On December 16, 2017, at the CGU APAC 2017 site held by Qihong Rainbow in Nanhu Campus of Wuhan University of Technology, we were lucky to invite Mr. Wan Shan, Chairman of Qihong Rainbow Group, and Ms. Zhou Yuan, Senior Marketing Director of NVIDIA China, to talk with us about the combination of future brands and products with e-sports, as well as the development direction in 2018.
1. CGU has been held for many years. Every year, Qihonghong invests heavily. What's the significance of such a big event as CGU for Qihonghong?
Wan Shan: Four years from 2013 to now, the biggest role of Qihonghong is to help Qihonghong expand its game industry chain. Now Qihonghong has also gone abroad, creating a greater atmosphere of e-sports, and at the same time, more professional clubs at home and abroad can find new forces of e-sports through CGU; As a hardware manufacturer, Qihonghong hopes to interact with more game manufacturers and players in addition to promoting its products, and to promote the development of China's entire game industry with them, which is also conducive to the growth of Qihonghong iGame brand.
2. More and more players are willing to pay more for products with stronger performance. How do you view this consumption upgrade phenomenon?
Zhou Yuan: When it comes to consumption upgrading, we need to talk about different player groups. Player groups have different needs for products according to their ages. In the 1980s, we need to talk about cost performance, and in the 1990s, we need to talk about personalization. In the 2000s, there will be publicity, differentiation, and exclusive labels. When consumers' needs change, if we do not follow the changes, we will not meet their needs. E-sports will become a very large sports industry. Like football, E-sports will also have many segments of the market in the future. We will work together with Qihonghong to create more personalized customized products suitable for various game player groups, which will naturally meet the needs of users to achieve cost upgrading.
3. More and more manufacturers in the market are producing gimmicky and expensive "high-end products". How will Qihonghong adapt to the trend of consumption upgrading to create a high-end brand image in the future?
Wan Shan: For consumption upgrading, I think the focus is on the extension of the essence of the product itself. The product we have jointly built with NVIDIA has high performance and can meet the needs of high-end players. On this basis, we can achieve the whole upgrade. This is actually part of an industrial chain, Every year when new games are produced, more requirements will be put on the hardware, and the upgrade generated on this basis is also necessary for users. In terms of upgrading, we have recreated the new iGame LOGO (the 10th anniversary of the iGame brand next year) and more novel iGame brand elements this year. We have redesigned the product itself from the research and development level, and added innovative iGame status monitoring screens to the product to meet the individual needs of users.
4. How does Qihonghong view the continuous development of the E-sports player market?
Wan Shan: Now that e-sports has officially become an Olympic project, which has been highly valued by many countries around the world, it will become a national event in the future, and more and more professional e-sports players will be playing, because more and more grassroots players are going in the professional direction, which is a large group activity, What we want to promote is to let more users use our products, better enjoy the charm of E-sports and understand our brand itself.
E-sports is an atmosphere. CGU itself is the means of Seven Rainbows to guide this atmosphere. The E-sports competition we held with NVIDIA in Internet cafes is also to guide this atmosphere, so that players who want to enter the field of E-sports can experience the changes brought by E-sports to this society. For example, the "One in a Hundred" Ninth Section is born to meet the needs of extreme e-sports players, and NetEase products are more suitable for the needs of popular Internet cafes. In the product research and development part of 2018, we will pay more attention to the needs of players and create better products for different players.
5. NVIDIA is an international company. Is there any difference in e-sports marketing in different regions, and what are these differences?
Zhou Yuan: NVIDIA first paid attention to the e-sports industry in China, and our partner Qihonghong also made efforts from the marketing and product side very early. The global number of GeFore users is 200 million, while the number of game players is 300 million, but the number of live users is 700 million. Obviously, that is a big market. The so-called market uses activities to influence the relevant people. Last year, we and the Ministry of Culture launched some competitions, mainly in Internet cafes. Most of the global e-sports focus on the head. The head anchor of the head event. The biggest difference between China and other countries lies in Internet cafes. All e-sports players train, compete and compete in Internet cafes before becoming famous. There are 15W Internet cafes registered in China. They carry the dreams of e-sports enthusiasts and are the seedbeds incubated by e-sports players. Only the basic e-sports market of the public can exist. Focusing on the head is to let everyone set a high standard and benchmark. Like Nike, Geforce also wants to become such a brand in the e-sports field! Many events of S7 and Dato2 are based on NVIDIA platform. Of course, we should not ignore the public base platform and share some data. Before last year, less than 30% of the Internet cafes had an E-sports war zone, while last year, 80% of the newly installed Internet cafes had an E-sports war zone. In such a booming environment, it is impossible to have only the head or the bottom, and it will certainly derive many layers, It depends on the cultivation of the whole E-sports circle.
6. If you want to play the most popular game in the market, Jedi Survival, which model of video card can you recommend?
Zhou Yuan: We can see that the official recommendation of Blue Hole is GTX 1060, but if you want to play well, you need GTX 1080 or GTX 1080 Ti.
7. For high-end graphics cards, the first thing players want is strong performance. What are the special advantages of Qihonghong and NVIDIA in high-end graphics cards?
Wan Shan: Qihonghong will go through special selection on GPU chips provided by NVIDIA, and do some matching screening with video memory. NVIDIA has provided many help to our R&D personnel, so that we can make a big performance improvement based on the advanced Pascal architecture, and do some extreme overclocking products. Products like this year's Jiuduan iGame GTX1080Ti Kudan (awarded the title of "The King of Custom Cards" by the internationally renowned media VideoCardz) are the representatives of them. Each one is one in a hundred, with excellent quality, providing the best experience for some geek enthusiasts.
8. More and more players choose to play some competitive games with their friends in online cafes or e-sports halls. Will Qihonghong have a further layout in this area for more and more users?
Wan Shan: Qihonghong has worked for many years in the entire Internet cafe market, and we are all involved in the transformation from the Internet cafe's original form many years ago to the current Internet cafe and E-sports hall. Every year, Qihonghong will carry out more than 200 exchanges with young users of colleges and universities, and share their needs with the partners of the Internet cafes to improve them. Whether it is the style of the Internet cafes or the color, or even how to create the comfort of the Internet cafes, it will continue to explore the needs of young users in 2018, Work together with partners to create a better gaming experience for users in Internet cafes, Internet cafes and E-sports halls.
9. How to view the combination of VR and e-sports in the future? What is the most likely breakthrough of VR e-sports in the future?
Zhou Yuan: I want to tell a story about him for several days. At a VR ecological conference, someone teased that the year before last, "How is your VR product development?", last year, "Did you get financing?" This year, "is your company still there? "It can be seen that VR technology has encountered a cold winter. The reason is that the current hardware level is not high enough to meet the minimum demand for VR. The consequence of forcing low configuration to experience VR is that you think VR is very bad and has no future. This is a popular misunderstanding. Therefore, the most likely breakthrough of VR E-sports in the future lies in the content and hardware experience. If the hardware level is improved, good content will emerge in endlessly, then the market will come when good content and good experience come.
10. What is the reason for launching the GameStream game streaming function for GeForce users on SHIELD?
Zhou Yuan: Shield is defined as the ace partner of Geforce players. NVIDIA hopes that Geforce's game experience will cover the whole platform. Not only is it limited to PC computers and laptops, but also hopes to extend it to TV, which is a huge vacuum. Shield products hope to bring players some new ways to play, with Nintendo's high-quality game content and 4K HDR video, so that players and their families can enjoy the charm of the game together.
11. What does Qihonghong think of the E-sports market in 2018? What are the plans of Qicaihong in terms of product, technology and market in 2018 for E-sports?
Wan Shan: In general, it is a continuation of 17 years. In May of 2017, we signed RNG. Seven Rainbows has its own ideas for the first team. The cooperation between the first team and Seven Rainbows can improve the audience and create a big atmosphere of e-sports! In the future, there will be more and more young teams. Seven Rainbows will cooperate with the best teams to do event activities, promote products with NIVIDA, and differentiate e-sports products. From the perspective of the product itself, it will enable the ultimate users to experience the perfect product and help them play better!
