After Facebook renamed itself to Meta, another giant in the tech industry just announced plans to create its own metaverse. Microsoft confirmed that it has plans to create a metaverse that will encompass both its gaming and commercial ventures.
Microsoft will compete with Meta with its metaverse
In an interview with Bloomberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed what she thought of the metaverse. In a nutshell, she described the metaverse as the bringing of “real-world people, places, and things to the digital world.” She also added that it’s about creating “more presence, more human connection”. Microsoft also revealed more about its metaverse plans in its Ignite presentation. In particular, Microsoft revealed new features such as Mesh and Dynamics Connected Spaces. The former will use mixed-reality applications aimed towards “presence and shared experiences” from remote locations. Meanwhile, the latter is a feature that appears to be made for retail-level shopping and supply applications. While Microsoft focused on commercial applications in its Ignite presentation, Nadella confirmed that its metaverse dreams apply to its video games too. She described Halo, Minecraft, and Flight Simulator all as metaverses. Of course, she didn’t go into detail about how that will happen and when it’s going to happen. Not to mention, you can’t help but worry after Microsoft already tried with Minecraft Earth before only to fail. You can’t fault Microsoft for wanting to capitalize on its position in the video game industry. Microsoft Store isn’t as big as Steam or Epic Games Store, but it is one of the largest digital games distribution platforms in the world. Microsoft is also one of the three big players in the console industry, with the other two being Sony and Nintendo. Ultimately, Microsoft’s focus right now is turned towards enterprise applications, but who knows? A year or two from now and Microsoft might just suddenly announce out of nowhere the start of its metaverse.
