It Turns Out Meta Isn’t Shutting Down the VR Version of Horizon Worlds After All.
Meta has dramatically changed its stance on its flagship virtual reality app. On Tuesday, the company announced the closing date for its VR space, Horizon Worlds . Then, late yesterday, the company stated that it would, in fact, keep Worlds open for VR users “for the foreseeable future.” In an Instagram story, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said, “We decided today that we will continue to operate Horizon Worlds in VR for existing games to support the fans who have reached out to us.”
According to Bosworth, Meta won’t be working on new VR games within Horizon Worlds , but current content will remain available to VR users. “People who already own favorite games that they use in Horizon Worlds will be able to download the Horizon Worlds app and use them in VR for the foreseeable future,” Bosworth said.
While Worlds will remain open to VR users, Meta will focus on mobile users. All new content created by Meta will be targeted at phone users. “Most of our efforts are focused on mobile devices,” Bosworth said, “because that’s where the bulk of consumer and creative potential is already concentrated.”
Meta initially announced its plan to shut down Horizon Worlds for VR in February , and then on Tuesday announced specific plans to end support for the game entirely.
An Unstable Future for the Metaverse
Putting the Metaverse’s flagship app into maintenance mode for VR users is a huge turnaround for the company, which has rebranded and is now called “Meta.” CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled both the name change and the Horizon Worlds game itself at the 2021 Connect event , touting the Metaverse as the “successor to the mobile internet” that will eventually reach over a billion people. However, things have turned out differently: Meta’s Reality Labs division, of which Horizon Worlds is a part, has spent an estimated $83.55 billion since 2021, and Meta has since cut jobs in that division, eliminating the departments that developed its own VR games and fitness content .
At its peak, Horizon Worlds reportedly had only 200,000 monthly users . By comparison, Roblox has 381 million monthly users . But it’s nice that Meta is at least keeping the service running for this relatively small number of fans. While they may not be as numerous as Meta would like, there are certainly dedicated members of the Worlds community who will now be able to gather in their VR spaces.
Headsets are a thing of the past, replaced by smart glasses.
Although Meta recently reaffirmed its commitment to supporting third-party VR game developers and promised a “robust roadmap for future VR headsets,” the company is clearly focused on artificial intelligence and smart glasses. The downsizing of Worlds and Meta’s other in-house VR content reveals where the market is: unlike the Quest line of headsets, Meta’s AI-enabled smart glasses have proven an unqualified success for the company, which reportedly plans to produce 20 million pairs of smart glasses by 2026. “Facial recognition computers” that interact with and augment the world around us are more popular than headsets that transport us to other worlds.