• Meta reduced their original target of Horizon Worlds’ active users from 500K to 280K.
• Horizon Worlds’ mobile application could be on Meta’s drawing board.

Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse vision is still alive. Sure, it does not appear to be failing, but it sure has left his company Meta Platforms flailing. As a matter of fact, the social media king lost almost 80% valuation in its metaverse quest. However, it regained a better part of that loss within the following year. Now the company seems to be ramping up the efforts for virtual worlds again.

The New Metaverse Game is Missing Some Legs

Vishal Shah, Meta Platforms’ VP, in an in-game interview with tech-focused newsletter Lowpass, said their new game Super Rumble is the ‘next generation of Horizon Worlds.’ Their in-house studio Ouro Interactive produced the game. Shah also revealed it will be among initial games in Horizon’s beta mobile testing.

Meta VP also stated that, “We’ve really raised the ceiling on what can be built in Horizon in terms of visual complexity, interactivity and fun gameplay.” The game sure has better graphics than Horizon Worlds, however, virtual avatars are still missing some legs in there.

Horizon Worlds struggled with users in the past. According to some documents seen by technology news provider The Verge, even the company’s employees were abandoning it. Additionally, netizens criticized Mark Zuckerberg for posting a poor quality screenshot of his metaverse avatar on Instagram in August 2022. Nonetheless, he soon posted a life-like picture of a 3D avatar to evince the actual quality of their work.

In the company’s latest earnings call, Zuckerberg marked metaverse and artificial intelligence (AI) as their concentrated territories. Meta is developing more products with more details expected to come later in 2023. He noted, “As our investments in AI continue, we remain fully committed to the metaverse vision as well.”

Shah also revealed the company has built a working version of Horizon Worlds mobile app. They previously announced the possibility of a launch but delayed considering it was more compatible with virtual reality (VR) devices than mobile screens.

VR/AR Mainstream Adoption is a Long Way Home

VR could pave a path for Meta’s success, however, data shows its global adoption is still in its infancy. German data aggregator Statista estimates augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality users could reach 23 Million and 98 Million in 2023 respectively. it anticipates both the segments could see over 100 Million users becoming part of these segments.

Source: Statista

Apple also revealed their mixed reality headsets during the Worldwide Developers Conference 2023 (WWDC23) in Apple Park during June 2023. Nonetheless, the iPhone maker’s product is focused on spatial computing unlike Meta. Moreover, Apple did not even mention the term metaverse during the event.

Just a few days before Vision Pro’s launch, Meta Platforms announced Meta Quest 3, the most powerful gadget in the Meta Quest series. What’s more, they put a price tag of $499, 66% less than Quest Pro’s initial price.

Currently, Meta Platforms have a major clasp on the social media industry. Data from web analytics company SimilarWeb shows Facebook registered 16 Billion visits while Instagram and WhatsApp registered around 9 Billion collectively in June 2023. Meta has outshined its competitors and it could sustain its dominance if the metaverse becomes a reality.