Facebook, aka Meta, is attempting to accelerate virtual reality with its Metaverse, but so far its efforts have earned mixed results. While companies like Bandai Namco want to follow suit with their own metaverse of IP, others in the game industry aren’t buying into the concept. Former President of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime is among the dissenters.
Fils-Aime isn’t completely opposed to the concept of a metaverse, but he doesn’t see a company like Facebook driving the technology forward. “Facebook itself is not an innovative company,” he said in an interview at South by Southwest (via Bloomberg). “They have either acquired interesting things like Oculus and Instagram, or they’ve been a fast follower of people’s ideas. I don’t think their current definition will be successful.” In other words, he believes Facebook is merely purchasing the innovations or buying into trends, rather than creating new technology themselves. Fils-Aime sees smaller companies like Epic Games as the ones making “really compelling” innovations — relatively smaller companies in that example, considering there are more than 500 million Epic Games accounts.
Fils-Aime isn’t the only prominent gaming figure who has reservations about the metaverse. PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi is completely opposed to the Metaverse and VR altogether. Kutaragi sees augmented reality (as opposed to virtual) as the true innovative path forward.
