VAlmost a year ago, Facebook changed its name to Meta. Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg underlined his ambitions for the so-called metaverse, which he describes as the next generation of the Internet. By this he means a kind of digital living and working space in which users immerse themselves in the Internet, so to speak, instead of just looking at it from the outside. This should be made possible with technologies related to virtual reality (virtual reality) and augmented reality (augmented reality). Meta has been offering VR glasses for some time, which are mainly used for video games.
Now, Zuckerberg has made a series of new announcements centered around the metaverse, showing that this will remain a central part of his strategy for the meta. At the in-house virtual conference “Connect”, he presented, among other things, VR glasses that are not primarily intended for video games, but for professional use. The new Quest Pro will cost $1499, well above the previous standard Quest 2 glasses, which are available for $399. Zuckerberg described the Quest Pro as a possible vehicle to one day replace personal computers.
Zuckerberg sees great potential
He spoke of a future where the 200 million people who buy PCs every year could do many jobs in the metaverse using VR goggles. The new glasses will initially not be available in Germany. Beyond the hardware, Zuckerberg talked about a number of other initiatives he plans to use to bring the world of work into the metaverse. For example, a cooperation with the software company Microsoft, which should enable the integration of programs such as teams and Windows with Quest glasses. Zuckerberg announced the partnership along with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Analysts estimate that Meta has sold around 15 million units of its Quest 2 VR glasses to date. In the overall group, however, all these activities related to the Metaversum do not carry too much weight, measured in terms of sales. They are housed in the Reality Labs division, which reported revenue of $452 million in the second quarter. In the group as a whole, Meta came to 28.8 billion dollars. Reality Labs has also brought the company high losses so far, in the second quarter it was $ 2.8 billion.
Also internal criticism
In addition to VR glasses, the company’s projects in the metaverse also include a platform called “Horizon Worlds”. So far, however, the enthusiasm for this has been limited, apparently also within Meta. The online publication Verge recently wrote that the manager responsible for the division had complained in an internal message that its own employees were not using the platform enough.
In addition, the service also appears to be suffering from quality issues, and the manager announced a “quality lockdown” for the rest of the year. The “New York Times” wrote a few days ago that employees jokingly dubbed important initiatives relating to the metaverse as “MMH” for “Make Mark Happy”.
