Reggie Fils-Aime, former President of Nintendo and the source of an extremely good meme, mentioned that the Metaverse “isn’t innovative” and that he doesn’t “buy it”. He also added that Meta “bought or copied almost all of its interesting ideas”.
At the South by Southwest event, Fils-Aime defines the metaverse as “a digital space where you interact with your friends in a social and gaming type of environment”. He also doesn’t seem like he’s impressed by it—saying that Roblox is an example of something where elements of the metaverse already exist.
“I’m not a buyer of that idea. I don’t think that their current definition is going to be successful. I say that because, first… and I don’t know if anyone from Facebook is here, but you have to admit that Facebook itself is not an innovative company. They’re not,” said Fils-Aime.
He continued by saying that Meta has “either acquired really interesting things, like Oculus, like Instagram, or they’ve been a fast follower of other people’s ideas”. Instead, he sees augmented reality as something used to interact with friends in the digital world, while still being present in the physical world. He cites Pokemon Go as an example of AR during the interview, as well.
So, if the Metaverse won’t be as popular in the future, what does Fils-Aime think of what the future would be like? Well, he mentions that it would be more like Fortnite—but with more AR elements. Basically, he thinks we’ll see “incredibly compelling” game experiences—he just doesn’t think that the digital world will come from Meta.
“I think the types of experiences are going to continue to innovate and be new and different. The example I use is Fortnite. This type of battle royale experience has only been in the marketplace for four years, and we take it for granted. Four years ago that didn’t exist,” continued Fils-Aime.
The ex-Nintendo president left the company in 2019, leaving Bowser in charge. He instead became one of GameStop’s board of directors, but left after serving barely a year. In the same South by Southwest event, he shared that it was because the “company leaders would not share their vision“.
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