Phil Spencer Criticizes Metaverse, Comparing it to Poorly-designed Game
Xbox brand chief Phil Spencer has criticized Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse. In his opinion, it resembles a poorly designed video game and looks like a conference room.
Some time ago Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta (formerly Facebook), decided to realize the vision of a virtual world where everyone can spend time in. This is how the metaverse project was created, which could become the future equivalent of the world of Oasis, known from the popular movie Ready Player One. However, some claim he just spent billions to create something that no one understands.
Unfortunately the implementation of the idea is not going Zuckerberg's way. Despite the efforts of Meta developers, the quality of graphics offered by the virtual world still falls short of modern standards. The problem is also the small number of available activities, which makes the metaverse not a particularly attractive place in the eyes of users.
The idea of a digital world also doesn't appeal to Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, who commented on it during the WSJ Tech Live conference (via TheVerge). Spencer likened the metaverse to a poorly designed video game.
"Video game developers have an uncanny ability to build fascinating worlds that we want to spend time in. For me, building a metaverse that looks like a conference room... I just don't think that's where I want to spend most of my time," Spencer said during the conference.
He is not the only one who thinks Zuckerberg's idea is misguided, as Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is of a similar opinion, also present at the aforementioned conference. In his opinion, this is life inside the computer and is the last place he would want to relax after a long day at work. This opinion is shared by Greg Joswiak, vice president of marketing for Apple, whose opinion is that "the world will never use this."
Metaverse reduces Facebook's revenue
It seems that the world shares this opinion and actually expresses no interest in the metaverse project, as evidenced by the latest financial results published by Meta.
A particularly interesting item is the result of Reality Labs, the division responsible for implementing the digital world project. In the past quarter, its revenues fell from 558 million to just 285 million (compared to the same period last year), while its operating loss rose to $3.67 billion (a year ago it was $2.63 billion).
So it seems that the metaverse project has failed spectacularly so far and we are unlikely to see a real virtual world in the coming years. A large part of the Internet community is laughing at Zuckerberg's failure, but in fact it's a bit of a pity for his failure, as many people would certainly love to visit the "metaverse" if it were properly executed.
