WeChat's New Year Major Move: Putting the Metaverse into Mini Programs

Author: Kyle, Beehive Tech

As a national-level application with 1.309 billion monthly active users, every minor upgrade of WeChat can easily become a phenomenon. At the beginning of 2023, WeChat is set to make a big move, attempting to incorporate the metaverse into mini-programs.

Not long ago, WeChat officially posted the "XR-FRAME" development guide in the open community, which is a set of XR (Extended Reality)/3D application solutions tailored for mini-programs. In simple terms, once this solution is launched, it will empower mini-programs with extended reality and 3D capabilities from the ground up, transforming the future human-computer interaction in mini-programs from 2D to a more three-dimensional 3D experience.

Currently, XR-FRAME is still in the testing phase. According to the official demo released, this component can better present 3D effects and provide experiences such as AR face-swapping and AR games. It is reported that WeChat is initially targeting the e-commerce sector for the trial scenarios of XR mini-programs, implementing various types of cases such as AR try-ons and AR home decoration.

From a strategic perspective, incorporating the metaverse into WeChat mini-programs shows Tencent's foresight. Economist Zhu Jiaming predicts that the basic form of social interaction in the future will take place in the metaverse. If this really happens, traditional social models like WeChat will be disrupted. The potential competitor to WeChat may not be social applications like "Douyin," but rather metaverse applications.

Mini-Programs Going 3D

Do you remember the popular WeChat mini-game "Jump Jump"? Players score points by long-pressing the screen to make a character jump onto boxes ahead, and the game ends if the character falls. This game landed on WeChat mini-programs in December 2017, attracting countless players to compete. A few months ago, the elimination game "Sheep Has a Sheep" also became a sensation online using WeChat mini-programs.

Since the launch of WeChat mini-programs in January 2017, several phenomenal applications have emerged. Leveraging the vast WeChat user base, mini-programs have provided developers with a new creative soil. Over the past six years, the platform capabilities and underlying framework of mini-programs have been continuously upgraded. At the beginning of 2023, mini-programs revealed significant moves—testing the XR framework.

XR, or Extended Reality, is a collective term for VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality), and MR (Mixed Reality), which can provide audiences with an environment that combines reality and virtuality, as well as human-computer interaction. Not long ago, WeChat officially posted the "XR-FRAME" development guide in the WeChat open community. According to the description, this is an XR/3D application solution officially provided for mini-programs, based on a hybrid solution that approaches native performance, offers good effects, is easy to use, has strong extensibility, is progressive, and follows mini-program development standards.

Currently, this underlying framework is still in the testing phase, and the mini-program official has posted detailed tutorials in the open community to guide developers on how to build an XR mini-program from scratch.

Compared to the current Canvas component used in mini-programs, xr-frame brings more capabilities. It is reported that it provides XML (Extensible Markup Language) to describe 3D scenes and integrates systems such as AR, physics, animation, particles, and post-processing, making it easy to get started. Additionally, it has built-in complete PBR (Physically Based Rendering) effects, ambient lighting, and shadows, allowing for quick generation of environmental data through panoramic images. It also boasts rendering performance close to native and strong extensibility.

Example of XR mini-program development effects

In simple terms, the launch of xr-frame will empower mini-programs with extended reality and 3D capabilities from the ground up, transforming the future human-computer interaction in mini-programs from 2D to a more three-dimensional 3D experience.

According to the official demo released, after gaining xr-frame support, virtual 3D people, 3D objects, and 3D scenes can be better presented in mini-programs. Additionally, functions such as AR face-swapping, scanning surfaces to obtain AR games, and scanning specific images for AR interactions can also be realized. This means that future WeChat mini-programs will feature more interactive applications.

Following the testing rhythm, the XR mini-program features are likely to be fully launched after the Chinese Lunar New Year, and the industry generally views it as the core feature of the next major version upgrade of WeChat.

Making the Metaverse Happen on WeChat?

WeChat's testing of XR mini-programs coincides with the rising tide of the metaverse. This move sends a signal that WeChat mini-programs will take on a certain degree of responsibility for Tencent's layout in the metaverse.

Although internet giants like Meta and Baidu have developed panoramic applications for the metaverse, the experience and popularity are quite limited. Currently, metaverse-related application scenarios mainly manifest in human-computer interaction games, immersive e-commerce shopping, virtual human live streaming, virtual meetings, and so on. Without building its own metaverse platform, Tencent is testing the waters of the metaverse with a lightweight approach, using WeChat's traffic entrance to first integrate virtual reality scenarios through mini-programs.

It is reported that WeChat is initially targeting the e-commerce sector for the trial scenarios of XR mini-programs and is collaborating with various brands across different categories to implement cases such as AR try-ons and AR home decoration.

At this stage, XR technology is most commonly applied in the e-commerce field. In traditional e-commerce shopping experiences, consumers can only rely on images/videos displayed by merchants to make purchasing decisions, often leading to significant discrepancies between buyer shows and seller shows after the purchase. However, with the introduction of AR technology, the product display model of traditional e-commerce platforms is gradually being disrupted, especially in specific scenarios such as clothing try-ons, jewelry wearing, and beauty product trials, where AR can help users make more accurate decisions.

Although WeChat has never been the main battlefield for e-commerce, consumer brands like NIKE, Adidas, and Chanel have launched relevant WeChat mini-programs. Once the XR features are launched, these brands can better showcase their products, potentially driving growth in the WeChat e-commerce ecosystem.

Additionally, it can be imagined that in the future, more 3D modeling and mini-games with stronger real-world interaction will emerge in WeChat mini-programs. Perhaps the next hit mini-game will be in a completely different 3D form.

An array of WeChat mini-programs

In fact, as an important component of the WeChat ecosystem, mini-programs have also entered a development bottleneck. To achieve the effect of no downloads and instant use, WeChat mini-programs have made significant sacrifices in performance, often resulting in poorer performance compared to the same applications in apps. This has led to mini-programs not becoming the disruptive applications people expected; instead, certain highly functional applications seem to be less useful when used through mini-programs.

Whether the launch of XR features can open up growth space for mini-programs remains uncertain. Some developers express concerns, stating that whether xr-frame can meet expectations requires cautious optimism. After all, the original intention of mini-program design is to require speed, and this "speed" refers to loading and rendering. This has led WeChat mini-programs to primarily use webview rendering, supplemented by native rendering, resulting in a mixed rendering approach that mainly relies on front-end technology. However, the 3D development of xr-frame requires a completely different tech stack, significantly increasing rendering overhead, which demands developers to have superior optimization skills. Furthermore, given that high-quality 3D modeling often occupies a large amount of memory, whether the XR experience provided by mini-programs will be compromised is also a question mark.

Of course, as a "national-level application" with 1.309 billion monthly active users, WeChat has a significant traffic advantage. As long as excellent mini-programs emerge, users will not be lacking. This will also attract a large number of brands and developers to experiment on the platform, so the launch of xr-frame will drive the prosperity of the mini-program development ecosystem.

From a strategic perspective, incorporating the metaverse into mini-programs is also Tencent's further exploration in the social field, which overseas social giants like Meta have already begun.

Economist Zhu Jiaming, chairman of the Academic and Technical Committee of the Hengqin Digital Finance Research Institute, once believed that Facebook changed its name to Meta because Facebook itself was already a metaverse. However, in the previous era, the development of digital technology had limitations, and social experiences could only be presented in the form of text and video. He predicts that the basic form of social interaction in the future will take place in the metaverse, breaking the boundaries of time and space and geography, bringing a more immersive experience.

If all this really happens, traditional social application models like WeChat and QQ will be disrupted. The potential competitor to WeChat may not be video social applications like "Douyin," but rather the metaverse.