We often see large companies change the design of their logos. They do it to maintain consistency with the product they are promoting at that moment, but the logo is one thing and the name and the entire brand are another. Facebook fearlessly jumped into the pool in October 2021 changing its name to Metaof ‘metaverse‘. After lose tens of billions and with the metaverse buried, Meta confirmed the inevitable: it will close the Horizon Worlds platform this year.
But there is a twist: after announcing the closure, they now say that they will keep it alive for a while longer. How much? Mystery.
In short. One of the most iconic moments of the technology presentations was when, in a packed room, Mark Zuckerberg walked between rows of journalists wearing a Quest helmet. The metaverse had arrived, or so Zuckerberg wanted. Years later, the reality is very different from future they hoped for Facebook Goalbut the name change had already been done and had to be accepted. ‘Horizon Worlds’ was the platform on which we could lead a second life, one that nor the employees of the Meta itself they used.
To the metaverse he was doing badly, extremely badand Meta tried to make it stick in every possible way taking it to mobile and integrating it with Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Meta announced the plan as one to bring the metaverse everywherebut a few hours ago, Meta took the final step: he announced that on June 15 he would close ‘Horizon Worlds’ in the Quest helmets.
Lowering the blind. Although the metaverse is everywhere, it is evident that the most natural way to access it is through virtual reality. However, it is clear that they are not going the way they would have liked and, in a release On Discord, the company confirmed that virtual worlds could no longer be created, published, or accessed in VR after that date.
It was announced that the closure would be carried out in stages, killing applications from the Quest store starting on March 31 so that no more users can join, culminating with the definitive closure of the VR worlds on June 15. In the announcement, Meta confirmed that ‘Horizon Worlds’ will, from now on, be a mobile-only app. It seemed like the culmination of a process that, apart from burning money, has led Meta to lay off hundreds of workers and hit a 30% blow to the budget of the Reality Labs division.
Schrödinger’s metaverse. But it is clear that those who are still in the metaverse did not like the news at all, to the point that Meta has had to come out to clarify the message… and back away. Although they have done it in a curious way. In a question session on Instagram, the company’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, came to the fore to comment that the dead man is very much alive, that they have thought better of it and that ‘Horizon Worlds’ will remain in VR for “the near future.” The statements are as follows:
“The ‘Horizon Unity Runtime’ games do not work on mobile, only in VR, and we will not be introducing new games. Again, most of our strategy is aimed at mobile, but people who already have games they like will be able to download the ‘Horizon Worlds’ app and use it in VR in the near future.”
In the units of measurement, “near future” is not that it is very concrete, but at least it seems that they do not kill it yet due to, according to Bosworth, showing support “to the fans who have contacted us.” He has commented on it in stories (something that, conveniently, will be deleted), but here is the video:
Other type of glasses. Come on, where I said I say, I say Diego and the Quest metaverse will continue to live for a while longer. As a user, I wouldn’t throw my hat in the ring because it’s clear that they are planning a closure sooner rather than later, but it is always good news that they have listened to those who continue using the platform. Because the Quest, beyond ‘Horizon World’, is an extremely interesting headset for playing and consuming content, but Meta has been betting on another type of glasses for some time.
There are the Ray-Ban Meta, “normal” glasses that are used not to consume, but to create. Already in 2024 we said that Meta was giving a flip from your VR glasses to your everyday glasses because the Ray-Ban Meta is not only a tool for content creators and anyone who wants to record their daily lives: it is a device through which Meta can distribute its AI. And an extremely controversial one, based on what we now know about Where can the images we record end up? with those glasses.
And AI, of course. Because if years ago it was the metaverse, now Meta’s obsession is AI. The company is focusing on this technology in which it is not very well positioned. They focused a lot on preparing and presenting very good models, but not very consumer friendly and it was the big loser of the AI race last year.
Their change in strategy seeks to gain a foothold in a segment in which they are already ChatGPT, Grok, Claude or the chineseand for this it has a double strategy. On the one handa super team of AI stars whose machine will have to start working at some point. On the other hand, a collaboration with NVIDIA and another with AMD to train the AI, as well as the development of own chips for inference.
There is 135 billion dollars at stakean investment in one year that exceeds the total of the Metaverse and that indicates why it is logical for Meta to abandon anything that does not work for him in the slightest right now in order to allocate all possible resources to pursue the new objective.
Images | Goal
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