Facebook announces new VR platform called Horizon, draws immediate comparison to Ready Player One

Well, it looks like the higher ups at Facebook have been watching a little too much Ready Player One. At the recently concluded Oculus Connect 6 event, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed Facebook Horizon. Dubbed a ‘social VR platform’, Facebook Horizon is essentially version one of the Oasis from the film, Ready Player One. Horizon seems to be an interconnected world for virtual avatars to meet, play games and more. The app will be coming to the Oculus Quest and the Oculus Rift platform. 

In the past we’ve seen various VR spaces such as Second Life and such but nothing on this scale. It looks like you will be able to create an avatar who can then travel through ‘portals’ to various ‘rooms’ where you can play games or hangout with other users. Even though VR has not picked up steam in the mainstream market, this looks like it could push that notion forward. Zuckerberg said, “That’s kind of our bread and butter as a company. We build a lot of the best social experiences for phones and computers, and we want to do this for virtual reality as well.”

Facebook has also announced that Horizon will launch as a closed beta test in 2020. Even though this seems to be a few months away, the future for technology like this seems bright. As of now, VR, as a medium, is still associated with gaming and the like. For the image to change, companies may have to try and market their product as something that is not just for gaming but a social platform for the mainstream. 

Who knows what the future holds for this technology but we will be following this story as it progresses. 

 

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