The Chinese giant of new technologies, Tencent, is backtracking on the metaverse, by stopping its project to create virtual reality products and software.
Tencent (which owns messaging app WeChat and a 20% stake in Universal Music Group, among others) has dropped the idea of launching virtual reality hardware. The information, delivered by our colleagues from Reuters, would follow the delicate economic outlook that prompts the group to reflect and focus on other units. A new blow for the metaverse, which after having repeatedly made the front page of the Tech section in 2021 and 2022, has never really been able to get into mores.
A VR unit that does not keep its promises…
Considered the largest video game publisher in the world, Tencent until recently harbored certain ambitions in the field of the metaverse and more broadly virtual reality, to such an extent that the group created, last June, a unit dedicated to extended reality, not without recruiting nearly 300 talents.
Tencent had imagined various products around VR, such as a ring-shaped game controller. But now, this division has not taken off. The lack of rapid profitability confronted with the heavy investments made are in the process of getting the better of this division.
The XR project, the name assigned to the unit, was only set to be profitable by… 2027. In addition, the first results were not conclusive, and some sources evoke a lack of promising games and virtual reality apps that hold up.
…and which comes up against the sudden disinterest around the metaverse
Virtual reality and the metaverse no longer really fit into Tencent’s new strategy. Staff attached to its VR division have even been invited to look for other opportunities. And if the company tried to reassure on Thursday, indicating that it had no intention of dissolving the unit, its stock still fell 2.5% after the report published by Reuters.
It’s not just Tencent that shuns the metaverse. The trend has fallen sharply, and even Meta (ex-Facebook) no longer seems to make it a priority, and Microsoft communicates much less than before. It was also the media releases around the metaverse of the two American giants that pushed Tencent to enter the game at the time.
Tencent, best known for its software solutions and video games, is therefore missing out on its VR bet. Even Pico, the VR headset maker owned by TikTok owner ByteDance, announced Friday that it was laying off employees. The metaverse is definitely not seeing very clearly anymore.
Source : Reuters
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