On Wednesday, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and other tech giants announced to form a Metaverse Standards Forum. The group aims to drive open interoperability, making it easier for developers to build systems across platforms.
Participants include many of the biggest companies in the space, from chip makers to gaming companies. For instance, it has some major players on board, such as Epic Games, Adobe, Nvidia, Sony, Unity, and others. At the same time, it inked a partnership with established standards-setting bodies like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
However, there are notable absences, like Niantic, Apple, Roblox, and Snapchat. Subsequently, analysts expected the iPhone maker to become a dominant player in the metaverse race. They anticipated the company to unveil a mixed-reality headset this year. Yet,, Apple has not yet publicly acknowledged plans for a headset. Nevertheless, it has reportedly given its board a sneak peek of the product.
The anticipated device is in direct competition with Meta, which has staked its future on the growth of the metaverse. The Facebook owner also invested heavily in hardware to make its vision of interconnected virtual worlds a reality.
Subsequently, it expects to spend at least $10.00 billion this year on research and development of virtual reality technologies.
Meta CEO unveils prototype headsets
On Monday, Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg revealed some unfinished headset prototypes. These devices indicated the progress of the social media company toward its push into the metaverse.
The company’s possible success with head-worn computers would create a new revenue stream. This would open the avenue for hardware sales, making it less susceptible to platform changes from other businesses.
However, the virtual reality market is currently tiny, and traders question how big it could get. Meta currently dominates headset sales with its $299.00 Quest 2. Specifically, the model accounted for 78.00% of all headset sales in 2021.
