(Apologies in advance for the Facebook link)
On May 9, Meta will double down on its metaverse sales pitch by... making people drive to California to sample its wares at a single physical location.
The uncreatively named Meta Store will showcase every physical product the company sells under its various branded umbrellas, particularly the Meta Quest 2 VR system (formerly Oculus Quest 2). The company's first retail store will be housed in a 1,550-square-foot space on Meta's Burlingame, California, campus, which houses a number of Meta's VR- and AR-specific development efforts, and it will allow the public to test and purchase any of Meta's physical products.
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The next Meta Quest headset, planned for launch this year, will be thinner, twice as powerful, and slightly more expensive than the Quest 2. That's according to a leaked internal hardware roadmap presentation obtained by The Verge that also includes plans for high-end, smartband-controlled, ad-supported AR glasses by 2027.
The "Quest 3" will also include a new "Smart Guardian" system that lets users walk around safely in "mixed reality," according to the presentation. That will come ahead of a more "accessible" headset, codenamed Ventura, which is planned for a release in 2024 at "the most attractive price point in the VR consumer market."
That Ventura description brings to mind John Carmack's October Meta Connect keynote, in which he highlighted his push for a "super cheap, super lightweight headset" targeting "$250 and 250 grams." Carmack complained that Meta is "not building that headset today, but I keep trying." Months later, Carmack announced he was leaving the company, complaining that he was "evidently not persuasive enough" to change the company for the better.
Related:
John Carmack's 'Different Path' to Artificial General Intelligence
John Carmack Steps Out of Meta's VR Mess
The Low-Cost VR Honeymoon Is Over
The First "Meta Store" is Opening in California in May
John Carmack Issues Some Words of Warning for Meta and its Metaverse Plans
Meta Removing Facebook Login Requirement for Quest Headsets by Next Year
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday April 26 2022, @05:46PM (4 children)
but it won't, because... "Oooooh, shiny!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Interesting) by istartedi on Tuesday April 26 2022, @06:52PM (3 children)
Actually, they probably will. Microsoft tried physical locations and it's been a flop. In the case of MS, it actually made sense since they sell peripherals and game consoles as well as software, but it turns out that the culture of people who buy their products just don't care as opposed to Apple which seems to be different in this regard. It makes even less sense for FaceBook which AFAIK is mostly an online brand. They acquired Oculus. What else? Who is going to go to the FaceBook store just to try on some goggles?
I think the FB store will end up like MS's stores.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 27 2022, @02:47PM (2 children)
FaceBook and Twitter both seem well on their way to MySpace-dom at this point. Twitter has been hemorraging users so bad they stopped publicly reporting the data a couple years ago and Facebook is already only something old people use.
I know the TikToks and whatnot are popular with the kids these days (and I'm sure even that is outdated).
But it makes me wonder what is next for nominally-text-based communication?
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday April 27 2022, @04:52PM (1 child)
You can't discount the possibility of a dramatically reduced role for social media in general. It won't totally go away, but the pandemic has created a renewed hunger for "meat space". I don't know if the young people are tired of "influencers" yet. Just the other day one of these guys popped up in my Twitter feed. It happens all the time--somebody I never heard of has a million followers. It got me wondering how many people have say, 500k or more followers. There's only room in most people's heads for a few. You can have lots of "influencers" if the culture is fragmented, or you can have a dramatically smaller number if the culture is more cohesive. We may have strayed too far from "3 channels and PBS" in to "A million channels and nothing on", and are about to seek to a happier medium.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 27 2022, @06:34PM
Especially if we reduce the scope to text-based!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @05:58PM (5 children)
You need a Facebook account to enter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @06:32PM (4 children)
And you can never leave.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @06:48PM (3 children)
That's what Rupert Murdoch thought about Myspace.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday April 26 2022, @07:22PM (2 children)
I haven't logged into Facebook for ten years. They've started sending me emails about "most searched terms" by users near me. Mostly those search terms have been for "bed frames" or "queen-sized mattresses." Neither of those are of any interest to me. So it says their data mining and monetization efforts aren't very good.
Competitors have sprung up. They're waiting for Facebook to continue making missteps to wrest market share away from them.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday April 27 2022, @11:09AM (1 child)
Maybe they're the ones promoting the spring mattresses?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 27 2022, @12:15PM
Well, it is spring... (in the northern hemisphere, at least)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday April 26 2022, @07:25PM (1 child)
California is one of those places that has been decriminalizing shoplifting, so it would be funny if thieves struck the store first thing. Keeping it virtual is a much better option there.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @05:28AM
"San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a Democrat, says nine people are facing felony charges in connection with Friday’s smash-and-grab thefts at a Louis Vuitton store, a cannabis dispensary and a Walgreens."
-- for you pearl clutching swine that prioritize bigotry
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday April 26 2022, @08:09PM
A meta-store? A store where you buy other stores? So they're real estate agents! That's where the money is, I guess.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @10:47AM
If the above two things are not in the store, it is not complete.
A virtual Happy Meal...actually sends a signal to your body through the visual cortex that it has been fed.
You will loose weight in the physical realm!
Now where can I buy an NFT of the first opening in ...California? ....wait,, isn't the virtual space located in ...non-local realilty?
I'm so confused.