The new and improved Zuckerberg, coming to a Quest 2 near you. | Image: Mark Zuckerberg

Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg posted a screenshot of his digital avatar standing in front of the Eiffel Tower and what I think is supposed to be la Sagrada FamĆ­lia as a way of announcing that Horizon Worlds was launching in France and Spain. Unfortunately for him, the internet more or less immediately started dragging and meme-ifying the screenshot of the virtual reality platform ā€” likely because the graphics were, as one Twitter user described it, about on par with the Teletubbies game for the PlayStation One.

Zuckerbergā€™s apparently seen the memes and wants to let you know that Meta is working on the graphics. On Friday, he posted some new screenshots to Facebook and Instagram, showing off a significantly more life-like version of himself and an ancient-looking plaza. ā€œMajor updates to Horizon and avatar graphics coming soon,ā€ he said, promising to share more details at the upcoming Connect conference. Meta spokesperson Peter Gray told The Verge that the company didnā€™t have any news to share on when that would be, but last yearā€™s event was held in October.

Image: Mark Zuckerberg
The original post, which started this whole thing.

Image: Mark Zuckerberg
I will admit that this does look significantly better.

As for the original screenshot, he admits that itā€™s not exactly flattering. ā€œI know the photo I posted earlier this week was pretty basic ā€” it was taken very quickly to celebrate a launch. The graphics in Horizon are capable of much more ā€” even on headsets,ā€ he said. Personally, though, if my company had been sinking billions into a digital world that many people arenā€™t exactly sold on, Iā€™d probably avoid posting quick and dirty screenshots of it ā€” especially if Iā€™d just announced a $100 price bump to the Quest 2, making it significantly more expensive to access said VR experience. But thatā€™s just me.

Meta isnā€™t the only one promising better graphics in an attempt to entice people to join its metaverse. Last month, Roblox announced that it was also updating its traditionally blocky and low-res graphics, and its product lead Josh Anon said that its end goal was ā€œreplicate the real worldā€ in an interview with Protocol.

Ultimately, though, graphics are secondary to what you do with them. Even if Metaā€™s new update to Horizon upgrades the visuals to the level of, say, Fortnite, that wonā€™t matter unless thereā€™s something interesting to see in its virtual worlds. That point is perfectly illustrated by this tweet dunking on Zuckerbergā€™s original post:

In fortnite you can be goku with a shotgun https://t.co/lKJMJLNcE3

ā€” lordbeef (@lordbeef) August 17, 2022

Update August 19th, 6:23PM ET: Added comment from Meta about the timing of the Connect conference.

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