SAN FRANCISCO: Meta is not going to shut down loss-making virtual 3D world Horizon Worlds after all, thanks to the enthusiasm of dedicated fans.
The virtual reality (VR) platform will remain available for the foreseeable future to allow access to games already released, Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth says.
Meta Horizon Worlds is an online multi-player game where users can build and publish environments and games.
Meta initially said the virtual reality (VR) version of Worlds would be discontinued by June.
But it has partially reversed the decision, with existing games now to be supported for the foreseeable future, though no new games are to be added to the platform.
Bosworth spoke of users’ disappointed reaction, but reiterated that the focus for Horizon would lie on the mobile platform in future.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spent years trying to establish VR as the next computing platform and that was partly why the company rebranded from Facebook to Meta in 2021, with the new name deriving from the term "metaverse."
But user interest was sluggish and the Reality Labs division, where the Quest headsets and Horizon Worlds were developed, kept posting losses of several billion dollars. – dpa
