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Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued

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Re: Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued

#201

Post by wolvoleo »

giobox wrote: post #13
bhouston wrote: post #7

Okay, how long until Meta Quest is discontinued/sunset? I believe there is no expectation of a Meta Quest 4 right?

In all seriousness, given component price increases etc, the Quest 3 remains an incredible deal for PC VR use. Aside from the foveated rendering, the lens/display specifications are very close to Valve's still to ship Steam Frame, which at this stage will almost certainly cost more than the Quest 3 does. 25 PPD VR headset for 499 with inside-out tracking plus controllers etc is amazing value. I've never once used any…

Yeah the frame is gonna cost at least double now with component prices.

I was hoping to buy one (I've got 4 quests of different types) but nope not if it's > 1000€.

Re: Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued

#202

Post by wolvoleo »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #16

When will horizon worlds be axed entirely? It has something like fewer than 10,000 active users at any given time.

No they're going to bring it to mobile. Where it adds no value really. They're probably trying to make a roblox out of it.

Re: Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued

#203

Post by bombcar »

karmakaze wrote: post #143
tyleo wrote: post #2

Interesting, cutting way back in the product they renamed the whole company for. They feel a bit directionless to me. They are still making money but even their AI attempt feels half hearted. I think they are really trying but I’m not sure they can build the engineering muscle to move in new areas with the brand damage they’ve sustained.

The Meta/Oculus bet was never about VR or gaming. It is to solve Zuck's greatest fear of being beholden to platforms controlled by others. What it was supposed to be was basically what Microsoft missed out on with mobile, losing to Google and Apple. VR and AR could be that next platform to own and control. They would love to have all the data that Google and Apple enjoy. That's what Quest -> Horizon was about, change…

They could release a subsidized Facebook phone which is just some android pos with Facebook rammed into it for way less than the 70 billion or whatever they burned on VR.

Re: Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued

#204

Post by wolvoleo »

jesse_dot_id wrote: post #77

I never understood why they were trying to recreate real life social interactions in VR, because it's worse by default, and the majority of the nerds who buy this tech are probably trying to escape that on some level. I know that any time I went into Meta Horizon Worlds, I didn't want to hear 95% of the people I heard talking. What I do use VR for is Bigscreen VR nearly every night to watch stuff with my friends. Scr…

There's a lot of nerds around the world. Plenty for a decent market.

Also it isn't this weird an idea. Could you imagine explaining to someone in 1995 that everyone would be chatting on a small touchscreen instead of calling each other on the phone? You'd be laughed out of the door "typing is not real communication".

Yet these days it's the main mode of communication. I do think AR/VR has a chance. Just not until the hardware is truly hassle-free.

Re: Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued

#205

Post by marcus_holmes »

ehnto wrote: post #192
TacticalCoder wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, a fraction of the AI investments? It’s pretty clear where the focus is bow and who/what no longer has a future at Meta. And the tens of billions spent on AI at Meta... As a result, we're all using "Meta Code CLI" and "ChatBook" and "Geminizuck" right? Seriously: while we're all on Claude Code using the Anthropic models and many are happy with Gemini and ChatGPT for other stuff, where is Meta's AI offering? I lo…

Do they need one do you think? They are trying to make one for sure but it's interesting to think about whether they actually need their own models to survive the shift. Maybe they just deliver other people's models via Meta products?

It's about growth.

Meta stock is priced as a growth stock - not on its current financial returns but on what the market believes it will do in the future. It has been priced like this from the start because it has been growing since the start.

As soon as it stops being able to convince the market it is still growing, then the stock price drops to what the business's current financials dictate, which will be a huge drop. That huge drop has severe negative consequences for everyone involved in that decision. Spending tens of billions on the Metaverse project was better, even though it failed, because it created a growth story they could sell to the market.

So now that's gone they need another growth story. Given the current state of the tech world, that's probably AI-related. And they probably need their own models as part of it.

They can't just "survive the shift" because it's not really about survival. They need to be part of the shift, so that they can convince the market that they're still growing.

Re: Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued

#206

Post by bombcar »

tyleo wrote: post #75
Anon1096 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's supposed to be a Roblox competitor, which does print money, though probably not to the extent of how much they invested. The problems are 2 fold: People/kids don't want to put on a VR headset to play Roblox. I guess they're conceding this point by pivoting to mobile. Meta is the opposite of cool. Real name requirements, only humanoid avatars, super corpo branding, etc really seriously hold them back from competi…

Even Roblox doesn’t print money if you look into that business. They print engagement but are still fighting tooth and nail to make a dime on it. I can see Meta wanting the engagement though.

If they wanted a Roblox competitor, they could have bought Roblox for much less than the billions they spent.

Even now it's still less.

Re: Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued

#207

Post by wolvoleo »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #142
drivebyhooting wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone-only The writing has been on the wall for a long time. Very few people want to buy a separate cumbersome face hugger device.

I don't think that's entirely it, they don't want the product facebook is selling. VR Chat is massively more popular than Facebooks offerings. Though Facebook had impossible goals, they didn't want to make a gaming device, they wanted to make the next smartphone, that everyday people and office workers would use. Which was just unrealistic.

VRChat is just plain better. It doesn't look like a Nintendo 64 game and it doesn't have the rubber tile children-first moderation constantly looking over your shoulder. It's more gritty like adults want.

Re: Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued

#208

Post by jemmyw »

kemotep wrote: post #26
xd1936 wrote: post #4

Unbelievable. They re-architected the whole operating system around this stupid app. They discontinued their previous homescreen environments in favor of trying to promote Horizon Worlds, only to discontinue the blasted thing anyway? After all of those millions of dollars spent trying to make virtual events happen?

Billions. Facebook has spent billions and billions over the past decade in VR. Starting with the Oculus merger and then in 2021 with the rebrand. 10 billion a year supposedly for the past 5 years now.

Is that a bad thing? That's 10b that engineers and other employees now have and Facebook doesn't have. And while VR might never make them money, is it bad from our pov that they did the research and development?

Re: Meta Horizon Worlds on Meta Quest is being discontinued

#209

Post by wolvoleo »

neosat wrote: post #129

The sign of a company in absolute decline is when the worst possible place to get info about it, is their official announcement. Whoever wrote the announcement went out of their way to obfuscate the crux of the announcement (compare the clear heading on hackernews to their own heading) If your (well paid) job is to write and communicate clearly, and for a major announcement you come up with this...not much left to sa…

Yeah the whole positive spin about doubling down on VR was completely ridiculous. The only thing left making money now is the store. Which means they'll just have to hope some others will make stuff that's worth selling because they've also shut all their own studios.
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