Meta launched its Quest 3 VR headset with enhanced options and a sport library. Notably, it omitted any point out of its metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds, suggesting a shift away from the metaverse.
The new headset boasts many new options, together with larger decision shows and a 40% slimmer optic profile. The new package comes with over 500 sport titles and can launch in Fall 2023 for $499. However, conspicuously missing is any point out of Horizon Worlds, Meta’s metaverse, and why the firm rebranded from Facebook in late 2021.
There isn’t any point out of Horizon Worlds throughout the total promotional YouTube video and the announcement on its web site. Strange? Maybe not.
Earlier this 12 months, the tech big introduced that it could cut back its workforce by 10,000, accounting for 13% of its staff. The “Update on Meta’s Year of Efficiency” got here with a listing of meaningless platitudes and retroactive justifications for the layoffs, together with subheadings with ‘Flatter is faster’ and ‘Leaner is better.’
But, the message was clear: the firm was pivoting away from its Metaverse-side undertaking.
Reality Labs, the firm’s metaverse division, posted a $3.99 billion working loss in April this 12 months. Instead of digital worlds, Meta has a brand new favourite tech bandwagon.
Zuckerberg has mentioned that AI is “literally going to touch every single one of our products.”
However, the response on-line to the Meta Quest 3’s announcement appears typically optimistic. The commenters are centered on its enchancment as a Meta VR Headset for gaming. Not as a gateway into Meta’s proprietary on-line world.
Interest in the Virtual World Faces Long-Term Decline
Perhaps it’s unsurprising that Meta and Zuckerberg have moved away from the metaverse. Interest in the metaverse has plummeted by 91% because it peaked in January 2022, based on Google Trends.
Interest is sort of as little as in the days earlier than Facebook rebranded as Meta. At the time, the rebrand prompted pleasure about the know-how and an enormous pump for metaverse tokes.
In crypto, curiosity in metaverse tokens can be on the long-term decline. MANA, Decentraland’s token, is down 20% over the final 90 days and 9.7% over the final 30. SAND, the token of The Sandbox metaverse, is down 13% and 1% over the identical durations.
Likewise, metaverse land in platforms like Otherdeeds, The Sandbox, Decentraland, Somnium, and Voxels have skilled substantial worth depreciation of over 90% in the previous 12 months, based on a CoinGecko report.
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