Facebook rebranded to Meta and established its goal to build out a virtual reality world called the metaverse, but it may be planning to create its first real-world retail stores in order to find its future virtual denizens.
As The New York TimesThe New York Times reports, the retail stores would serve to introduce new users to what VR and the metaverse have to offer them, according to people familiar with the project and company documents.
Store visitors would get to experience virtual reality devices, like its Oculus headsets, and perhaps augmented reality devices in the future. The company documents also indicated that the stores would push for a “more open and connected” world, and try to foster “curiosity, closeness.”
The people familiar with Facebook’s (now Meta) plans indicated that they had been in the works since well before the company’s rebranding, dating back to last year. But they also suggested that Meta may still scrap the retail store venture.
Of course, as ambitious as Meta’s metaverse is, it may have to contend with a 5G metaverse coming from a number of other major players in technology and telecommunications.
