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On Meta Connect earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated updates to Horizon Worlds. Zuckerberg disclosed that the company’s Metaverse avatar will have a full body, including legs and feet, during the event. The functionality is not expected to launch until 2023, but the Meta CEO announced it at the event. The movie, however, does not seem to be a true portrayal of the company’s VR technology capabilities; instead, it looks to be a marketing gimmick.
In a statement to UploadVR’s Ian Hamilton, Meta said the segment was created using his captures of animation and motion, rather than his VR itself. Of course, many viewers feel cheated by the performance! Meta spends billions of dollars developing the Metaverse, but videos like this give the wrong idea of what the technology can do. Many, but even VR enthusiasts aren’t happy with how Meta handled this situation.
Zuckerberg believes VR is the future, but it will be difficult to convince the general public. VR has grown exponentially in recent years, but the technology remains a niche. Many users suffer from motion sickness in VR and the buy-in costs are very high. This is even more true for premium products such as the upcoming Meta Quest Pro.
VR is currently used for gaming and virtual experiences, but Zuckerberg sees a future where people use the technology as part of their daily lives, like working or shopping. The general public is understandably skeptical of spending hundreds of dollars on a headset for this sort of purpose, and it takes a lot of convincing…but companies like Meta can If not as direct, things get even more difficult than Meta expects.