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Xbox’s Phil Spencer says the metaverse is a ‘poorly built video game’

GHG

Gold Member
How is that flip-flopping? First one is about playing video games in VR, the metaverse is about living and doing everything in a digital world... Just because they use the same tool, VR goggles, doesn't mean he made a 180.

No, the metaverse is akin to your consoles OS environment. The idea is that when you strap on the headset you are placed in a virtual world and then you select your experience from there (or just stay in the metaverse and take part in social activities). Like I said in my previous post, it's intended to be the wrapper for everything VR. It's current intention is not to replace the real world.

And for what it's worth he has done a 180 on VR:

 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Looks like Phil said something normal and uncontroversial again.

eea.gif



Phil: I like cheesecake

GAF:

How Dare You Greta GIF
 

Helghan

Member
No, the metaverse is akin to your consoles OS environment. The idea is that when you strap on the headset you are placed in a virtual world and then you select your experience from there (or just stay in the metaverse and take part in social activities). Like I said in my previous post, it's intended to be the wrapper for everything VR. It's current intention is not to replace the real world.
"it's current intention"? As if anyone knows what we'll actually have with the metaverse. It's a buzzword thrown around too much.

Spencer only said that the Xbox was capable of VR, and like always, the Xbox division looks for new stuff. Could be VR, a streaming stick, or whatever other stuff they do behind close doors. Some things they eventually go for, other things they drop. That doesn't mean he makes a complete 180, that just means they tried it internally, and then dropped the project.

I can bet you that he'll have a PSVR2, and will use it, just like he'll play Ragnarok.
 

GHG

Gold Member
"it's current intention"? As if anyone knows what we'll actually have with the metaverse. It's a buzzword thrown around too much.

Spencer only said that the Xbox was capable of VR, and like always, the Xbox division looks for new stuff. Could be VR, a streaming stick, or whatever other stuff they do behind close doors. Some things they eventually go for, other things they drop. That doesn't mean he makes a complete 180, that just means they tried it internally, and then dropped the project.

I can bet you that he'll have a PSVR2, and will use it, just like he'll play Ragnarok.


Phil Spencer literally stood on stage, advertised a new console and said they would make it VR compatible, talked it up and then didn't deliver on that promise. Now he wants to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened while trashing and talking down VR. If that's not the definition of a 180 then I don't know what is.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
No, the metaverse is akin to your consoles OS environment. The idea is that when you strap on the headset you are placed in a virtual world and then you select your experience from there (or just stay in the metaverse and take part in social activities). Like I said in my previous post, it's intended to be the wrapper for everything VR. It's current intention is not to replace the real world.

And for what it's worth he has done a 180 on VR:

No-one really knows what metaverse is. It's just a rebranding of Facebook so far. There is some intention that it will be some kind of VR/AR based thing, but it really doesn't exist right now. I guess the idea is that all the little digital 'worlds' we already have currently from neogaf to PSN to Facebook to discord to onlyfans to YouTube etc will exist in a single digital space that isn't 'just' the internet.
 
No-one really knows what metaverse is. It's just a rebranding of Facebook so far. There is some intention that it will be some kind of VR/AR based thing, but it really doesn't exist right now. I guess the idea is that all the little digital 'worlds' we already have currently from neogaf to PSN to Facebook to discord to onlyfans to YouTube etc will exist in a single digital space that isn't 'just' the internet.

Steam VR is an example of the metaverse
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
No-one really knows what metaverse is. It's just a rebranding of Facebook so far. There is some intention that it will be some kind of VR/AR based thing, but it really doesn't exist right now. I guess the idea is that all the little digital 'worlds' we already have currently from neogaf to PSN to Facebook to discord to onlyfans to YouTube etc will exist in a single digital space that isn't 'just' the internet.
It's like VR Chat, but very homogenized and fruitier.
 
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Termite

Member
What I can't understand is where the money is going compared to the product produced.

Let's say you take 30 industry leading programmers / hardware designers and pay them $1m a year each. You support them with 300 staff at $200k a year each. That's $100 mill in salary a year.

In the game industry, you'd expect to see a class-leading piece of interactive software after two years with this kind of talent on board. What they have is some kind of lame tech demo that impresses no one and can't retain users.

To take it further, let's say you've spend $50 mil on a new HQ and all the associated expenses. Shit, let's say you spend that every year as you expand. You're still only at $150m lost per year, but this thing is burning through 3 to 4 BILLION a year. Where the FUCK is it going? Genuinely... what are they spending the money on? Is it hardware production losses? Losing $200 a piece on, say, 20 million Quest devices would add up to 4 billion. How hard are they subsidizing this thing?
 
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Business

Member
Hard to disagree if you ever fired up Decentraland or The Sandbox. But yeah, that's just now, I do believe a decentralized open source metaverse will eventually kick ass.
 
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A.Romero

Member
While Phil has said some shit in the past I don't think it necessarily means that everything he says afterwards is wrong. Meta's metaverse has been a failure so far by any metric you can think off.

I don't think Halo's launch and current status is anything comparable to that. Both the Metaverse and Halo can be crappy at the same time without an issue.

That said, the Metaverse is the future but it's just too early right now. The only thing Meta has going for them is a huge amount of money and willingness to throw it to a project of this size and to support it. Other than that I think they made a mistake by not partnering with some company that has experience in this stuff.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
While Phil has said some shit in the past I don't think it necessarily means that everything he says afterwards is wrong. Meta's metaverse has been a failure so far by any metric you can think off.

I don't think Halo's launch and current status is anything comparable to that. Both the Metaverse and Halo can be crappy at the same time without an issue.

That said, the Metaverse is the future but it's just too early right now. The only thing Meta has going for them is a huge amount of money and willingness to throw it to a project of this size and to support it. Other than that I think they made a mistake by not partnering with some company that has experience in this stuff.
Your last paragraph is spot on. Facebook reported earnings and they were terrible vs expectations. In the recent quarter their VR/meta division lost $3.6 billion dollars. Only companies with giant pockets will bother trying to get the metaverse off the ground as a huge high risk/high reward kind of situation.

And right now, it's at high risk/high cost.
 
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poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Your last paragraph is spot on. Facebook reported earnings and they were terrible vs expectations. In the recent quarter their VR/meta division lost $3.6 billion dollars. Only companies with giant pockets will bother trying to get the metaverse off the ground as a huge high risk/high reward kind of situation.

And right now, it's at high risk/high cost.
What are they even spending that money on? Just subsidizing the Quest 2, it can't be that much of a financial sinkhole surely? Doubt bytedance are taking significant losses on the Pico 4. So what exactly are they spending money on?
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
What are they even spending that money on? Just subsidizing the Quest 2, it can't be that much of a financial sinkhole surely? Doubt bytedance are taking significant losses on the Pico 4. So what exactly are they spending money on?
Hookers and Ketamine.
 

solidus12

Member
It takes one expert in poorly built video games to know one "poorly built video game"
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
What are they even spending that money on? Just subsidizing the Quest 2, it can't be that much of a financial sinkhole surely? Doubt bytedance are taking significant losses on the Pico 4. So what exactly are they spending money on?
I have no idea. Zuck must have 1000s of employees all crunching with giant salaries with R&D tech costs through the roof. Whatever money and profits they make selling VR goggles doesn't make a dent.

I pasted it in the Stocks thread in OT, but an article said they lost over $9 billion the past 3 quarters. So the going rate lately is $3 billion loss/quarter.
 

Helghan

Member

Phil Spencer literally stood on stage, advertised a new console and said they would make it VR compatible, talked it up and then didn't deliver on that promise. Now he wants to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened while trashing and talking down VR. If that's not the definition of a 180 then I don't know what is.
He isn't thrashing VR. He is thrashing the metaverse.
 

reksveks

Member
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Phil Spencer literally stood on stage, advertised a new console and said they would make it VR compatible, talked it up and then didn't deliver on that promise. Now he wants to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened while trashing and talking down VR. If that's not the definition of a 180 then I don't know what is.
One thing is not another and he isn't even criticising the concept of the metaverse only the implementation of it.
 

GHG

Gold Member
My steam VR basically looks like this.
wjls0kiv0v861.jpg

Not exactly a thrilling new universe, just a floating menu to access my games and settings.

Do you not have a home that it automatically takes you to when you boot up steam VR? Because mine does and when you're organising an online game session you invite everyone to your "home then boot a game from there.

This is what it looks like:

FETPHUKCgvNN3AHkRAsXxh-1200-80.png


He isn't thrashing VR. He is thrashing the metaverse.
One thing is not another and he isn't even criticising the concept of the metaverse only the implementation of it.

Since the pivot to ignore it he's also been critical of VR. It's a shame you guys don't have the option but I guess nothing will change when people will just go along with what he says without deciding for themselves.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Surprised at these comments from Phil. Microsoft are pumping a lot of money into the metaverse, which will also be gaming related. Part of the 70bn Activision purchase was for the metaverse.

Rome wasn't built in a day.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
If you payed me to be in the metaverse I would make the meeting room life happen, but I’m told the higher ups are working on merging avatars.
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
When you think of the world's that Ubisoft have built and the assets they have, they imo are best placed to create hubs I'd love to visit in VR, I'd love to think that somewhere in amongst the thousands of Devs churning out the same old boring shite there's at least one group working away on bringing all the world's of Assassin's Creed into some sort of VR space, I don't want the games just gimmie the educational/discovery sections and allow me to walk around Alexandria, Athens, Paris etc in VR, that would be a proper metaverse
 

Helghan

Member
Since the pivot to ignore it he's also been critical of VR. It's a shame you guys don't have the option but I guess nothing will change when people will just go along with what he says without deciding for themselves.
I tried VR, it was fun, but still long way to go for the price.
 
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