While Meta Platforms has scaled back its metaverse projects to focus more on artificial intelligence, the company remains a leading player in the VR market. News that the company was shutting down its Horizon Worlds metaverse and repurposing it as a mobile experience has sometimes been misinterpreted as the tech giant moving away from VR entirely. Still, it continues to invest substantially in the space and to develop new products and services.
Meta's Quest line leads the market in terms of VR headset adoption, accounting for more than 60% of global unit shipments. The company's upcoming Quest 4 headset is also being developed to make the hardware feel more like smart glasses. If the designers of the Quest 4 can deliver a high-performance virtual reality headset in a smaller, sleeker form, it could prove to be a significant catalyst for VR adoption. The company is also reportedly working on a separate extended reality (XR) or mixed reality headset that will support VR functionality.
There's no doubt that Meta's virtual reality and metaverse ambitions have taken longer than expected to come to fruition and faced some setbacks, but the company is still a clear leader in the VR category. If the tech winds up seeing strong adoption, there's a good chance Meta will be one of the biggest beneficiaries.
6. Unity Software