I never loved Horizon Worlds, Meta's best attempt at creating a social universe for its VR headsets. In fact, I've completely avoided it. So I'm not at all surprised that Meta now says it'll be refocusing Horizon Worlds on Roblox-like phone games.
Is the metaverse dead? No, because the metaverse isn't just Meta: It just co-opted the philosophical term. But the company's biggest investment in virtual worlds has turned out to be a failure. And it's just the "tip of the iceberg pivot" that Meta's doing right now, as it tries to turn its VR efforts into a win with future AR glasses.
I've been somewhat stunned by Meta's series of seemingly give-up-on-VR moves over the last few months, which included shutting down its best VR game studio acquisitions, killing off the best and most innovative VR fitness platform (also an acquisition), and ending attempts to make its VR ecosystem into a work software tool.
Meta's new head of Reality Labs content, Samantha Kelly, admitted in a new blog post that VR hasn't been the big seller Meta expected, echoing recent statements from Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth. Though VR headsets will still exist going forward, according to Meta, the company will lean on third-party apps and games to sell the headset instead.
And now it'll be moving away from trying to make Horizon Worlds happen as the centerpiece of Quest VR.
Meta's Quest headsets have always been geared toward gaming and low-priced fun, but Meta's pulling back on the other pieces of the puzzle in favor of advancing glasses. Scott Stein/CNET
That's a bit of a cosmic joke to me, considering that until now, Meta had wasted no effort in trying to bury game developers' apps by spamming its OS with links to Horizon Worlds. Meta's Quest app on phones became Horizon-branded and tried to hide app content in favor of weird Horizon Worlds social experiences, too.
While the Quest 3 and 3S are still the best-for-the-money VR headsets, I have no idea what the future holds for these systems. At every turn, I see Mark Zuckerberg and Meta declaring a full-on push to AI and smart glasses. Meanwhile, AI has barely surfaced inside Quest headsets in any meaningful way.
Meta always had its VR ambitions split between everyday work and kid-focused gaming. It got the latter, not the former. It became a kid's console, even though Meta tried to keep kids away. As a result, I don't think anyone ever took the Quest seriously as anything you'd use for anything else other than games. Neither does Meta anymore, apparently.
Meta's current Ray-Ban Displays have only one display, and the apps on them are much more basic than those on any VR headset. Scott Stein/CNET
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