Meta's ambitions for the metaverse may not be going as planned. The company's Reality Labs division reportedly stopped work on a next-generation headset amid concerns it wouldn’t sell well enough.
Headsets and the Metaverse
Despite involvement from top technology firms like Sony, HTC, Meta, and Google, virtual reality hardware remains a niche market. Meta expected Apple's Vision Pro—a similar product to what Reality Labs was developing— to perform better. However, as reported, more than half of the Fortune 100 are using Apple's Vision Pro, but the mass consumer remains uninterested.
The Cross-Platform Metaverse
In the Web3 industry, developers aim to create cross-platform metaverses that work on any device. This is because many developers lack the financial resources to develop cutting-edge hardware.
Challenges and Prospects
The problem lies in the lack of a 'killer app' for the metaverse in terms of virtual and augmented reality. Developers take a 'build it and they will come' approach, but outside of the wow factor, headsets don't offer much more than what smartphones can.
The disconnect between big tech’s ambitions and the practical developments by independent developers and small companies in the Web3 industry could be a contributing factor to the continued lack of consumer interest.
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