Meta gives up virtual reality to challenge Roblox on smartphones

The change of direction does not imply a total abandonment of the VR sector, but redefines its operational boundaries towards a more sustainable model. In fact, internal data from Menlo Park shows that 86% of the time spent by users on headsets is absorbed by third-party applications, pushing Meta to focus more on supporting external developers rather than proprietary production. Despite the halt in new content for fitness apps like Supernatural and the closure of the work metaverse, hardware development continues. The future roadmap includes new Quest devices aimed at different audiences, with the possibility that the new models will have higher costs to reflect the technological maturation of the market.

Zuckerberg’s new vision sees artificial intelligence as the central pillar of future social media, integrating generative game creation directly into users’ feeds. From this perspective, Horizon Worlds stops being a necessary extension of the viewer to transform itself into a 3D environment capable of exploiting the power of AI to produce immediate content that can be shared with billions of people. This transition marks the definitive shift from the dream of a purely immersive virtual world to a more fluid business model, where immersion becomes an option and no longer a requirement, anchoring the business strategy to the reality of contemporary digital consumption.