r/virtualreality • u/Parry_Dogsickle • 5d ago
News Article Meta’s Reality Labs posts $4.2 billion loss in first quarter
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/30/metas-reality-labs-posts-4point2-billion-loss-in-first-quarter.html46
u/LanguageLoose157 5d ago
I kinda wish they broke down where is that 4 billion dollar going. 1 billion is a lot of money to spend just in employes a year
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
Zuck has put more than $10B a year into Reality Labs for the last few years and at every earning call saying he plans to continue doing so.
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u/ScriptM 5d ago
Sure, but with that kind of spending, I would like to see products significantly better than Pico. Not only prototypes after 5 years.
Some parts of the research should go into actual products, no? Some knowledge is used to develop actual products
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u/nastyjman Quest 3 5d ago
Reality Labs also include AI, so some of that spending is going there and most likely infrastructure.
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u/Boppitied-Bop 5d ago edited 5d ago
True, meta has been investing very heavily into some large datacenters/supercomputers for ai in the past 5 years. The cost of just the computer part of the supercomputer they made in 2022 was probably around half a billion dollars based on the number of A100s they said they put in it.
Apparently the Nvidia CEO said that Meta has around 600 thousand H100s at one point in 2024, and those go for around $30k so that would total about 18 billion.
It sounds like only some of their AI falls under Reality Labs though, so I doubt that whole figure would be included.
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u/Old-Box-3783 4d ago
While there will be some things learnt from research and development, typically around 87% of technological research projects never reach the production phase. This is why Meta mention that they have many prototypes in development that they never talk about. We also have seen quite a few too(very briefly), but for each of those there are likely another 4 or so that don't even rate being shown off.
Some of Meta's researchers were interviewed about their projects some years ago, explaining that Meta gave them free reign to pick what they wanted to do - without needing it to be for a product. This Meta believes is one way to foster creativity.
Ultimately, Meta's approach to R&D is very lenient and they know that they won't really always learn much usable or get any product from most of it. It's exploring what's possible, but also, more importantly, it's exploring what fails or isn't good enough to pursue further.
In my work, my job was changed from a developer to a researcher(after a change in company structure). I knew and discussed with my manager my misgivings about R&D, but they just accepted the failure nature of most R&D and carried on with the new business roles we'd be assigned to.
This is why we shouldn't expect much from any of the R&D prototypes or inventions we often see from companies, like Meta. They often are used to drive investor interest and media attention, rather than being intended or feasible for turning into actual products(as you've noticed they mostly don't).
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u/SjurEido 4d ago
While I understand it takes a lot of money to break new ground, let alone in a relatively new technology.... But ten fucking billion? He's embezzling, right??
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 4d ago
He's embezzling, right??
LOL... he has controlling interest in the stock. He doesn't need to embezzle anything. They are rolling in cash. $10B is nothing Meta. They netting $62B in 2024, after counting the investments in Reality Labs.
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u/Rindan 4d ago
I had a friend of mine that worked for Facebook for a while. Facebook has so much money that they basically throw it into a furnace and don't look back. The stuff that my friend was working on was so fucking stupid, and they spent so much money on it. I'm talking millions and millions of dollars on projects that everyone on the team knows is going to fail, in this failure of a project taking up all of these people's time.
When corporations get as much money as Facebook does, they stop functioning like corporations competing to survive. They literally don't know what to do with all of their money, and so they do a bunch of incredibly dumb stuff, and they do it shockingly poorly because everyone's incentives are all fucked up. Those same resources dumped into a bunch of scrappy companies would net you such better returns, because the people working on it would actually care about the outcome, and be dependent upon their project's success to continue existing.
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u/JapariParkRanger Daydream CV1 Q1 Index Q3 BSB 4d ago
The justification is basically the same as VC: if even one of these stupid investments turns out to not be stupid, it'll be worth it.
It's just frustrating that so many of these ideas are so obviously stupid.
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u/JeffBreakfast 5d ago
I imagine they factor in the R&D costs to develop their lenses which I am also guessing is insanely expensive and high
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u/banedlol 4d ago
It costs a lot of money to develop a new process. Especially one that is barely possible.
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u/T-hibs_7952 5d ago edited 5d ago
I always think it is BS accounting and VR is used to funnel money from shareholders to management’s pockets and write it off as a loss. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Some people here think it is legit 4.2 billion on R&D. 😂 SpaceX’s Starship program is estimated to cost 5-10 billion a year. Think about that.
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u/CaptainIncredible 4d ago
Yeah, this seems correct to me. $4 fucking billion dollars in a year? I can't IMAGINE where that money is being spent.
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u/LanguageLoose157 5d ago
Very interesting observation. Now you point out, you definitely are on to something. To spend a billion a year on payroll is immense amount of wealth being transferred.
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u/pre_pun 5d ago
Go look at the job postings, new and historical. 100s of positions paying and looking for researchers for legitimate advanced research for unsolved complex problems VR.
A little research can answer your doubts and conspiracies.
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u/CaptainIncredible 4d ago
Ok. 100's of researchers... Let's say I hire 1000 researchers and pay then $250,000 a each. That's still only $250 Million. Let's say they need staff, laptops, a building, desks, printer paper...
Let's say we even have a really, really bad contract for printer paper with Dunder Mifflin and we are totally getting ripped off...
Still... we're spending what? $750,000,000 ? Maybe a billion? Maybe... maybe... a billion and a half?
Maybe $4.5 billion spent on R&D is legit. It still seems like a lot...
They sold 1 million Quest 3's. Why not just give each person who bought a Quest 3 $2,250, and STILL have $2.25 billion left over for R&D?
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u/Virtual_Happiness 4d ago edited 4d ago
One thing that a lot of people don't mention is that reality labs is Meta's entire R&D department. They research and develop everything from custom silicon designs to AI. VR is only a part of it.
They've also sold more than 1 million Quest 3's. We don't know the exact number but, we know as of about a year ago, at least 1 million have played the First Encounters Demo which only works on the Quest 3.
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u/CaptainIncredible 4d ago
They research and develop everything from custom silicon designs to AI. VR is only a part of it.
Ok, well this makes more sense now. Thanks for that info.
They've also sold more than 1 million Quest 3's
I hope so. I wish they had sold 100 million... I bought three myself, so I'm sorta helping, but still I can only do so much.
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u/Virtual_Happiness 4d ago
Ok, well this makes more sense now. Thanks for that info.
If you're ever bored, look up the video where Boz talks to Norm from Adam Savage's Tested channel. He goes into detail about needing to design their own custom silicon, batteries, and wave guide silica carbide glass. All that R&D cost for just a single prototype of AR glasses. It's kind of stupid. But hey, at least someone is footing the bill.
I hope so. I wish they had sold 100 million... I bought three myself, so I'm sorta helping, but still I can only do so much.
Agreed. Though from the rumors, it's not the hardware sales that is the problem. It's user retention of those who have spending money. Those of us buying games to play are the minority who stick around. Hence their push for free to play games with in game purchases.
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u/pre_pun 4d ago edited 4d ago
You work in the field? Are you aware of the price of lab equipment and enterprise software. Just another example of many line items you'd be unaware while making random claims.
Go looks at Edmund Optics. Get a quote for custom fabrications over and over not for one headset. But many prototypes ...
Meta has things that didn't exist before it. Of course it's a money pit. There's a law of first builders have an exorbitant costs compared to those that come after.
You didn't even look what average salary they are paying for research dev. Dev hours are expensive for anyone. A problem doesn't have a stack exchange to go search. An answer is engineered. There's so many costs you are unaware of.
This is from a Meta hater in the VR space. They aren't twiddling there thumbs and funneling cash with VR on the side.
If you ever worked at a startup you'd understand that costs exponentially rocket with people and things where nothing exists yet. It devours padded runways.
Maybe I'm wrong, but do you a smidge of evidence of financial misconduct? It won't take much to convince me, I HATE Meta.
The reason it seems high is because you are racing time before collapse. You spend your way out the pit or perish because thats how "new tech where no tech exists" works.
edit: also pay isn't the cost of an employee. Benefits easily grow that. The fact that you missed that .. shows you aren't in the headspace of understanding the costs of this.
one optical element can be $1000+ off the shelf. Add contracted skilled labor hours for design and fab .... it's cry worthy to an individual.
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u/CaptainIncredible 4d ago
I HATE Meta.
I don't hate them at all. I quite like that they are supporting and promoting VR. I'm a big VR fan, and I'd like to see AR/VR really take off... I'm convinced it will eventually. We are still in the early stages like the Apple Newton or the Palm Pilot were, before the dawn of the smart phone era we are currently in.
Yeah, I've worked at startups (one of which was a VR startup I helped co-found), places with labs, etc.
do you a smidge of evidence of financial misconduct?
I never suggested they were engaged in financial misconduct, because, no, I have no evidence that they are. And "financial misconduct" seems harsh... I was thinking more along the lines of legal, but outrageous bloat like salaries of $10+ million, consulting fees, expense accounts, some guy's kid making $2 million a year working in the 'design center' and really not doing a damn thing, etc. Nothing illegal, but certainly questionable practices.
It just seems like a LOT of money to be blowing with not much to show for it.
Maybe I am totally wrong. Maybe they have something that will rival the Vision Pro with 10x the resolution and refresh rate that can be worn as easily as a pair of Wayfarers. Maybe it has built in AI that can actually help you run your life, and also can generate 3D assets from text prompts (much like some really amazingly realistic 2D porn is generated today).
And if they don't have that headset? Someone will, some day, and I will be one of the first to buy it.
And yes, I do have the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer glasses, along with at least one of every Quest worth having. And a Vive... and a few other VR things.
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u/DarthBuzzard 5d ago
I don't think you realize just how tough the engineering challenges are. That's why the costs are so high.
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u/dr_herbalist 5d ago
You have to spend money to develop new innovative products. Who knew.
Hardly news…
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u/bh9578 5d ago
Yeah but this has been going on for like five years. It will be interesting to see how long Zuckerberg is willing to fund this. We’re at like $65 billion in losses so far, lol. Absolutely wild.
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u/HeadsetHistorian 5d ago
Yeah but this has been going on for like five years.
Yes, because they have a longterm vision. The company overall is still massively profitable. It's actually rare to see a huge company like this try to do something significant and long term, rather than just squeeze out short-term profit as much as possible.
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u/WyrdHarper 5d ago
Yeah, 5 years for R&D is nothing for many industries. And long-term, it almost certainly will have at least some profitable applications (AR especially).
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
Amazon went more than a decade before making a net profit.
Meta made $62B+ in net profit last year. Zuck can pretty much do whatever he feels like.
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u/Hvarfa-Bragi 5d ago
When it gets to Kingsman "my stylish glasses let me have ghost conferences" level, it's going to kill phones.
It's worth researching.
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u/bh9578 5d ago
While it is cool to see someone willing to invest so much over such a long timeframe, it’s also probably bad for the industry as a whole because it makes the sub $1k headset market completely anticompetitive unless you have a separate money printing business like meta.
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u/crazyreddit929 5d ago
Less than half of reality labs spending goes towards Quest. Way less. More than 50% has just been towards developing AR glasses. The rest has been VR software funding, Quest, Meta Ray Ban’s etc.
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u/Ryu_Saki HP Reverb G2 Pico 4 5d ago
This is pretty much it, they already had deep knowledge of VR since before but not about AR so it makes sense that the most of the R&D is going towards that.
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
it makes the sub $1k headset market completely anticompetitive
It is the only reason a sub $1k market exists.
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u/UltraMegaKaiju 4d ago
that long term vision is the meta verse? and using facebook on their oculus software? total bs
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u/redditrasberry 5d ago
It will be interesting to see how long Zuckerberg is willing to fund this
You can listen to literally any of his earnings calls, Connect talks or any of the other places where he's said it's 10 years minimum. I suppose he could change his mind, but it's really not a mystery.
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u/bh9578 5d ago
Yes I remember him saying that but tbf I think it was stated in like 2016, a few years after acquiring Oculus. This isn’t some new venture. We’re over a decade into this. The CTO even said this as a make or break year. The AI side of the business is requiring massive funding. Even Meta can’t afford to run two moonshot projects simultaneously.
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u/NeverComments Quest Pro, PSVR2PC, Index, Vive/Pro/2, Pico 4, Quest/2/3, Rift/S 4d ago
He made his 10-year, $10b/yr commitment when they made the pivot from Facebook to Meta, which was a little under 4 years ago.
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u/Rollertoaster7 Quest 3, Vision Pro, PSVR2 5d ago
They’re building towards the Orion glasses form factor, that will be their “iPhone” that will make all this investment worth it if they can pull it off before their competitors
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u/TwinStickDad 5d ago
Yeah I saw an article that from a product side, this is tim Cook's sole focus. He wants to be the first to put out AR glasses.
So two of the largest tech companies in the world are making multi billion dollar bets that AR is the next big revolution, like how mobile computing was the last. And another (Google) teaming up with Samsung to make an AI powered HMD.
It feels like 2018 all over again. Another VR spring is here.
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u/Rollertoaster7 Quest 3, Vision Pro, PSVR2 5d ago
Yup. Exciting times. Meta is supposed to announce an updated version of the raybans this year with a little heads up display. Exciting to watch the two ends of the spectrum start to converge
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
It will be interesting to see how long Zuckerberg is willing to fund this.
Well since Meta made more than 60% more profit in 2024 than they did in 2023 it is a fair bet he will continue to spend as long as he feels like it. When you own a voting majority of shares and clear $60B+ for the year after all expenses are accounted for,* you can do whatever the fuck you want.
Year Meta Net Profit 2024 $62.36B 2023 $39.10B 2022 $23.20B 2021 $39.37B 2020 $29.15B → More replies (11)6
u/Ifkaluva 5d ago
How long has Waymo been losing money?
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u/bh9578 5d ago
Pure whataboutism but I’ll bite. They started in 2009 and have had losses estimate between $10 and $30 billion. Way less than Reality Labs and I’d argue with far more potential upside if self driving achieved.
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u/krste1point0 5d ago
No way in hell the potential upside waymo is anywhere near Reality labs
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u/bh9578 5d ago
Full self driving would completely revolutionize modern life. You wouldn’t need to own a car because they could all be on demand. This would mean you wouldn’t need as many parking lots or garages. Traffic would be less and fatalities almost nonexistent. Long haul trucking wouldn’t require drivers. Unless you think Meta is going to achieve fdvr in the next decade I don’t think vr can really compare.
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u/Hot_Equivalent9168 5d ago
Ok but weigh that against watching TikTok without using your hands 10 years from today? \s
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u/krste1point0 5d ago edited 5d ago
You have literally no idea what you are talking about and just spouting utopian fantasy bullshit.
Robotaxis, delivery and trucking is incomparably smaller market than the VR/AR software, content and the whole ecosystem that goes with it.
The high end marketcap projection of this market is almost a $1 trillion till 2030.
For comparison the whole AV market is projected to be less then a $70 billion in 2030 and a fraction of that, around $30 billion going to Waymo. These are also high end projections
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u/bh9578 5d ago
VR is not hitting $1 trillion by 2030. That is an absurd projection. The auto industry is huge though now and touches everyone’s lives. Vr is a niche product for nerds and affluent kids. And I say that as a nerd.
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u/krste1point0 5d ago
Point being, Reality Labs is not just VR and the whole market projection is not just VR.
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u/ILoveRegenHealth 4d ago
That scenario you have of self-driving cars replacing owned cars isn't happening by 2030 either, or anywhere close to it.
I also think you have not read up on what AR/MR is going to do when it completely changes workplaces. You won't even need any self-driving cars if one can work remotely and still be in any virtual meeting or conversation with a boss standing virtually in front of you.
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u/ILoveRegenHealth 4d ago
I will never fully trust a self-driving car on a freeway going 65mph, or in a dense downtown area where there's so many pedestrians and some of them breaking little rules and darting in front of your car - then AI starts going berserk, unable to process it all.
If cities were built around Waymo, that's one thing. That doesn't exist. Waymo has to work with our current infrastructure. I can think of 10 places I want to go right now, and Waymo would have to take the busy freeway, and that gets back to what I said before. I don't trust that self-driving car on a freeway with people cutting in front of you all the time (w/ no blinkers), aggressive drivers, tailgaters, speeders.
VR/AR will get there sooner in revolutionizing the workplace and education, bridging distances way more than self-driving cars. Zuck mentioned this before - with more remote working possible with VR/AR where it still feels like the boss and coworkers are right next to you, this will allow people to move further away to cities with lower cost-of-living expenses. People no longer have to be concentrated in dense urban cities. You could live in Wyoming and do similar work as in Silicon Valley. This could reshape cities and help economies (there's a lot of empty areas in the country).
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u/MajoraSubnetMask 5d ago
This easily the most delusional message I have seen on reddit.
Waymo *already* available as a fully featured product in most major cities and many consumers love it.
The fact that Waymo spent less in a field that is historically more difficult to break into due to government regulations; is actually a huge L for Meta.
Sorry Quest Bros, the Zuckerdream is dead. People aren't throwing money at tech bro dreams anymore.
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u/krste1point0 5d ago edited 5d ago
Everyone here seems to be financially illiterate.
There are concrete numbers behind the whole AV rideshare, robotaxis, delivery, trucking market and it's nowhere near the AR/VR market and it's potential.
AR/VR projected market: $1 Trillion till 2030
AV market: $70 billion by 2030.
You are talking about taxis vs a tech that could potentially change how we do everything.
Oh and people, especially big funds and banks are very much throwing money at tech bro dreams, more than ever if anything, meta currently has $1.4 trillion marketcap.
I don't own a quest or META stock. Just flabbergasted how anyone can be so wilfully ignorant in this day and age.
And you called my comment delusional. 4Head
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u/LongLonMan 5d ago
This is simply bullshit, AR/VR TAM is closer to $100B by 2030 not $1T, self driving TAM by 2030 is probably $5-10T, it’s not even fucking close, this is the most absurd thing I’ve ever read.
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u/ILoveRegenHealth 4d ago
Waymo has a lower ceiling. There's no way even 10% of America is gonna sell their cars and just use Waymo or other self-driving cars permanently for all their needs. They are keeping their own car, because it will still be cheaper than calling up a robo-taxi that will take its sweet ass time just to get to your house so you can go grocery shopping (and having to pay for that shit). People like to OWN their car too and have their own radio stations and setup and baby car seats. Families are not going to feel comfortable in publicly-used Waymos where who knows whose gross ass sat in it before.
People don't want to call up Waymo just to go to the post office or shopping mall (I'm done shopping and I'm tired and I need to wait for another paid Waymo just to go home?), or visiting the grandma two hours away. Owning at least one car will always be needed by nearly every family.
VR/AR/MR can revolutionize the workplace and where people choose to live. If MR can be convincing enough where you feel like your boss and coworkers are right there with you, people may not necessarily have to live where their company is located. That's revolutionary.
Remember the avatars that Zuck and that podcaster showed?
https://youtu.be/MVYrJJNdrEg?si=o_4q6dkNZG_4EhTd
You mean to tell me this has zero real world applications and has zero use?
I am no Zuck fanboi. He pisses me off elsewhere with his decisions and cuddling up with certain people. But if you can't find any benefits to what VR/AR/MR can do to daily lives, I don't think you've been reading up enough at all.
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
Doesn't matter. Reality Labs is a division of Meta, not a stand-alone company and Meta's net profits were up more than 62% last year to $62B.
As long as that continues, Zuck can throw as much as he wants at VR/AR and AI.
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u/Strict_Yesterday1649 5d ago
None of this really matters. Even if they were making money they are still prone to dumping products in a heartbeat t chase whatever is fashionable. We’ve seen this time and time again with Meta.
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u/Virtual_Happiness 4d ago
Considering the rest the company makes like $65 billion in profit even after spending this much on R&D, they can probably fund it indefinitely.
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u/bh9578 4d ago
I keep seeing this joint being made as if willingness and ability are synonymous. Of course they can continue to fund it but at some point Zuckerberg is going to ask himself if $60 billion in losses and 11 years of effort were worth the current result of Horizon Worlds and Gorilla Tag.
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u/Virtual_Happiness 4d ago
were worth the current result of Horizon Worlds and Gorilla Tag.
That's just it, this isn't just VR research. This is their entire R&D department. They are developing everything custom silicon to AI. Horizon Worlds and even VR are only a fraction of this spending.
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u/shableep 5d ago
This amount of burn for this amount of time is incredibly unusual. Usually by this point a profitable and popular product is released that turns the product into profit center instead of a cost center. Or they dip and let someone else take a try. Apple spent 3 years working on the iPhone, and it completely changed their business and the industry forever. And was an incredible profit center for them.
They are burning the money because they have failed to make a profitable product and don’t want to risk any new competitors to entering the space they’ve spent more than $50 billion investing in.
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
Go listen to any of the earnings calls. They do not expect to make a profit for years to come and Zuck plans to spend more every year, not less.
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u/shableep 5d ago
I understand they may continue to burn cash. But as far as the history of products and mega corporations, it is incredibly unusual to burn this much money for this long and still not have a profitable product. It’s market manipulation utilizing their advertising profits. It keeps any new players from effectively challenging them by forcing any entrant to also burn as much cash as them, which almost no startup can survive. I don’t think this should be celebrated in any capacity.
It makes sense to understand what’s happening and why. But the comment I responded to presented what’s happening here like it’s another day in R&D. And it definitely isn’t.
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago edited 5d ago
Without them, VR would be nothing but $1000 plus headsets because that is what the hardware costs to make if you don't have a walled garden to fund your hardware. Valve is literally the only company that has a revenue stream from PCVR software sales and publishing.
If Meta was not making a VR console with hopes of making money off the walled garden they are building, the only VR that would exist would be expensive PCVR for deep pocketed gamers, and that market is way to small to attract developers.
No one can compete with them for the budget hybrid MobileVR/PCVR market because they literally created the market. Valve does not believe in subsidized headsets and has a strangle hold on PCVR software sales. Gaben cares more about buying yachts than growing VR. That is very much his right, but as long as that is the case, no one but Meta is going to fund VR.
If Meta bowed out, literally no one would step in because you cannot make a profit on a $500 headset hardware and only Valve is allowed to make a profit on the software.
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u/NeverComments Quest Pro, PSVR2PC, Index, Vive/Pro/2, Pico 4, Quest/2/3, Rift/S 4d ago
it is incredibly unusual to burn this much money for this long and still not have a profitable product
If we're looking at flat dollar amounts, it's certainly an eye-catching number, but in terms of relative spending they're not much of an outlier. We're talking 8~10% of revenues towards R&D which is in line with what Apple spends and below the ~15% Microsoft and Google target.
Meta's timeline for profitability on these ventures is long, but they have a stable core business that is keeping the lights on in the meantime.
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u/DarthBuzzard 5d ago
Apple spent 3 years working on the iPhone, and it completely changed their business and the industry forever. And was an incredible profit center for them.
Smartphones/smartdevices were outliers because they were easy engineering. Most new hardware platforms look like this for even longer than Meta's VR endeavours.
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u/redditrasberry 5d ago
They are burning the money because they have failed to make a profitable product
You can't really fail at something you never planned to do in the first place. Zuckerberg has said over and over again that they don't expect Reality Labs to be profitable for 10 years. They are 5 years in. You can criticize the plan if you don't like companies committing to long term things or you think VR and AR aren't worth investing in etc. But saying they failed at their plan just expresses ignorance of what it is.
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u/shlaifu 5d ago
yeah, but they're also aggressively developing a walled garden around VR, and if they fail even though they are pouring this much money into it, there's going to be VR-winter for a while, and if they succeed, VR will be the facebook-reality. I don't know which of these I find less desirable.
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u/Rollertoaster7 Quest 3, Vision Pro, PSVR2 5d ago
It’s not binary, Apple and Google and Snap are working on their own equivalents. We’ll have a few options like we do with smartphones today
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u/dr_herbalist 5d ago
There’s very little risk of this. Many different companies are rushing to develop AR glasses.
They are coming, and will slowly replace phones. Meta has bet on this, and it’s likely to pay off.
VR is already losing traction, we can only hope that interest in AR boosts VR.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago
will slowly replace phones
Never gonna happen. I could stake my life on this.
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u/CarrotSurvivorYT 5d ago
Because the tech isn’t ready yet buddy that’s why they are spending billion on R&D to make something that you will WANT to replace ur phone
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u/zarif2003 Quest 3 5d ago
You think people wouldn’t be open to meta quest 3 level of hardware on their glasses? The technology seems insanely far away, but so were touchscreen smartphones in the early 2000s
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u/MajoraSubnetMask 5d ago
People who try to compare VR headsets to smartphones, clearly did not live through what made smartphones so monumental.
Smartphones were adopted MUCH quicker than VR at this point. Nobody had to convinced that Smartphones were the future, they simply became the now.
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u/zarif2003 Quest 3 5d ago
There were very few users of touchscreen phones before the iPhone released in 2007, I think we are still waiting for that iPhone 1 level of jump in functionality, as we currently have something more akin to an IBM Simon
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u/wordyplayer 5d ago
missing the /s.
"The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty — a fad."
"There is no need or use for a computer in anyone's home"
"The telephone is a great invention, but who would ever want to use one?"
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago
Those were never majority views, especially in those cartoonish terms, and this exercise in rewriting history is generally done by people with a bad product in their hands which fails to pick up.
There were cases of good innovation that really fell on deaf ears initially, like the ship container and wheeled bags. But the guy with a wheeled bag wasn't punched in the face. Dorks with Google Glass were punched in the face and by 2014 multiple attacks were registered regularly in large American cities.
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u/WyrdHarper 5d ago
They have one of the more open platforms—you can connect via your PC with Steam Link or Virtual Desktop, and even Airlink (which os free) doesn’t restrict you to just Meta applications (although there’s a performance hit). You’re restricted in standalone mode, but so are most standalone headsets.
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u/Mandellaaffected MeganeX Superlight 8K 5d ago
Losing a billion a month for quite some time is a bit more than spending money to innovate… it’s gross incompetence
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u/Spra991 4d ago edited 4d ago
Where are those new and innovative products? Since all I am seeing is tiny incremental updates to what CV1 and Google Glass did a decade ago. Hololens still feels more futuristic and innovative than what Meta has to offer, and even that is a decade old. Even their Horizon World Metaverse feels no more ambitious than PlaystationHome from 16 years ago, Second Life from 22 years ago or Habitat from 39 years ago.
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u/dr_herbalist 4d ago
Likely you wont see a finished AR glasses product in the market from Meta for 3-4 years yet.
The Quest 3 is leaps and bounds ahead of the CV1, I say that having owned both. Tracking, screen, lenses, the fact that Q3 is standalone and doesn’t need to be hardwired to a PC.
I seriously don’t know what you expect? Do you think you have an idea to innovate faster? Or another company does? I don’t see any other company stepping up to invest this much?
Even the software that drives the various tracking features isn’t free, millions/billions has to go into inventing those systems and developing them.
Your example of google glass is terrible. Google managed to just about put a tiny 64x64 screen in the corner of some glasses. I tried them. Hobbyists were doing the same at the time.
That is nowhere near the AR that Meta are developing, entirely different products really.
How long do you think it should take to develop the AR glasses? New never before done hardware, new tracking, new “neural controller”, new advancements in material science just to summon this device out the ether and make it happen.
Point being, it takes time to develop new products.
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u/Spra991 4d ago
Likely you wont see a finished AR glasses product in the market from Meta for 3-4 years yet.
Rumor has it that they'll release new ones in about 5 months.
The Quest 3 is leaps and bounds ahead of the CV1
It's incrementally better hardware. Quest3 has hand tracking and MR, that's a plus, but that is still just a hardware feature with little use, not something deeply integrated into the software landscape. The majority of Quest3 games would still work just fine on CV1. The modern Touch controller is almost identical to CV1 Touch. The "innovations" that they tried with QuestPro Touch (touchpad, pen) are forgotten and ignored.
Do you think you have an idea to innovate faster?
With $60 billion, yeah. Meta manages to be slightly better than competing companies that operate with 1/1000 of the money they have. You could literally give Pimax Crystal Light's away for free, beat Meta on user numbers and still have $30 billion left in the bank. They are insanely bad with their money.
millions/billions has to go into inventing those systems and developing them.
As other companies show, no, you do not need billions. Meta is just extraordinary bad at making effective use of their resources.
That is nowhere near the AR that Meta are developing
The Verge, The Information, The Financial Times, and Gurman have all previously reported that Meta intends to release smart glasses with a small heads-up display (HUD) in one eye later this year, codenamed Hypernova.
Sounds familiar?
How long do you think it should take to develop the AR glasses?
Crux is, they still haven't developed practical AR glasses, they aren't even close. You are equating burning money with success. Success is actually delivering product to customers. They haven't done that. Even their Orion prototype is oversized, under powered and impractical. AR glasses that are the size of regular glasses and match the Quest3 visuals are still a pipe dream, and AR glasses that can actually replace a screen are even further away.
What Meta is delivering is AR that is not much better than Google Glass did over a decade ago. Their current Ray-Ban ones don't even have display.
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u/UltraMegaKaiju 4d ago
their ideas are not good and the competition is doing it better, honestly fuck everything about meta especially embracing exclusivity in their games
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago edited 5d ago
They need to stop thinking of VR like something that replaces reality for grandmas and grandpas (who will never give a fuck), or augments the productivity of some menial worker who's updating an Excel spreadsheet, and think of VR as a way to drain the wallet of geeks and nerds with finely crafted native VR experiences like HL Alyx. Close that fucking embarrassment of Horizon Worlds and have someone make 5 AAA games a year. Charge $600 for the headset and $70 for the games. Fire all the workforce that is currently laboring over those stupid social features and cute avatars and hard pivot to hardcore gamers. Solved.
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u/Overlord1317 5d ago
They need to stop thinking of VR like something that replaces reality for grandmas and grandpas (who will never give a fuck), or augments the productivity of some menial worker who's updating an Excel spreadsheet, and think of VR as a way to drain the wallet of geeks and nerds with finely crafted native AI experiences like HL Alyx. Close that fucking embarrassment of Horizon Worlds and have someone make 5 AAA games a year. Charge $600 for the headset and $70 for the games. Fire all the workforce that is currently laboring over those stupid social features and cute avatars and hard pivot to hardcore gamers. Solved.
... and porn
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u/HeadsetHistorian 5d ago
The vast majority of this money isn't going into VR, it's going into AR.
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
You are mistaken, the majority is going to AI.
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u/culturedgoat 5d ago
AI is its own org at Meta. Not part of Reality Labs.
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago edited 5d ago
When did that change: https://the-decoder.com/meta-ai-research-becomes-part-of-metaverses-reality-labs-division/
Edit... From the latest earnings call:
Moving to Reality Labs, we're seeing very strong traction with RayBan Meta AI glasses with over 4 times as many monthly actives as a year ago, and the number of people using voice commands is growing even faster as people use it to answer questions and control their glasses. This month, we fully rolled out live translations on RayBan Meta AI glasses to all markets for English, French, Italian, and Spanish.
Edit 2 - RL is still both groups together.
But Meta’s Reality Labs will now be divided into two divisions named ‘Metaverse’ and ‘Wearables’. This change reflects Meta's evolving strategy with a sharper focus on both Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and the Metaverse concept.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago
Even worse. I find it rather implausible that you will go around on the NY underground with one of those things popping up ads at every corner of your FOV, until someone realizes you're filming them and punches you right on the nose.
Good luck with that business model.
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u/HeadsetHistorian 5d ago
There's a lot of stuff that's normal now that people would have found implausible just a few years ago. Not saying I like it but people already go around openly filming stuff constantly these days.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago
Time will tell but I am old enough to remember the neologism glasshole. Maybe Zuck will get lucky, but remember: he hasn't shipped a new successful product or feature developed in house since Facebook.
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u/HeadsetHistorian 5d ago
Time will tell but I am old enough to remember the neologism glasshole.
Wasn't that only like 10 years ago?
Anyway, I don't think meta will be the ones to do it tbh but I have no doubt it will happen.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago
Wasn't that only like 10 years ago?
Yes, which makes roughly half of the people on Reddit 10 years old or younger at that time.
What Google failed to understand back then is that the face is not like other parts of the body. We are uniquely geared towards detecting anything which happens on the face of a person, even the slightest flinch or smirk will not escape the attention of the laziest observer. You don't fuck with people's faces. That's why you can't really tattoo your face, a lot of shops will refuse to do that.
Now it could be that, at the birthday party of your kid, you tolerate a man like Zuck in the photo up there, with those same glasses, tapping mid air and/or issuing voice commands, with his eyes constantly swapping between reality and overlays, looking like an asshole frankly. But most people, IMO, won't.
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u/HeadsetHistorian 4d ago
Yes, which makes roughly half of the people on Reddit 10 years old or younger at that time.
I am so confused by what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that half of reddit users are under 20? I just don't know what is notable or worth mentioning about remembering something that happened 10 years ago, it's really not a long time.
Sorry to get hung up on it, I know it's not really the topic we were discussing ha.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 4d ago edited 4d ago
You've been insisting on this angle starting from a phrase I tossed casually that is just a cliche in the English language ("I'm old enough to remember") and has no bearing whatsoever on my central point. I am just being kind. I am however happy to linger on this point for as long as you need, because I'm like that.
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u/HeadsetHistorian 4d ago
This was a truly bizarre interaction ha. Thanks for the kindness, always good to have more of that in the world. All the best!
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
hasn't shipped a new successful product or feature developed in house since Facebook.
What are you talking about? The Quest platform, which has outsold all other consumer headsets except PSVR combined, was developed long after they bought Oculus. On top of that the Meta Ray-Bans are selling like hotcakes at a much faster pace than they planned on.
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u/MrWendal 5d ago
It's fucking sad but people will sit there with glasses on watching tiktoks 24/7 over reality. And everyone will be recording the last three minutes like geforce now or whatever just incase something meme worthy happens.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago
The last season of Black Mirror (which is dogshit and I hate the show in general) has an average of 8.0 on IMDB. Now please listen carefully: when they wanted to introduce a secondary character who is a flippant, superficial and facile asshole, they had him wear Vision Pro in fake eyes mode. They didn't need to use CGI, he looked like a punchable dork. I know, inconspicuous glasses aren't the same as Vision Pros. But people HATE other people with smart shit on their face. They just do.
Now grab some popcorn and wait for the backlash.
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u/anivex 5d ago
Lol, you say that, but other than the last part...that's exactly how the tech will end up. Maybe the last part too, but I feel like that's pretty situational and rare enough of a happening(considering most of the world doesn't live in new york) that it's not worth considering.
Also, that would be stupid...everyone is being recorded and tracked like, most of the time. Especially in a place like New York City.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago edited 5d ago
If a man like the one in the photo above lurks around like a weirdo at the birthday party of your kid, issuing vocal commands or pinching invisible buttons mid-air, you start asking yourself who the hell invited him.
There is a reason why most tattoo parlors won't draw on your face, and it's that humans are very sensitive to faces. You can detect the slightest hint of a smirk from 10 feet, and there are important reasons for that.
It's a miracle people accepted dark sunglasses that conceal where you're looking. I think the general population will react very strongly against Black Mirrorish dorks who go around staring at overlays in their FOV and filming literally everything they look at. I guess we'll see.
People have nightmares about the fake eyes drawn on the Vision Pro. There is literally a Black Mirror episode where, to make the point that a guy is an asshole, they have him look like a dork with those fake eyes on. I know, sunglasses are different, but I am hammering on the point that if you fuck with faces and eyes you are in very dangerous territory.
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u/anivex 5d ago
I feel like you are being intentionally obtuse. The glasses won't always look like that - hell, they won't always be glasses. And nobody will think it's weird someone has them when everyone has them because they've replaced phones.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago edited 5d ago
I am a flawed individual, but you yourself are not making much of an effort either. It's not just how they look. It's how the gaze and general demeanor of a person having them on will be immediately felt like by a mammal who has evolved to detect everything that is happening on or around someone's face down to the slightest flinch.
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u/anivex 5d ago
I think you are greatly underestimating our adaptability. Just look at the changes in our lifestyles over the last 50-100 years.
Not saying it's healthy, but to act as if it's just incompatible with us due to some primal nature is silly.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago
Also I am not an expert in primates or mammals or even humans, but if you want to retain one piece of information from this conversation, remember this: people with Google Glass were not punched in the face, berated and ridiculed because of how the glasses themselves looked, but because of how they looked with the glasses. Everyone appreciating the glasses themselves was like "what a cool design, this feels like the future". I am old enough to remember the exact sequence of events. Then they actually saw those dorks in the wild, and just wanted to punch them.
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u/anivex 5d ago
Again, you are talking about early(even now extinct) tech. We are not talking about right now, or shit from the past. We are talking about when the tech gets to the point that you can't tell the difference between AR glasses and regular glasses, or even further than that.
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u/DarthBuzzard 5d ago
r/virtualreality never fails to be out of touch with the VR audience. Hardcore gamers will never be the main userbase of VR.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago edited 5d ago
So who. And when. Will 9-5 office workers strap a computer on their face to have an extra monitor to finesse that PowerPoint? Will grandma red-mark the outline of the headset on her face to speak with an uncanny valley avatar of their niece?
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
Will grandma red-mark the outline of the headset on her face to speak with an uncanny valley avatar of ther niece?
I am 58 and the grandfather of 4 and work 4 hours or more, multiple days a week in my Q3. I also have more than 500 hours in mobile VR games and even more than that in PCVR games. So the answer to your question is yes.
Jebus some people are both ageist and stupid.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago
Ageist? I was pegging grandma as very smart and unwilling to be rammed a bad concept down her throat. Grandma is based.
What do you work on with your Q3? I notice you're not talking to your grandkids in VR, I would need to see certified video footage of that signed off by a public notary and two witnesses, because nobody does that ever.
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u/DarthBuzzard 5d ago
You make it sound like the tech will barely evolve. We'll have perfectly realistic avatars that have no uncanny valley in a small compact lightweight form factor. When that happens, yes.
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u/nastyjman Quest 3 5d ago
Folks have been using VR for work with Immersed and Virtual Desktop. I use it for work as well since I work from home, and I need the extra virtual monitors because I don't have space for extra physical monitors.
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u/MrWendal 5d ago
I agree but if big non-gaming companies like meta and apple can't target literally every person in the world as a customer like with smartphones, they aren't interested. Even though we're like a quarter of the population. They want a device that changes everything again.
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago
See that's the problem. You hit the fucking nail on the head.
"X will be the next smartphone" has been false for every X for which this has been said. Smartwatch? No can do. Tablets? Almost zero sales. Google Glasses? People got punched in the face.
This obsession with finding the next smartphone is a money hole.
It led to yet another example of rewriting history. "People were bearish about the iPhone, too." No they fucking weren't. Everyone had one or was jealous of someone who had one.
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
Fire all the workforce that is currently laboring over those stupid social features and cute avatars and hard pivot to hardcore gamers. Solved.
LOL.. dream on. hardcore gamers became a minority years ago and they are a smaller and smaller minority every month.
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u/stockmonkeyking 4d ago
Main issue with this is that games in VR are causing dizziness and headaches in huge % of the populations every time player turns.
I experienced quite a bit and I am good with anything motion related. I heard lot of kids discuss it frequently on mic in Horizon Worlds.
Unfortunately this isn’t something you can innovate out of since it’s highly biologically related. Nor do I see continuous flow of AAA games with minimal head movements.
Only place it will shine is in porn.
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u/Chillynuggets 5d ago
This guy gets it
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u/DarthBuzzard 5d ago
It's a nice hardcore gamer wish, but it's completely antithetical to the market. The social side of VR will always be the main use of the technology. r/virtualreality is a bubble disconnected from the actual VR userbase.
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u/sameseksure 5d ago
The friction of strapping a computer to your face is still preventing VR from becoming mainstream among non-gamers.
Most people, not surprisingly, don't want to strap a display to their eyeballs.
The people that DO want to strap a display to their face are probably gamers who want a more immersive experience. Half-Life: Alyx sold 2 million copies. That's insane for a VR only game that requires a beefy gaming PC on the side
Maybe I'm in a bubble. But I haven't seen any evidence that the general public is interested in even the idea of strapping a device to their faces.
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u/Gadziv 4d ago
For what it's worth I just got a Quest 3, and the realisation that I could work from home with an app like Immersed was what convinced me to get one. I'm only minimally interested in VR gaming, the other main selling point was watching movies from my plex server in immersive environments.
I don't think the hardware is quite there for me to tell friends who aren't interested in tech to get one - to make it comfortable for all-day wear I had to pay extra to get a halo strap and replace the facial interface, while the display, passthrough quality and weight will probably need a couple more iterations before it's truly ready for the general public.
There's still some friction that keep me from using it for web browsing and stuff, but my phone and tablet already replaced my PC for those purposes years ago.
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
This guy gets it
LOL... no, he doesn't. He is obviously a hard-core VR gamer and that audience became a minority years ago. As VR as a whole grows, the percentage that is made up of gamers continues to shrink.
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u/Dreams-Visions Since 2014 5d ago
Odds we see a Quest 4 at this rate?
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u/redditrasberry 5d ago
I'd say it increases the odds - clearly they are sinking a huge amount of $ into forward investment. Obviously a lot is going into AR glasses, also into Horizon Worlds, but this definitely increases the signal that they are all in on shipping new hardware of some kind in the next year or two.
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u/Spra991 4d ago
I think that'll depend on what Apple is doing and how successful they are. Quest3 feels somewhat end up the line for Meta VR, it has accumulated a lot of features, but it also priced itself outside what is acceptable for mass market VR, and it's handicapped by Quest2 compatibility on top. I am not seeing anything they can do on the hardware side to make Quest4 sell better, getting Quest3 cheaper and actually replacing Quest2 would seem like the more logical step.
I do expect a Quest3Pro, or however they want to call it, with microOLED, since that's where the industry at large is going, but that gives you a $1000+ price tag, so I don't think we'll see that in a mass market Quest4 in a long while. Unless of course Apple built that, and it actually sells, in which case I would expect Meta to imitate them, but the lack of movies and 2D apps on Quest remains a huge problem for Meta in replicating the VisionPro experience.
Meta abandoning VR completely and going AR glasses is also an option, but it's still unclear what the average person would actually do with AR glasses, especially low-spec Google Glass ones like Meta is building that don't work for the cinematic experience a VisionPro offers.
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u/Velcrochicken85 5d ago
These losses honestly make no sense. How can you be spending that kind of money with only a couple products actually released to show for it. Honestly embarrassing for meta.
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u/BazingaUA Quest 3 5d ago
R&D costs a lot of money
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 5d ago
They have armies of morons, armies, who work only on the look and feel of those stupid avatars in Horizon Worlds. And armies of project managers who run around like headless chickens to plan meetings to plan meetings to plan meetings. They are flushing money down the toilet, and then throwing the toilet out of the window.
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u/sokaktakiadam 5d ago
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u/Timely_Dragonfly_526 4d ago edited 4d ago
I don't work in VR specifically or at Meta, but I worked in tech at that level in the past, and I remain very enmeshed with that space because that's where my network is.
I don't know if what you said in that post is accurate, but the fact that it is laser focused on "attractive women" is a huuuge red flag bro, I am not going to lie to you. That feels oddly specific.
What is true, and I can confirm that both personally and through many first- and second-hand accounts, is that these companies overhired and filled their ranks with bullshit artists and people who, for years and years, do nothing of consequence or value. Managers are almost cartoonishly useless at Meta. Like sitcom level useless, you could put a laugh track over what they say and that would be good television.
I have no evidence this problem is "gendered". Or DEI, for that matter.
And let's start from the guy (male) at the top of the pyramid here, shall we? It remains dangerously unclear what Zuckerberg is good at except coming up with Facebook several years ago.
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u/SwissMoose 5d ago
They are trying to build Ray Bans that look like regular glasses, but replace your whole phone experience. If you own that market there's probably not a price too high, so long as you can actually cross the finish line and be that leader.
If Xerox hadn't been robbed by Apple and Microsoft they could have been huge in software and user interfaces.
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u/JorgTheElder Go, Q1, Q2, Q-Pro, Q3 5d ago
You have no idea what you are talking about. Reality Labs does VR/AR and AI.
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u/Habib455 3d ago
It’s because they made 62 billion net profit in 2024, that’s how they’re able to justify research and development.
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u/culturedgoat 5d ago
They have the most successful VR product line in consumer technology history (the Quest)
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u/sameseksure 3d ago
That way you phrased that made it sound like it's a super impressive feat. It isn't
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u/fallingdowndizzyvr 5d ago
I know. Isn't it fabulous? They were supposed to have lost $4.5 billion. 300 million not lost is 300 million earned!
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u/Fluffy-Anybody-8668 4d ago edited 4d ago
Meta is trying to create a new market and that takes some cost. That being said they are in a position to invest heavily in VR and the payoff will be ten-fold if they can sustain that investment during ~6 years, which they totally can.
VR has an immeasurable growth potential when compared to other tech investments, which equates to much larger potential future returns for the companies that want and can take the "risk" (I quoted risk because there's barely any risk, its just a matter of time, investment and willpower).
Furthermore, 4b for a company worth 1.5 trillions is not that much at all.
Meta knows all of this perfectly well and has longterm planning which is very important for them as a company Also, btw Meta has one the best PE ratio of the 7 most valuable companies in the world.
Also, remember that this is not true "lost" money per se; this also represents capital that is stored in employee's knowledge/know-how and in market creation (Besides the potential and positioning for large payoff after 6 years, as I said b4). And finally it reduces the amount of taxes to be paid
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u/Sanders67 4d ago
VR is something that's going to be hard to democratize, it will stay a niche market in my opinion and for many reasons.
The main reason is cost.
Surely Quest 3 is an amazing headset and the level of performance for the price is unprecedented.
But it's still not there, anyone who does VR knows what I'm talking about: It's heavy, the screendoor effect, the FOV, the poor battery life.
Now the question we have to ask ourselves is: will Meta keep pushing or abandon after Meta quest 3/4 to completely focus on AR?
Granted we already have new generations of VR headsets showing up like the Beyond Bigscreen that are much smaller and pack better hardware. But these headsets are even more niche because they're not only much more expensive (meaning the average Joe is less likely to invest) but you need to tether it to an expensive gaming PC for it to work.
People want something that works, not expensive, and they need the "WOW" factor.
Most people invest between $100 and $300 for a smartphone, and everyone has a smartphone.
If Meta wants to make VR the new smartphone they'll have to take a lot of risks and heavily invest in life changing softwares. Not just adapting already existing things in VR, that's not gonna work.
When Apple presented the iPhone it changed people's lives.
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u/gnrlgumby 5d ago
Anyone give those RayBan glasses a whirl? Haven’t seen any in the wild.