It’s Wayne Ma, filling in for Mat, who’s dealing with another project today.

It’s the week of Facebook Connect, one of the most anticipated weeks in the VR/AR calendar. Some might be hoping for news of the next model of the Oculus Quest, new games or even better smart glasses. For my part, I’m hoping Facebook will finally reveal when Horizon, a social app where people can create games and experiences to share in together, will finally come out of the closed beta it’s been in for the past two years. 

This is no small matter. If Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg really hopes to move Facebook into the metaverse, he needs to have a VR social app that works. Certainly, when Facebook first announced the Horizon VR platform in September 2019, I thought it might eventually be the killer app for the Oculus Quest that could compel users to buy the device. After all, who wouldn’t want to participate in a shared virtual universe akin to the Oasis in the film “Ready Player One?”