and drawings of this VR glasses on the Internet, if you are interested, you can assemble the VR glasses yourself!"

There was a commotion at the whole scene, and no one expected that Google would even announce the parameters and drawings of the VR glasses!

Meanwhile, in Santa Monica, Summit Entertainment's conference room, Zhang Ran, Hastings and Motorola VR, as well as EA executives, were watching the live broadcast of Google's launch event on the big screen.

Zhang Ran's expression was very solemn: "Google's trick is very clever and very vicious. This carton glasses released by Google are very cheap and do not have any technical content, and anyone can imitate them. It is foreseeable that after the launch event, this cheap carton glasses will quickly become popular and flood the market. You can buy a VR glasses for $20, and the copycat version will be cheaper, and there will definitely be many people testing the waters. But this cheap VR has a low resolution, a sandwindow effect, and a poor experience. Consumers will think that real VR is what it is. When evaluating VR, they will say that the VR effect is very poor and not interesting. If one person says this, it's okay, but a large number of consumers say so, and everyone will be happy. In the end, the market orientation of bad money driving out good money will be formed, which will hurt the development of the entire VR market. ”

Hastings also felt the seriousness of the problem, and said with a calm face: "Google's R&D focus is not on VR, and VR technology is not as good as ours. But now that VR is on fire, it will soon become the next outlet. Google wants to disrupt the whole market in order to prevent us from dominating the VR market, and at the same time buy time to catch up with us, and we can't let them succeed!"

At this time, the online world has been boiling, Fly, Facebook, and many technology forums, Google and VR have become the hottest topics, and they have begun to swipe the screen wildly. Google's supporters chanted, "Google really is a conscientious business!"

After the press conference, major media around the world reported on the press conference at large length, and many industry insiders and technology bloggers also wrote articles analyzing the impact of Google's VR glasses on the entire VR industry.

The Wall Street Journal commented: "Google's VR glasses are just a rudimentary cardboard glasses, and the experience is far from mature. However, after Google promotes cheap VR solutions, Samsung, LG and other manufacturers will inevitably quickly follow up and release more software and hardware products to adapt to their smartphones, thus promoting the gradual maturity of the VR ecosystem of the base Android platform. ”

The New York Times argues that "providing an inexpensive VR solution to popularize this technology, while using its own technical standards to regulate the content of VR applications on smartphones, is the significance of Google's release of VR glasses." Although Google did not acquire a high-end and professional virtual reality equipment manufacturer like Oculus, Google can quickly take the lead in the virtual reality field with a simple solution with the same affordability, openness and overall application advantages as Android. In this VR battle, Google is likely to be the final winner!"

Almost all the media are optimistic about Google's VR glasses, believing that Google will occupy the market with cheap VR, become the main force of VR hardware, and quickly build a VR ecosystem, just like Android, and eventually become the king of the VR field.

Before the start of the E3 game show, many media were hyping up the war between "Century Summit and Google in the field of VR", but at this time, almost all media believed that the winner was decided, even if Century Peak's VR performance was stronger and the user experience was better, it was impossible to win Google.