Earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to demonstrateafter spending billions of dollars to create a virtual reality universe (horizon worlds) which looked like it was from 2004his company was working on upgrading this universe to make it appear as if it was from 2009 instead. Integral to this upgrade was the fact that avatars would no longer just be levitating torsos, and would soon be Legs.
It was a very strange video that existed in a very strange space, as Ethan wrote at the time
Clearly an extension of that early rendering, today’s model finally takes the VR platform beyond Fire Emblem: Awakening on the Nintendo 3DS, another game that lacked legs. And that’s despite the fact that Meta spent just $10 billion on the technology this year. Who knows what another small fortune will bring? If anything can catapult the Oculus storefront into the green, it’s a burgeoning market for VR foot images. It might seem like we’re making a fool of ourselves here, but know that the live chat absolutely blew up alongside the virtual audience watching all of this when Zuckerberg started talking about feet.
While the updates meant to bring full-body avatars aren’t expected before 2023, Zuckerberg was clearly seen in the video jumping around and giving everyone an early look at the technology. Or was it him?
Anyone who has worked with *checks the culture* marketing should know by now that not everything is what it seems when a company is trying to sell you something. And in this case, the video that Meta showed off was created with a little help.
As Upload VR Ian Hamilton has since reportedMeta issued a follow-up statement, saying, “To enable this preview of what’s to come, the segment included animations created from motion capture.”
Of course, deep down, you all knew that. From vertical panes at E3 to photo tricks shown at Apple events, there’s always a grain of salt to chew on when a company is trying to sell us something that’s not yet on the market.
But it’s particularly funny that a project that spent billions of dollars to look like a Kinect demo — a piece of hardware first shown off in 2009 — ended up with its own idiot foot related moment.
Who knows, maybe that’s exactly what the technology will look like when it’s finally released! Maybe it won’t. Maybe none of us will ever actually use it horizon worlds and it will forever remain a secret.
