The metaverse is dead, long live the metaverse!
In a flashy move back in 2021, Facebook rebranded as Meta, hoping to make its mark on the virtual realm with its very own "metaverse." The tech titan pumped a mind-boggling $36 billion into its Reality Labs division, home to its VR and metaverse endeavors. However, despite the hype, things didn't go as planned. The metaverse turned out to be a financial sinkhole; fast-forward to March 2023, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company's "single largest investment is in advancing A.I."
Amidst a flurry of articles proclaiming its demise, outsiders and even Meta employees themselves are left wondering if this is the end for the buzzy tech. However, according to Vishal Shah, Meta's VP of Metaverse, it's not the metaverse itself that perished, but rather the hype surrounding it.
"I think the metaverse hype is dead. I think we were in a hype cycle. Like any new thing, and those invested last year, because it wasn't the hype," Shah said Tuesday at Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Deer Valley, Utah. "We didn't invest for the hype, we have been investing in the space for years; the Oculus acquisition was 2014."
The metaverse market appears bleak from an outsider's viewpoint, as divisions continue to shut down at an alarming rate. Disney recently abandoned its metaverse ambitions, leaving behind shattered dreams of a virtual wonderland. Microsoft also bid farewell to a social virtual-reality platform it acquired in 2017, putting an end to its own metaverse adventure. The Wall Street Journal aptly labeled this trend "the meh-taverse." It seems that even the industry giants are grappling to uncover the true worth of the metaverse. Yet Shah said on stage that he sees the bust differently.
"I'm actually pretty happy that there was both a hype and a trough of disillusionment last year; it was tough to live through that, of course, ourselves," Shah said. "But now we have our heads down and built, because that's what it takes to build something difficult to iterate and do it."
There are a lot of exciting new developments (not to mention new competition) in store for Meta's metaverse. Meta Quest 3, the company's next-generation virtual- and mixed-reality headset, will be in the hands of consumers this fall. What's more, Apple is releasing its own headset early 2024. And perhaps most thrilling of all, for some: Meta is gearing up to unveil long-awaited legs for its metaverse avatars later this year, Shah said.
More than 1 billion people have created avatars so far, Shah said.
"I don't think it's like a light switch, where one day you'll suddenly feel like you're in the metaverse, whereas the day before you weren't," Shah said." I think it will be an iterative process over the course of many years."
