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>The Xbox series S/X sold 20 million, the PS5 sold 30 million. Looking at these numbers, I'd say the Quest is pretty mainstream, no? Meta spent $100 billion[0]
by senttoschool 4y ago
>The Xbox series S/X sold 20 million, the PS5 sold 30 million. Looking at these numbers, I'd say the Quest is pretty mainstream, no?
Meta spent $100 billion[0] on VR to sell 20 million Quest headsets that most people have put in the closet. That's 30 years of total Sony R&D budget, including all the Playstations, Walkmen, VCRs, DVDs, Blu Rays, cameras, sensors, TVs, speakers, headphones, and even their own VR device.
[0]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/27/metas-shares-dip-is-proof-metaverse-plan-never-really-had-legs-facebook https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/27/metas-sha...
- sho_hn 4y agoI just can't believe figures like $100bn. How? On what? Spending $100bn is _hard_. For comparison, the Mars Science Laboratory project had a $2.5bn budget and sent a spacecraft that landed a rover on another planet. Yes, the MSC built on existing NASA infra and previous rover R&D ... but so did Meta's VR division.
- hotpotamus 4y agoI saw a post here yesterday praising Meta for drastically raising salaries for devs. Perhaps that has something to do with it?
- eclipxe 4y agoLots of fundamental investment in hardware and tech that is multiple years out. Displays, chipsets, input devices, etc. multiple lines of hardware beyond what you see today. Multiple OSes, lots of application teams, middleware, services, frameworks, etc etc.
- rajman187 4y agoIt wasn’t $100bn spent on VR. There is a ton of research happening inside of RealityLabs, which accounts for the vast majority of the investment, but yes the only product so far is the VR headset. Here’s a roadmap (supposedly based on leaked presentations) of what’s on the horizon—no pun intended https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23619730/meta-vr-oculus-ar-glasses-smartwatch-plans https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23619730/meta-vr-oculus-a...
- senttoschool 4y agoAren't investments for VR software, VR tools, prototypes, and hardware manufacturing all to sell a VR Platform that starts with the Quest? So you can say that they did indeed spend $100b on selling 20m Quests so far.
- tjpnz 4y agoCarmack strongly hinted that a lot of the research going on wasn't productive. How much of it will go anywhere versus being another "stupid thing" which takes forever to kill?