It has been quiet around the Facebook Metaverse Horizon since spring. Now there are indications of an early start.
Horizon was announced in September 2019 on Oculus Connect 6. Shortly afterwards, Facebook put the earlier social VR experiments Spaces and Oculus Rooms. The event app Venue eye (Test) however, continued.
In March 2020, Horizon started a closed alpha. Since then, there has been no news about Facebook’s biggest attempt to date, a VR counterpart of the social network position in the market.
Facebook gave first insights into Horizon at Oculus conference and in the announcement trailer. Graphically, the Metaverse is kept in comic style so that it runs smoothly on the self-sufficient VR glasses Oculus Quest.
VR users meet in a central hub world from which they can travel to different VR worlds own content create with the supplied kit.
OC7: starting shot for Horizon?
Horizon should open its doors in 2020. The Oculus Connect 7 would offer the best opportunity to get a lot of attention at the start. The XR developer conference traditionally takes place in September, concrete dates have not yet been given.
The conference is due to pandemic this year to a digital format. The accompanying circumstances and the opportunity to take part in the action in Horizon form ideal conditions for Facebook’s Metaverse launch.
Now there is a hint that it could actually start soon: A number of Reddit users apparently got access to the beta version of one completely redesigned Oculus Venues, which offers virtual environments and new avatars that are strongly reminiscent of Horizon. This can be seen in screenshots of the beta version in Oculus’ smartphone app.
These avatars are clearly from Horizon. | Image: Facebook
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With the Horizon version of Oculus Venues, Oculus developers and fans could give a foretaste of the Metaverse in advance and take them virtually to the Keynote take part. Then portals could then open into the Horizon world.
Oculus already offered the opportunity to attend keynotes with Oculus Venues at the fifth and sixth edition of Oculus Connect. However, these were traditional video streams.
Source and cover picture: Reddit
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Oculus Connect 7: does it start with Horizon? was last modified: August 14th, 2020 by
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