Xbox boss says the metaverse is just a rubbish video game

The world isn’t exactly full of love for Meta’s online VR game. Horizon Worlds (not to be confused with any of Aloy’s adventures) has found itself making headlines quite a bit lately, but never for the right reasons. Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous metaverse selfie was ripped to shreds after it was posted earlier this year (I mean, just look at it), and it’s since been revealed just how few people actually play the game at all.

Reportedly, even the Meta employees making it aren't convinced that it's worth playing - Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, apparently asked employees to “make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds”, and questioned: “Why don’t we love the product we’ve built so much that we use it all the time?”

Take a look at the trailer for Horizon Worlds below.

As reported by PC Gamer, during WSJ Tech Live 2022, Xbox boss Phil Spencer weighed in with his own thoughts on the metaverse, and pulled no punches when he described it as “a poorly built video game”.

“If I think about video games, for years we've been putting people together in 3D spaces to go and save the world from the invading aliens, or conquer the castle," he said. “Building a metaverse that looks like a meeting room, I just find that's not where I want to spend most of my time.”

The co-founder of Oculus VR, Palmer Luckey, is similarly unimpressed by the concept: “I don't think it's a good product,” he admitted. “It's not. It's not fun, it's not good. I think actually most of the people probably on the team would agree that it's not currently a good product.”

Well, based on the struggles that the company has apparently had trying to make their team use it, it seems that Luckey is probably right. At least for now, Horizon Worlds’ “sad” empty worlds will probably continue to remain desolate.