PARIS: US tech giant Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of Activision this week rocked the video game sector, but the deal may come to be remembered as the moment the metaverse went mainstream.
The metaverse is theoretically the future of the internet, a 3D virtual world where people will be able to interact using sensors, lenses and other gadgets.
But the metaverse does not yet exist and Microsoft’s use of the term to help explain the splurge did not go unquestioned.
“We will have to see how it will develop into a metaverse play, but it isn’t one currently,” says technology author Tom Ffiske, editor of Immersive Wire. “It’s more of a strategic play within the gaming industry.”
Other analysts view it as Microsoft hedging its bets with a deal that would be profitable with or without the metaverse.
Either way, the company is trailing on the coat-tails of Facebook, which changed its name to Meta last year in honour of the gold it believes it will find in the virtual hills.
