A metaverse stuffed with digital worlds and avatars is likely to be coming sometime, however it received’t be low cost. Fb mum or dad firm Meta has launched its monetary outcomes for the primary quarter of 2022 and it exhibits that this yr alone, the corporate’s digital actuality-focused division has misplaced $2.96 billion to date. This continues a pattern of working closely within the crimson, with the identical division having misplaced practically $20 billion since 2020.
As reported by VentureBeat, Meta launched its 2022 Q1 monetary outcomes yesterday and revealed that Actuality Labs, the corporate’s digital reality-focused group, had misplaced simply round $3 billion. Throughout that very same time interval, the division introduced in simply $695 million in income. Now, normally I wouldn’t be saying “simply” earlier than a quantity as disgustingly enormous as 695 million.
Nevertheless, that’s a drop within the bucket in comparison with what Mark Zuckerberg’s firm has spent on VR. In 2021 alone, Meta misplaced $10 billion through its VR enterprise. In that very same yr, it introduced in a revenue of $2.3 billion, lower than what it’s misplaced in simply the primary quarter of this yr. And keep in mind, in 2020 Meta’s VR division burned an extra $6 billion.
Right this moment’s new numbers aren’t surprising. It ain’t low cost to create digital actuality headsets or software program. Meta and Fb are persevering with to spend some huge cash on promoting, researching, constructing and creating digital actuality headsets, apps, and social areas. It additionally has employed extra of us to work in its VR division, hitting a reported 17,000 staff as of 2022. So it is smart that paying that many individuals to construct one thing as costly as our collective digital actuality future goes to price some cash.
And the corporate’s flagship headset, the Meta Quest 2 (previously know because the Oculus Quest 2) is promoting nice. However these new numbers make it clear that digital actuality and the metaverse proceed to be a expensive enterprise for Meta.
It needs to be famous that Meta will likely be high-quality, even because it burns cash on constructing the VR-powered metaverse of tomorrow. The corporate’s total Q1 income for 2022 exceeded $25 billion. And final yr it introduced in a staggering $117 billion in whole income throughout all divisions and apps. So Zuck can proceed to to spend all this cash to construct his personal metaverse. (Hopefully it will get higher than the principally boring and sterile world that presently exists…)
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After all, the query stays: Does VR ever escape from being a distinct segment curiosity and area of interest market that takes billions of {dollars} to assist yr after yr? Certain, some corporations like Valve and Sony have continued to point out curiosity, investing in and constructing out their very own VR experiences and gadgets. Nevertheless it looks as if the way forward for VR is as a device to entry the metaverse, no matter that (perhaps) finally ends up changing into.
Now I’m wondering, what number of years and billions of {dollars} will it take for us to get to the metaverse, and do most individuals even need it? Zuckerberg and Meta are betting billions that the reply to that query is sure. However I’m not so positive about that.
