Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg will demonstrate Meta Quest Pro at the virtual Meta Connect event in New York, USA on Tuesday, October 11, 2022.
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It wasn’t just critics and tech commentators who were disillusioned. metanew $1,500 virtual reality headset. So did Mark Zuckerberg himself.
In an interview published Tuesday with The Verge, Zuckerberg said VR, the technology that put the entire company at $340 billion a year ago, is entering a “trough of disillusionment.” It’s a term people in the tech industry like to use when their excitement about new technology has dropped significantly.
His comments cast virtually zero hopes for the success of the new Meta Quest Pro, which launches on October 25th. At the same time, Zuckerberg reiterated his belief that the Metaverse will be the next computing iteration for smartphones — it will take a long time. He said that Metaverse Gadgets “will be fully matured in the second half of this decade.”
But Meta hasn’t sold a headset in ten years. We sell them now and hope that engineers and software developers will come up with compelling reasons to buy them.
The biggest takeaway from Tuesday’s Meta event was not the hardware and what it could do, but the compelling software and lack of use cases. If this was supposed to be Meta’s “iPhone moment”, it failed to deliver.
Remember, this is all happening at a time when Meta’s main business via Facebook and Instagram apps is facing major headwinds. User is off Facebook. As The Wall Street Journal reported last week, Meta’s TikTok rival Reels is struggling to monetize from ads amid low engagement. Apple Recent privacy updates have made it more difficult for Meta to target ads to iPhone users. The stock has fallen a whopping 60% so far this year.
Meanwhile, Meta is losing at least $10 billion a year trying to force it into existence, as Zuckerberg himself has warned that interest in it is waning.
Yes, Zuckerberg could prove right at some point in the late decade or 2030s. Lots of problems.
In a note to Meta investors Wednesday morning, Needham analysts applauded Zuckerberg’s risky ambitions for the Metaverse, but also noted the importance of assessing where the business currently stands. did.
“Our job is to judge stock prices,” said a Needham analyst, who later said, “I commend Mark Zuckerberg for his commitment to vision in the face of overwhelming odds. willing to make big bets that could change the world for human consumers, or create epic failures.”
Watch: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Announces $1,500 Mixed Reality Headset Meta Quest Pro
