All articles tagged with #metaverse
The piece argues Meta is entering a long decline, with a first-ever dip in user numbers, strained earnings, and a costly pivot away from social feeds toward the Metaverse and AI, leaving Facebook’s experience cluttered with ads and misinformation and drawing comparisons to AOL/Yahoo as a cautionary internet-era fade—raising questions about whether Zuckerberg can reverse the trend.
New Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro wants Disney Plus to be the immersive, central hub of the company, tying streaming to parks and other experiences to deepen fan engagement, but critics warn that turning Disney Plus into a busy, all-in-one hub could degrade the simple, on-demand viewing experience and question whether audiences actually want such integration, especially given past unfulfilled experiments.
Elizabeth Lopatto argues that Silicon Valley has largely forgotten ordinary consumers, chasing hype around NFTs, the metaverse, and AI instead of solving real problems. She contrasts this with past consumer wins like the iMac, iPod, and iPhone that were driven by clear user needs, and notes that AI’s consumer impact is limited and often entangled with misinformation and finance-driven bets. NFTs and the metaverse failed to gain broad adoption, and AI is largely valuable as an enterprise tool with questionable consumer payoff. The piece calls for humility and a return to user-centric product design—building what people actually want rather than forcing a flashy future.”,
Meta plans to cut roughly 8,000 jobs in May (about 10% of its workforce) with more reductions anticipated later this year, as leadership shifts investment from the metaverse toward AI; the report, citing Reuters, notes the broader tech layoff trend and Meta has not commented to NBC Bay Area.
Meta Platforms is raising prices on its Quest VR headsets to offset higher memory-chip costs, boosting the 128GB model from $299 to $349, the 256GB model from $399 to $449, and the 512GB Quest 3 from $499 to $599. The move comes as the company has shifted away from its Metaverse ambitions toward AI, with analysts maintaining a Strong Buy rating on META and a target suggesting upside of about 35%.
Meta’s Reality Labs has posted over $80 billion in losses, but not all of that is from the metaverse—hardware like Quest headsets and Ray-Ban AI glasses account for much of the spending. Reality Labs will continue operating and burning money as Meta reframes its strategy: the metaverse isn’t dead, just evolving beyond headsets, while Zuckerberg shifts attention to AI and datacenters to build a more self-owned platform.
Meta has reversed an earlier plan to retire Horizon Worlds on VR, announcing that it will keep VR support for existing Horizon Worlds games and the Unity runtime, while not funding new VR Horizon Worlds titles and continuing its pivot toward mobile, AR, and AI amid Reality Labs losses and declining Quest headset sales.
Meta has reversed its plan to shut down Horizon Worlds in VR, saying it will keep the Horizon Worlds VR app running for the foreseeable future to support existing games, while continuing to invest in two more generations of VR headsets and broadly framing the metaverse beyond VR.
Creative Bloq argues Meta’s 2021 pivot to the metaverse and rebrand has backfired, with Horizon Worlds being shut down and Realty Labs layoffs signaling a retreat from the plan, underscoring how hindsight paints the branding as misguided amid a fading of the metaverse vision.
Meta says Horizon Worlds will become a mobile-only experience, removing it from the Quest Store on March 31; users who already have the app can continue to use it until June 15, after which Horizon Worlds on Quest will be sunsetted and limited to a mobile experience (with the legs feature accessible on mobile).
Meta is laying off about 1,500 Reality Labs employees (roughly 10% of the division) and shuttering three VR game studios as it pivots away from the metaverse toward AI wearables; Horizon Worlds remains but scaled back, while the company’s broader metaverse losses and ongoing AI glasses production questions frame the shift.
Meta is cutting jobs as it shifts focus away from metaverse investments toward AI devices, signaling a major restructuring to prioritize AI initiatives in hardware and software.
Meta is cutting about 10% of its Reality Labs division, shuttering three VR studios—Twisted Pixel Games (Marvel’s Deadpool VR), Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath), and Armature Studio (Resident Evil 4 VR port)—and halting new content for the Supernatural app; Bloomberg reports and The Verge confirms the closures as part of shifting investment from the metaverse toward wearables, with staff layoffs and prior acquisitions noted.
Meta plans to lay off around 10% of its Reality Labs staff this week, with most cuts in the metaverse division, as the company pivots toward AI. CTO Andrew Bosworth has called an in-person meeting billed as the year’s most important, following earlier reports of metaverse budget cuts and a broader shift to AI.
Meta Platforms is cutting more than 1,000 jobs from its Reality Labs division to redirect resources from metaverse/VR toward AI wearables and smartphone features, with Horizon refocused on mobile, ongoing VR investments pared back, and several in-house VR studios slated to close.