It gave me strong vibes of Nintendo's ads for the Switch and Wii.
Even if they can sell VR as a fully immersive experience, I doubt that would be something that drives more sales than a bunch of people smiling after they've experience what the headset offers.
If Meta wants this thing to be big, they can't just capture people that want fully immersive experiences.
No debate from me the Nintendo games are vastly better and I'd take a Switch before a Quest almost any day of the year, but I think it's important to point out pricing is closer than your comment indicates - an OLED switch is 349, a quest 2 is 399 in the US and still competitive as a headset if you are looking for one. Obviously there is also the non-OLED switch, but I think point remains they aren't miles apart in pricing.
Nintendo doesn't make fully immersive games. They make fun games with often cartoon graphics and logic.
Which happens to be how people play "immersive" games anyway. The number of glitched GTA5 videos I've seen proves that its not really about immersion as much as it is about seeing if the physics engine of GTA5 can handle a car hopping across the skyscrapers or not.
Nintendo's entire pitch is: "Here's something we found fun", and it works. Because its not very clear that anyone else is focusing on ya know, fun things.
People spend literally weeks of game time deeply immersed in both of the Zelda titles, as the obvious example.
I'm talking about shoving fire breathing blocks together with fans in the most recent Zelda game (so that you can build your own flying tank or platform). Its designed for fun and play, not immersion.
If anything, VR's issue is that instead of trying to be fun, they're trying to be immersive. No. You know why Beat Saber is one of the best games on VR? Because its fun.
I don't think the Beat Saber blocks realistically represent anything. The scoring system is pretty arbitrary (wider swings for more points as opposed to timing), etc. etc. But it works and is fun. That's the important bit.
If it is possible to read your mind, then it will be possible to inject game and ads at some point.
Facebook could open a gigantic business model: "we are directly in the brain of our users, our users are happy and are connected to the Matrix (Meta), you will not find better ad placement than here".
I think people talk too much about AI apocalypse and too little about neuralink. Neuralink will be the death of humanity in principle, eviscerating whatever hopes of freewill we hoped we had.
Imagine your employer programming the chip to give you pleasure when you work. Imagine autocratic nations implanting it into every newborn, and algorithmically controlling the nation’s thoughts —- leaving propaganda as a laughable, feeble relic of the past.
Neuralink is a thing that will never achieve any sort of mass-market appeal, though, so I'm not nervous.
The only way I see it happening is if not having it becomes a significant competitive disadvantage in the workplace. If it could also stimulate parts of the pleasure center, perhaps that too.
Who is to say subsequent versions will require anything like the invasive procedures we see today - pacemakers can be installed with keyhole surgery now and so forth, compared to the giant things we put in people in the 50s. People regularly get wireless subcutaneous glucose meters that pair with their phones or insulin pumps installed for diabetes too, the threshold of installing tech in bodies has already been crossed really.