Can Apple save the outdated Metaverse?

｜Key points:

① "Metaverse" may make a comeback. Following Meta's official announcement of the consumer-grade MR headset Quest 3, Apple is about to release the Reality Pro headset.

② The price of the Reality Pro headset may be $3,000, and it may become portable and become smart glasses in the future.

③The upsurge in the metaverse has passed, and related start-ups raised about 664 million in the first five months of this year, a sharp drop from the US$2.93 billion in the same period in 2022.

④ Microsoft and Disney are still committed to the development of the metaverse, but have cut off some projects and laid off employees on a small scale.

Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI tool

Tencent Technology News June 5 news, foreign media recently wrote that before Apple released the long-rumored Reality Pro headset, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg) officially announced the company's first consumer-grade headset. The MR headset Meta Quest 3 will be available this fall for $500. The meaning of Meta stealing the spotlight from Apple is very obvious. The outdated concept of "Metaverse" will not die, and it may shine again.

The following is a summary of the content of the article:

At the end of October 2021, Zuckerberg, the co-founder and CEO of Facebook with the dream of "Metaverse", officially announced that he will change the company's name to Meta. The new name Meta is taken from the word Metaverse, which means Metaverse.

A month later, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates blogged that within two or three years he believed most virtual meetings would transition from a "two-dimensional video grid" to a "three-dimensional video grid" with digital avatars. The Metaverse of Space". Shortly thereafter, Microsoft announced that it would buy video game giant Activision Blizzard for $70 billion, saying the deal would provide "ample resources for the Metaverse to need." But after that, interest in the Metaverse came to a sudden, screeching halt. Investors in the technology industry have turned to emerging trends such as artificial intelligence. Despite the initial enthusiasm, companies like Disney and Microsoft have killed some Metaverse projects.

At the upcoming Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, the tech giant is expected to unveil its virtual reality hardware offering: a high-tech headset that blends the digital and physical worlds. Apple is betting it can use mixed reality products to reach consumers better than Meta. Meta's high-end Quest Pro headset has been underwhelming since launch, and Apple can ignite interest in virtual reality devices among mainstream consumers in a way that no other company has. The headset, which looks like ski goggles, is expected to cost $3,000, according to current and former employees familiar with Apple's development plans.

Apple has done this before. Eventual hits like the iPod, iPhone, and Apple Watch started as niche products and evolved into mainstream products. But even Apple executives are skeptical about the company's prospects in virtual reality. Virtual reality may not be ready for its mainstream moment, they say. So far, Apple has declined to comment on the report.

For many investors, the idea of an immersive, all-encompassing online world makes more sense as people are forced to stay at home during the pandemic. Metaverse-related startups raised about $664 million in venture capital in the first five months of 2023, down sharply from $2.93 billion in the same period in 2022, according to data compiled by PitchBook. The decline slashes recent startup investment in the Metaverse to about a quarter of its peak in the first half of 2022, PitchBook said. "The metaverse investment boom -- it came and went, and now people are focusing on artificial intelligence," said Doug Creutz, an analyst at Cowen & Company. "People who were chasing the metaverse have long since changed their stance."

This year, Microsoft shut down the AltspaceVR virtual reality world it acquired in 2017. The company also laid off some employees who worked on the HoloLens mixed-reality headset and eliminated or reassigned teams that had been working on the Metaverse project, according to people familiar with the matter. In a statement, however, Microsoft said it remained committed to the Metaverse, adding that it was rolling out "3D avatars" for Microsoft Teams. Disney also fired about 50 employees who had worked on the Metaverse project, according to people familiar with the matter.

As far as Meta is concerned, Zuckerberg's restructuring plans around the Metaverse have been costly. Meta's hardware division, Reality Labs, including its Oculus headset, is a big reason why Meta's spending has increased significantly in recent years. The unit lost about $4 billion in the first quarter of this year. Zuckerberg warned that building the Metaverse would be a money-losing proposition that would barely deliver on the promise of early returns and would take far longer than he expected. While Zuckerberg has chafed at the notion that the Metaverse is no longer his focus in recent months, he and his aides have indeed spent more time talking about Meta's expertise in artificial intelligence during that time. .

Ashley Zandy, a spokesperson for Meta, said: "We have always been clear that our vision for the Metaverse is long-term and that has not changed. We are committed to the Metaverse Vision and have seen Good momentum of development.” Not long ago, ahead of Apple, Meta officially announced that its first consumer-grade MR headset, the Meta Quest 3, will be released in the fall of 2023, priced at $499.99 for 128GB. To date, consumers have spent more than $1.5 billion on apps and games in Meta's Quest app store.

For Apple, its new headset could be the start of a long-term plan to culminate in a more popular virtual reality product on the market, like a pair of lightweight glasses. Some analysts have suggested that Apple could take an experimental approach, gauging how early adopters are using it and then making changes before marketing future versions to a wider audience. This is similar to the situation with the Apple Watch. The product was originally marketed as an auxiliary device for the iPhone, but has since been redefined as a fitness device.

While enthusiasm has faded, many still believe that the Metaverse isn't dead for good. Long before Meta popularized the Metaverse, companies such as Roblox and Epic Games were touting the technology, and those companies remained committed to their long-term vision. Venture capitalist Matthew Ball has written a book about the Metaverse. The mainstream focus on the concept after Facebook's rebranding fueled outlandish predictions about whether people would spend time in an immersive online world, he said. "It's more of a mismanagement of the schedule," Ball said. "The intense focus on the Metaverse in a short period of time, which some believe is here now, or will be here soon, is bound to disappoint many."

With tens of millions of participants, user-generated content, and a digital economy, Roblox and Epic Games, the developer behind the Fortnite game, can offer a more convincing vision of the Metaverse. Roblox, a platform with millions of games often aimed at kids, had 66.1 million daily users in the first quarter of 2023, up 22% from a year ago. Roblox is working hard to expand to other immersive online experiences, but a full-fledged metaverse is still far away, said Craig Donato, the company's chief business officer. "We're still very much in the initial stages," Donato said.

In March, Epic Games released new tools designed to help "Fortnite" players create their own games on the platform and make money from them. The cornerstone of the metaverse vision preached by CEO Tim Sweeney. Mainstream interest in the metaverse attracts people who aren't really interested in the field, Sweeney said.

"A lot of people are trying to follow this trend without really delivering on the promise," he said. "But if you look at the trend, it continues to grow, and it looks like it continues to grow exponentially." (Mowgli)