Advertisement
New Zealand markets closed
  • NZX 50

    12,105.29
    +94.63 (+0.79%)
     
  • NZD/USD

    0.5985
    +0.0010 (+0.16%)
     
  • NZD/EUR

    0.5542
    +0.0009 (+0.16%)
     
  • ALL ORDS

    8,153.70
    +80.10 (+0.99%)
     
  • ASX 200

    7,896.90
    +77.30 (+0.99%)
     
  • OIL

    83.11
    -0.06 (-0.07%)
     
  • GOLD

    2,254.80
    +16.40 (+0.73%)
     
  • NASDAQ

    18,254.69
    -26.15 (-0.14%)
     
  • FTSE

    7,952.62
    +20.64 (+0.26%)
     
  • Dow Jones

    39,807.37
    +47.29 (+0.12%)
     
  • DAX

    18,492.49
    +15.40 (+0.08%)
     
  • Hang Seng

    16,541.42
    +148.58 (+0.91%)
     
  • NIKKEI 225

    40,369.44
    +201.37 (+0.50%)
     
  • NZD/JPY

    90.4500
    +0.0570 (+0.06%)
     

Metaverse success depends on corporate adoption

Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley discusses the outlook for the metaverse among households and enterprises.

Video transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

AKIKO FUJITA: Welcome back to "Yahoo Finance Live." Apple and Meta poised to go toe-to-toe in a bid to conquer the metaverse. There's still lack of focus though over their purpose. Corporations may be the best place to be testing ground about how consumers are likely to use the virtual space.

Let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley, who's been following this story for us. Dan, we've seen so many companies stock up on those VR headsets to train employees, to onboard them. How much of this do you think actually translate to consumers deciding to do that in their own time?

ADVERTISEMENT

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, Akiko, it's interesting because a lot of the stuff that we talk about when it comes to the metaverse seems to be focused on consumers and what companies are doing to lure them in. But in reality, it doesn't seem like consumers really know what the metaverse is. In fact, Forrester had done a survey of some 24,000 respondents around the world, and found that in the US just 23% of online adults-- adults that usually access the internet-- understand what the metaverse is or know about it.

That number drops significantly in other countries. In Germany, for instance, that's down to around 13%. So it's not as though this is a very well-known or really understood technology yet. And for all the hype that we've seen from companies-- talking about the metaverse, using it as a buzzword-- it doesn't seem to be penetrating into the general population.

So one of the ways that a lot of experts say companies will begin to make that kind of transition is by starting out in the Enterprise. And I know, Akiko, you personally have worked on pieces where you discuss the Enterprise and how companies are trying to integrate the metaverse and AR and VR into their processes.

Some of the ways that Facebook is working on that is their own workspaces kind of app, where you can jump in and discuss meetings or hold meetings in the metaverse using avatars. Microsoft is working on something similar.

And this all comes as Bloomberg reported that Apple finally has a name or has registered a name for its potential headsets and processors. We have Reality-1, Reality, and then Reality-Pro. And so that's what we're thinking we'll see from these headsets as far as names go. Pricing is supposed to be on the higher side for the Apple headset.

And of course, we had Mark Zuckerberg discussing the new headset that's coming out of Meta with Joe Rogan during his podcast, saying that it'll be coming out just next month. So we do have movement in this area. Exactly who ends up picking up on the consumer side though remains to be seen.

But the Enterprise side, it may be kind of a reverse of what we saw when we saw bring your own device, where people were bringing their phones into the office. Now, it may be people bringing their office equipment and office tech into their homes.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Dan, you know, I guess the natural question here is, what are the types of strategies that you might expect to see some of these companies deploy to make sure that they can get that adoption up? Because I'm looking at a $400 price tag on a Quest 2, and going, I'm not sure how many people would spend that kind of money just to try this tech out. Is something like the voice assistants where you have Amazon and, you know, subsidies, essentially, where they just kind of give out the Alexa units so that people can kind of play around with it themselves?

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, that's one of the main questions, right, is what do you want to use this for? Some experts that I spoke to said, there's no reason to put on a headset to watch a movie, especially when the resolution isn't there. Look, try to eat dinner while watching a movie on a headset, right? Your fork is gonna end up on your face because you have no idea, you know, what-- where anything is outside of the headset. Why would I want to put a headset on when I have a 65-inch TV that's 4K sitting right in front of my couch?

So you know, there's still a way to go as far as the real content purpose for this. I mean, look, you know, I get that there's "Horizon Worlds" and things like that but we had that and it was called "Second Life." And oh, yeah, it didn't really do much.

So what are we doing with these headsets? What's the purpose? So far, it's gaming. I think a lot of companies are still trying to figure it out. It seems to me at this moment for the consumer side at least, this is a solution in search of a problem.

BRIAN CHEUNG: You know, for what it's worth, I mean, how do we know that real reality is an alternative reality or a simulation to begin with, am I right, Dan?

DAN HOWLEY: Fair. Fair.

BRIAN CHEUNG: You know, think about that. Simmer on that for a second. Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley, thanks so much.