If you are even remotely caught up with tech news, you probably already heard Facebook has officially changed its name to Meta. Here is what Zuckerberg had to say.
“From now on, we’re going to be the metaverse first. Not Facebook first,” Zuckerberg said in his keynote.
“Facebook is one of the most used products in the world. But increasingly, it doesn’t encompass everything that we do. Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything we are doing.”
As a developer, designer, or just a tech enthusiast, here are the three topics you should know about what Meta (Facebook) will bring to us moving forward in 2022.
- The future of VR/AR Gaming
- The future of VR in our everyday lives
- A bright future for investors, consumers, & developers alike.
The future of VR/AR Gaming
Yes, you heard it right, GTA is coming to VR & not just any VR device, the Quest. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the VR take on GTA: San Andreas as “an entirely new way to experience this iconic open-world in virtual reality.” Currently one of the major selling points of oculus headsets is for gaming, no doubt this is a big consumer market. It is only natural Zuckerberg would touch on this aspect of VR to satisfy consumers and investors alike. GTA won’t be the first classic console video game ported over to the Quest 2, there is currently a version of Resident Evil 4, which was turned into a first-person game for virtual reality. Nonetheless, today's announcement is still big news, especially to hear it first not from Rockstar, but from Zuckerberg himself.
For the gaming community, although more portable, currently there are still lots of technical limitations to the Quest. However, no doubt the added accessibility and easy-to-use nature of Quest have been decided by Facebook as the way of the future. Creating a Quest port for Sword reverie or future VR titles will surely be something we keep in mind moving into the future. In fact, VR titles like blade and sorcery that has previously strictly stated they will not be porting over to Quest have announced a title launch in just a few days.
So what do you think, as a VR gamer, or someone looking to buy a headset, do you agree with this direction of VR? Would you still want more immersion through better hardware and other devices such as an omnidirectional treadmill?
The future of VR in our everyday lives
To impress investors and convince consumers a headset is more than just a gaming device like an Xbox or a Playstation, sharing examples and visions of how Oculus can change the lives of social connections, businesses, and productivity was naturally a big area for Zuckerberg to put into the spotlight for this year's conference. So it is safe to say VR productivity & VR office spaces are definitely not new ideas. Many start-ups and other companies have experimented with the benefits of leveraging VR tech to have a “larger office space” or a multi-monitor set up to boost productivity.
-However, in this year's conference, Zuckerberg has given us a lot more concrete examples of how we can use slack, zoom or messenger in VR.
-How someone can launch a business in VR (Although we can probably all agree this seems much more like marketing material or something to get investors onboard than a “tech demo”)
-How true to the name of Meta (Standing for metaverse), you as a user can easily switch between gaming, social, and work all at the tip of your finger with the power of VR.
I guess it's safe to say that the power of VR will surely grow and scale far beyond gaming. In fact new ways of social interactions even behavioral sciences will most likely change, adapt, and evolve when VR becomes more mainstream. Designing, developing, and prototyping for VR is now easier than ever.
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