Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has invested billions into his goal of creating a functioning and high-res metaverse, but it’s unclear of whether it will pay off, as some experts have said the early hype around the metaverse and lack of game-changing products have since turned consumers off.
It’s clear Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is betting the future of his company on the metaverse, which will require Meta to create VR and AR headsets so powerful they can make users believe computer-generated images are real.
In a virtual roundtable with reporters last week, Zuckerberg acknowledged it will take years for compact headsets to display photorealistic images. He also showed off prototypes the company has developed and continues to work on.
Meta is pouring money into its metaverse efforts, spending $10 billion in 2021 on the project alone, up from $6.6 billion in 2020, and $4.5 billion in 2019. Zuckerberg expects to continue to keep up these spending efforts over the next three to five years.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, says it will likely take 10-15 years before its investments fully pay off and the technology behind both the metaverse and its headsets reach their full potential (which will require Meta to create new hardware that goes beyond its current headsets’ capabilities).
Meta is not the only company positioning itself for metaverse supremacy. Apple is reportedly building out its own VR/AR headset that could launch later this year or in early 2023, and Microsoft has its own Hololens mixed reality headset.
