Way back in 2017, I was confidently predicting that VR would not be a widespread thing in 5 years time, as some were predicting, and that companies which were betting their futures on VR would come to regret those bets. In particular, I'd called out HTC, the former darling of the Android smartphone business, as being especially poorly positioned to make such a bet.
Fast forward five years, and most of those predictions are still holding up. VR is still not a widespread thing, in spite of Facebook Meta dumping $10 billion USD into their VR business and counting, and "Meta" is just the latest attempt to rebrand VR as something else. Do you remember XR? I do, but I'm probably the only one.
And HTC, having already pivoted from VR to Meta, and then to blockchain, is still desperately searching for the buzzword which can save them.
As reported by The Verge:
I will give HTC this much credit -- they've lasted longer than I thought they would. But considering that consumers are not showing any appetite for Metaverse, or for blockchain products in general, outside of a small group of well-heeled early adopters, I don't see why anyone would want HTC's blockchain-based Metaverse knockoff.
I mean, seriously.... Viverse? So much for dignity, I guess.