Facebook announced its ambition to fully embrace the metaverse when it became Meta. Many significant businesses stated that they will be making sizable bets on the Metaverse after Meta, though not to Meta’s level. Microsoft was one of these organisations. Microsoft, meanwhile, stated this week that it will be eliminating approximately 10,000 employees globally. And it appears that its aspirations for the metaverse have been shelved.
The company’s announcement that it is permanently shutting down its VR platform in a blog post is a strong signal in that direction. The platform, known as AltspaceVR, will be discontinued as of March 10, 2023. Additionally, according to a story by Windows Central, Microsoft is said to have fired the team behind MTRK, the platform created for the integration of AR and VR.
In 2021, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke about how metaverse will be transformative. “The metaverse is not just transforming how we see the world. It’s changing how all of us actively participate in it and we can’t wait to see what you build and how you bring people together with this technology,” Nadella said at one of Microsoft’s events.
He further announced Microsoft’s plans for metaverse. “As the digital and physical worlds come together, we are creating an entirely new platform layer, which is the metaverse. We’re bringing people, places and things together with the digital world in both the consumer space as well as in the enterprise,” Nadella had said then.
The company hasn’t given up on Metaverse. In the blog post announcing the shutdown of Altspace VR, Microsoft said, “we see the opportunity for VR expanding beyond consumer into business and now have an even greater goal: a more open, accessible, and secure version of immersive experiences in the metaverse.”
Microsoft Mesh is the division which will now focus on AR, VR and mixed-reality. Microsoft said that “With Mesh, we aspire to build a platform that offers the widest opportunity to all involved, including creators, partners and customers.”
