Microsoft recently announced that it will be joining other major companies, such as Amazon and Google, in laying off thousands of employees. These cuts will reduce Microsoft’s global workforce by 5%, which had grown rapidly to take advantage of opportunities presented during the pandemic. With the end of the work-from-home culture, rising inflation, and disruptions in energy markets, big tech companies are scaling back to please shareholders in a challenging economic environment.
As a result, Microsoft is reevaluating its plans for the future of the company. This includes the decision to shut down the virtual reality workspace project, AltSpaceVR, which it acquired in 2017. The entire team behind the project has been laid off and the service will shut down permanently in March, effectively ending Microsoft’s “metaverse” efforts. It is unclear how committed the company is to the “metaverse,” despite CEO Satya Nadella’s recent speeches on the topic.
In addition to AltSpaceVR, Microsoft also laid off the entire team behind the popular Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK) framework. MRTK is a cross-platform framework for spatial anchors in virtual reality spaces and was built for Unity VR integrations. The decision to lay off the team, which was set to release a new version next month, raises questions about the company’s commitment to virtual reality, especially given the recent scaling back of the HoloLens project and contract with the U.S. military.
It seems that many companies, including Microsoft and Facebook, are reevaluating their investments in virtual reality and the “metaverse” as the next big opportunity in human-computer interfacing. With many companies scaling back in this area, it remains to be seen how this technology will evolve in the future.
