[Insider Gaming] Meta's CTO Says The Metaverse Could be a ‘Legendary Misadventure’ as Total Loss Exceeds $60B

this whole metaverse thing

William Murderface Burn GIF
 
It was obvious.
People are not going to wear headsets that induce motion sickness to enjoy socials or games. It's destined to be a niche thing.
They will have to change the company's name again :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 
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Ozriel said:
Nothing in that article even remotely suggests the Quest is lumped into this 'make or break' discussion.
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And Horizon Worlds on mobile absolutely has to break out for our long term plans to have a chance. If you don't feel the weight of history on you then you aren't paying attention. "This year likely determines whether this entire effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure.
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I agree, this is more about the Metaverse than VR alone. Unless Quest itself is costing them 4 billion a quarter.
 
60B dollars could do so much to help humanity. It could have been used to cure diseases, improve the life's of people, make advancements in energy production, new scientific fields, etc.
Instead, they are wasting it on this crap, that is obvious that no one cares about.
 
winjer said:
60B dollars could do so much to help humanity. It could have been used to cure diseases, improve the life's of people, make advancements in energy production, new scientific fields, etc.
Instead, they are wasting it on this crap, that is obvious that no one cares about.
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It gave me Batman so worth it.
 
winjer said:
60B dollars could do so much to help humanity. It could have been used to cure diseases, improve the life's of people, make advancements in energy production, new scientific fields, etc.
Instead, they are wasting it on this crap, that is obvious that no one cares about.
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Also the amount of data centers and processing power this garbage uses which is totally fucking the planet in the ass. Fucking tech douches, honestly.
 
Ozriel said:
Nothing in that article even remotely suggests the Quest is lumped into this 'make or break' discussion.
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Quest and its adoption is the main propagation method that Meta is using to propagate the Metaverse concept. If people don't buy Meta VR headsets specifically, they likely can't access Zuckerberg's metaverse product at all!

It's highly likely that Meta is selling a lot of those units at a loss to boost adoption.

Edit: You have to also count the costs that Meta is undertaking to deliver these AAA Quest VR exclusives, the unit sales volume they're getting in return for that, while better than PSVR2, is very clearly not enough to cover the expenses.
 
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These retarded executives need to look at a company like Nintendo and wonder why they succeed.

Nobody is asking for live service games because people are already invested in what they want to play for years on end. Getting players and their friends' attention to then switch over to your "service" is a BIG risk. And apparently they are all willing to take it and then fail and wonder why they failed.

They are truly retarded.
 
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Ozriel said:
Nothing in that article even remotely suggests the Quest is lumped into this 'make or break' discussion.
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How does it not?

Reality Labs is the company responsible for Quest. If they're shuttered after this year, which seems wildly likely after this internal memo, do you think Quest just limps a long separately from them?

At best they'd look to sell the Quest line to someone to recoup some of their losses, but who is going to buy the line if it isn't profitable? Maybe Microsoft , Amazon, or Apple would, but I'm not sure that without the advertising through Facebook and Instagram, anyone is going to have half the success that Meta had with it.

It might be the leader in VR gaming, but that's not the brag you might think it is. Most of their major games are 3rd party or they bought the 3rd parties like Beat Studio who makes Beat Saber, which still gets published on PS5.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
How does it not?

Reality Labs is the company responsible for Quest. If they're shuttered after this year, which seems wildly likely after this internal memo, do you think Quest just limps a long separately from them?

At best they'd look to sell the Quest line to someone to recoup some of their losses, but who is going to buy the line if it isn't profitable? Maybe Microsoft , Amazon, or Apple would, but I'm not sure that without the advertising through Facebook and Instagram, anyone is going to have half the success that Meta had with it.

It might be the leader in VR gaming, but that's not the brag you might think it is. Most of their major games are 3rd party or they bought the 3rd parties like Beat Studio who makes Beat Saber, which still gets published on PS5.
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Yep, and it's likely that Quest selling price is subsidized. So even if they say spun off Reality Labs and sold it to someone, price would be jacked up.

And if it's not selling in needed numbers now (to promote metaverse shit), it won't sell in bigger numbers when headsets are a few hundred $ more expensive.

Also, who would even buy Quest hardware and software org? Apple won't since they have their own effort and they don't sell cheap products, lol. Plus they don't do game dev.

Google is a maybe, but they are more on cost savings spree because everything needs to go to AI.

MS - lol, they won't be buying this. Satya has his hands full with Xbox as it is.
 
Just the ideia is already stupid. I like how much money they spend to cut a person in half lmao.
 
I have yet to meet a person that have tried it. I have never heard anyone that knows how to access it, I have never even heard anyone talk about it.

And I know a bunch of people with vr headsets.
 
Well, now Sony's 400 million dollar Concord fiasco doesn't sound so bad, does it?
 
I don't even understand how they are burning through cash so quickly. The 1B is an impressive revenue number but they've burned through 60B that is an insane amount of money.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
How does it not?

Reality Labs is the company responsible for Quest. If they're shuttered after this year, which seems wildly likely after this internal memo, do you think Quest just limps a long separately from them?

At best they'd look to sell the Quest line to someone to recoup some of their losses, but who is going to buy the line if it isn't profitable? Maybe Microsoft , Amazon, or Apple would, but I'm not sure that without the advertising through Facebook and Instagram, anyone is going to have half the success that Meta had with it.

It might be the leader in VR gaming, but that's not the brag you might think it is. Most of their major games are 3rd party or they bought the 3rd parties like Beat Studio who makes Beat Saber, which still gets published on PS5.
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The Quest headset line-up is to the Metaverse what the Xbox console is to Gamepass: The HW is the growth vector for software, and if said massively-subsidized HW doesn't sell enough units to create a large enough userbase that buys the massively-expensive, but high-margin SW, then revenues won't cover the expenses and the org would get downsized or worse.

Look at what happened to the Amazon Alexa division for example, it's a by-now familiar story of big tech-funded, perpetually-money-losing enterprises that are suddenly being asked by the C-suite to turn profitable ASAP at all costs.
 
It was kind of a dumb science fiction idea. Like it was supposed to be the vids from Minority Report. But I knew as soon as I saw for the first time that creepy ass ad they made, they had no idea wtf they were doing.

 
Interfectum said:
That's 60 GTA6s. Where the fuck did the money go? Everything they've put out looks shit.
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Too many people drawing too high salaries doing R&D on hardware and software.

Edit: and it's probably estimate of the spend since the start of Metaverse and Oculus push so almost a decade.
 
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I still don't know what a Metaverse is. An Avatar? The Quest 3 it's basically a room you go into to customize an avatar and look at yourself in a mirror.
60 Billion to make a room with a mirror? I don't understand the concept.
 
Magic Carpet said:
I still don't know what a Metaverse is. An Avatar? The Quest 3 it's basically a room you go into to customize an avatar and look at yourself in a mirror.
60 Billion to make a room with a mirror? I don't understand the concept.
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60 billion dollars trying to make the VR facebook.

Sony could put out Playstation Home VR and they'd probably get there faster than Meta for a fraction of the cost.

Meta is betting on VR having higher engagement and monetization than basic social media, that's why they bet big on metaverse, whereas sony is just dabbling in VR.
 
It's too soon for a "metaverse" and Mark Zuckerberg was the wrong person to try to take us there. He's just not a visionary. People are fine with their online society as it is. They don't want to strap hardware to their head and live their life inside a bad video game.
 
This is twice as much as humans invest in fusion energy... just so they can serve fully immersive advertisements.
 
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Based on the recent layoffs, I would say that things are trending towards misadventure...

It'll be interesting to see if the Quest 3 gets discontinued at some point next year.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
Based on the recent layoffs, I would say that things are trending towards misadventure...

It'll be interesting to see if the Quest 3 gets discontinued at some point next year.
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Quest 3 isn't getting discontinued unless it's for a Quest 4.
They have been burning money on trying to make Meta Verse a thing or business VR a thing, Quest itself could tick along quite nicely with a couple of internal studios and the hardware.
 
poppabk said:
Quest 3 isn't getting discontinued unless it's for a Quest 4.
They have been burning money on trying to make Meta Verse a thing or business VR a thing, Quest itself could tick along quite nicely with a couple of internal studios and the hardware.
Click to expand...

They're selling far fewer units than you'd expect/realize and they've been shutting down studios. Not sure that's a business venture Meta is going to stay tied to moving forward.

You could be right that they'll keep it trucking along, but they're probably selling the hardware at a loss, and not making significant money on the software.

I could see them discontinue or I could see them sell to another company like Amazon or Valve, but I'd be surprised to see them keep the status quo going for much longer unless there is a breakthrough in revenue.
 
Does this include the development and manufacturing of the headsets?
Otherwise how do you even spend 60b on this?
That's like 200 AAA games
 
Fbh said:
Does this include the development and manufacturing of the headsets?
Otherwise how do you even spend 60b on this?
That's like 200 AAA games
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Massive amounts on advertising, heavily subsidized hardware, inventory, large-scale R&D, expensive software development for games that don't generate profit, expensive exclusivity deals.

The Metaquest 2 came out in 2020 and the Quest 3 came out 2023... that's a wild time gap for a "generation" and you're not allowing yourself any time to realize the gains on Quest 2 R&D before going straight into Quest 3. I'm sure they did it because they felt like Quest 2 wasn't up to snuff to deliver on metaverse.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
They're selling far fewer units than you'd expect/realize and they've been shutting down studios. Not sure that's a business venture Meta is going to stay tied to moving forward.

You could be right that they'll keep it trucking along, but they're probably selling the hardware at a loss, and not making significant money on the software.

I could see them discontinue or I could see them sell to another company like Amazon or Valve, but I'd be surprised to see them keep the status quo going for much longer unless there is a breakthrough in revenue.
Click to expand...

They won't discontinue the Quest line of headsets, and I don't believe they're selling the Quest 3 at a loss. Probably low profit margins, which they make up with software revenue.

Sure, they aren't selling at console rates, but they're by far the best selling VR headset line. And now that they're also doing AR with their headsets, it's another pathway for them

Most of the losses in their division comes from the silly metaverse bets that's extremely premature. The tech for what Zuckerberg wants to do just isn't there
 
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Ozriel said:
They won't discontinue the Quest line of headsets, and I don't believe they're selling the Quest 3 at a loss. Probably low profit margins, which they make up with software revenue.
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xrdailynews.com

Meta Continues to Operate at a Loss on Quest 3 – Production Costs Revealed

Despite the higher price tag, Meta is most likely operating at a loss on Quest 3. Since the announcement of
xrdailynews.com xrdailynews.com

Ozriel said:
Sure, they aren't selling at console rates, but they're by far the best selling VR headset line. And now that they're also doing AR with their headsets, it's another pathway for them
Click to expand...

Quest 2 sold over 20 million units, but Quest 3 is selling significantly slower. Meta didn't consider that three years might not be enough time for people to be willing to upgrade en masse.



Ozriel said:
Most of the losses in their division comes from the silly metaverse bets that's extremely premature. The tech for what Zuckerberg wants to do just isn't there
Click to expand...

The metaverse bet is the whole justification for the losses they are taking with the Quest 3.
 
Could be? No is, IS a huge flop.
It took them years just reach Wii level of avatars, and even longer to be add legs…LEGS…Literally billions for Wii level avatars…What a total fucking joke
 
Metaverse is like the flying car; dreamed up decades ago, but now that it is possible it just doesn't live up to expectations.

Another example is a video phone. Sure, we do Zoom meetings and remote schooling. Even remote court appearances. But people give the choice would rather NOT show their faces while making normal phone calls. So something that people dreamed of for decades and decades ended up being hated most of the time.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
... Quest 2 sold over 20 million units, but Quest 3 is selling significantly slower. Meta didn't consider that three years might not be enough time for people to be willing to upgrade en masse...
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Exactly. I honestly think they looked at the phone market for some of their expectations. Simply put: the VR market isn't big enough, and the hardware isn't moving fast enough, for that kind of upgrade potential. And this coming from one of the few who adores VR and uses my Quest 2 regularly. The metaverse won't exist until AR glasses arrive, and we're quite a few hardware breakthroughs away from that.
 
I know people hate the real world. But I think it will never be natural to have a screen right infront of your eyes. We tolerate phones and monitors because we are removed from them.
 
The metaverse will eventually arrive, just like NFTs will be returning. You just cannot plan it, like Meta intended to. They should continue to improve and innovate the Quest line and keep their eyes open to acquire the right company at the right time.
 
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