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Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

engadget.com

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Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#111

Post by dredmorbius »

taeric wrote: post #36
robmccoll wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! And now Meta is chasing that too and failing. It's not clear to me what advantage developing its own LLMs affords Meta. Google and the other platform companies, I get it, but it's not like Meta is using what's unique about their social data to train something interesting.

I think the general strategy for a long time in the tech world was to have as many of the programmers as you could under your umbrella. You don't necessarily know what you are racing towards, but the general feel was you knew that programmers were going to get there.

It also deprives your competition of their product, and/or bids up their cost.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#112

Post by spcebar »

jdashg wrote: post #87

As a VRChat regular, Meta's VR world efforts have been hilarious every step of the way. So long and thanks for all the headsets! :) Maybe not everything has to be the next big thing for everyone. Maybe it's valuable for smaller companies or sovereign divisions to find niche markets, and simply build products and services for modest profits for strong customer bases that will never hit hypergrowth. (And are therefore…

What do you feel, as someone who likes VR, were Meta's big pitfalls, and what do you like about VRChat that you feel like Meta missed?

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#113

Post by Flere-Imsaho »

madeofpalk wrote: post #96
stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

I agree with you... but was it actually a failure ? I feel like that would require to have some kind of negative consequences, which I don't think Meta has faced over this. They've still been rewarded handsomely.

The hardware is actually pretty decent, and some VR games work really well. For example this table tennis simulator honestly feels life the real thing, even down to the little "tap" in the bat when you hit the ball :

https://www.meta.com/en-gb/experiences/eleven-table-tennis/1...

The while time I've owned a Quest, I've never felt the need or desire to launch the Horizon App.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#114

Post by drivebyhooting »

georgeburdell wrote: post #105
poisonborz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean throw those billions, tens of thousands of man hours, shareholder attenton, industry power and mindshare to a mostly useless concept, just because he had the money? Why are those resources not better spent on 100+ startups and 100+ unique ideas that are immediately tested by the market?

Just because the end concept was useless doesn’t mean the individual pieces don’t have value. Meta’s loose wallet probably kickstarted the work of dozens of smaller companies in the hardware space whose work can be parlayed into other areas.

It was not very efficient usage of the money. It actually ended up paying for overpriced real estate in the bay area and vanity toys such as Porsches.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#115

Post by tim333 »

riskable wrote: post #33
asadotzler wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one wants to wear a PC on their faces. The few who did wanted that for games but Zuck wanted a social VR platform, not a third-rate gaming console. Games couldn't even bring in the numbers needed to pivot anyone to social so they're giving up.

> No one wants to wear a PC on their faces. This has yet to be determined! Because no VR headset so far has actually been a proper PC. You can't develop on them. You can't just install whatever TF you want. You have to use their app store and getting developer mode enabled doesn't even give you root on the device. A more accurate statement would be, "No one wants to wear a locked-down, extremely limited-use phone on…

I tried out an actual IBM PC, wearable version in about 2000. It was kind of neat and ran DOS. Never really took off though. This thing https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-pc-goes-readytowear

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#116

Post by georgeburdell »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #114
georgeburdell wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the end concept was useless doesn’t mean the individual pieces don’t have value. Meta’s loose wallet probably kickstarted the work of dozens of smaller companies in the hardware space whose work can be parlayed into other areas.

It was not very efficient usage of the money. It actually ended up paying for overpriced real estate in the bay area and vanity toys such as Porsches.

Considering other mega corps would either hoard the cash or increase dividends, the fact that any money went to engineers is a win. Saying the money would be better spent funding startups does not reflect any real possibility.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#118

Post by kridsdale3 »

spcebar wrote: post #112
jdashg wrote: post #87

As a VRChat regular, Meta's VR world efforts have been hilarious every step of the way. So long and thanks for all the headsets! :) Maybe not everything has to be the next big thing for everyone. Maybe it's valuable for smaller companies or sovereign divisions to find niche markets, and simply build products and services for modest profits for strong customer bases that will never hit hypergrowth. (And are therefore…

What do you feel, as someone who likes VR, were Meta's big pitfalls, and what do you like about VRChat that you feel like Meta missed?

Porn, for one.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#119

Post by lostmsu »

georgeburdell wrote: post #105
poisonborz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean throw those billions, tens of thousands of man hours, shareholder attenton, industry power and mindshare to a mostly useless concept, just because he had the money? Why are those resources not better spent on 100+ startups and 100+ unique ideas that are immediately tested by the market?

Just because the end concept was useless doesn’t mean the individual pieces don’t have value. Meta’s loose wallet probably kickstarted the work of dozens of smaller companies in the hardware space whose work can be parlayed into other areas.

That would be useful if they open sourced the effort. Otherwise it will die of total irrelevance 15-30 years from now.

Re: Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15

#120

Post by JKCalhoun »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #6

This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…

All companies, those with enough resources, tend to put money on all the horses when they can—Meta, Apple, Microsoft included.

I was surprised though that one of them changed the name of their entire company.

Ever since the "power glove" and that 1st lauding of "VR" in the 90's, I've been bullish. People don't want that shit on their heads (I keep shouting). If you want to argue that people want immersion, I'll suggest they also want immersion that they can instantly look away from.

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