Can’t wait. 
I don’t often agree with iTimmy, but he’s right: The metaverse is vaporware.
IMHO, adding M$ to the mix guarantees a flaming pile of 
No no, adding MS means it will be pretty nice with a ton of potential. They’ll probably come out with Surface Specs, maybe even after buying nreal. Then they’ll drop the whole thing. Pretend it never happened. Nokia who now?
Contrary to everyone else here, I for one am looking quite forward to this.
I spend almost 1-2 hours in Horizon Worlds every night and while it’s easy to knock, once you see the real value in the platform, your tune on it might change.
Gee, thanks Satya and Mark…hopefully the author is right…
“This past week, Meta (formerly known as Facebook), kicked off its Oculus event where it outlined the future of its nascent VR platform. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is known to be spending billions upon billions of dollars chasing what he has convinced himself is the next big thing for computing and internet interaction — virtual reality. And for whatever reason, our favorite megacorp Microsoft is seemingly on board. Part of me thinks this is some kind of cynical and Machiavellian strategy to help Meta destroy itself more quickly by leading them deeper into a fiscally dissonant rabbithole Microsoft knows is actually a big nothingburger.”
Sorry, but with those character graphics, it’s not only easy to mock but fully deserving of it.
I don’t care how useful a tool it is (and I’m really struggling to see how it is) when the character models look so disturbing.
Somehow, even the abominations that people come up with for VRChat are less disturbing. I’d rather have a meeting with a load of Ugandan Knuckles.
Couldn’t disagree more. Compared to the other social apps like VR Chat, Altspace, etc, Horzions has the best avatars hands down. Also the current graphics limitations was due to needing to be compatible with users of the Quest 1. Not everyone has or can afford an RTX 3090 or the new 1K+ headset. Horizon Worlds is built for the lowest standard to ensure more people can access it. The current avatars also match the backgrounds and environment’s. A big part of the Horizons experience is building worlds, and the more complex the graphics the more complex it would be to build worlds.
As far as seeing its value…the best way I can put it is hanging with people in horizons feels like hanging with people in real life. Its all virtual, and you are home alone, but it feels like all your social needs are met. I have a group of friends from all the the country and Canada and we hang out and world hop together every night. honestly I can’t imagine not having it anymore, I would lose my main interaction with alot of friends.
One thing also might surprise you is the age range of alot of people on it. while there are plenty of young kids and teens on, there are also alot of people in the 40/50+ range. People with chronic pain, poor health, handicaps, or mental/physical disabilities, people who for a variety of personal reasons can’t just go the bar and socialize in the traditional way. Horizons/Metaverse is a unique avenue for them to be social regardless of their personal circumstance.
Also its a very handy lifeline during a global pandemic. I would have went insane from the lockdowns if not for Horizons.
On that note, I just read that part of the consideration is the need to be able handle large groups of avatars at once. You could make a high quality single avatar, but as soon as you’d let multiple avatars in the same room, the system could start to struggle.
That as well. And even at the current levels, once you get to 14-20 avatars in a world, it really starts to bog down and the models get less detailed. (hands become more like mittens) Its also in relation to the capacity of the world/environment. Don’t forget The Quest 2 is only twice as powerful as the Nintendo Switch which isn’t really saying much in 2022. Once we can cram PS5 level graphics in a Quest Headset as the entry level standard, then likely we’ll get a far superior graphical experience.
(*) While Zuckerberg tries to peer into our eyes in order to sell our very soul. 
He’ll already have everyone’s soul’s by then.
Why - someone PLEASE tell me WHY we have to compromise our REAL interpersonal contacts further?
To reduce the carbon footprint associated with travel. 
In 1957, Isaac Asimov first published in book form “The Naked Sun,” part of his robot trilogy. He posited a former Earth colony intentionally designed on technology such that only 20,000 humans were allowed to inhabit the entire planet and all interaction took place by VR/hologram (called viewing). One character killed himself rather than physically be in a room with a detective from Earth. Husbands and wives only experience physical presence in order to conceive if they were assigned a child; and scientists were working to eliminate that requirement as well.
Be careful what you ask for, Zuckerberg.
Gag me with a fork - I should have remembered The Naked Sun. But in real life terms, why an avatar strewn universe and not just Zooming/Teaming away?
Do you know 3-D films? They’ve come and gone since 1915 and a certain segment of the population goes gaga every time they return while the majority tire of it quite quickly and it goes away again. This is similar.
I suspected you likely read it. I am frequently reminded, though, not to assume that people under 40 share the same cultural/literary/cinematic experience as me. Alas, Mel Brooks, the bell tolls for thee.
Oh yeah, I definitely read that more than once back when I was young, many moons ago. Extremely memorable. Along with everything else the SF Masters wrote up to that point. The genre got weird in the late 60s, however, and I no longer read as much of it thereafter.