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.
Zuckerbergās 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. āMajor 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 didnāt have any news to share on when that would be, but last yearās 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 itās not exactly flattering. āI 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 arenāt exactly sold on, Iād probably avoid posting quick and dirty screenshots of it ā especially if Iād just announced a $100 price bump to the Quest 2, making it significantly more expensive to access said VR experience. But thatās just me.
Meta isnāt 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 āreplicate the real worldā in an interview with Protocol.
Ultimately, though, graphics are secondary to what you do with them. Even if Metaās new update to Horizon upgrades the visuals to the level of, say, Fortnite, that wonāt matter unless thereās something interesting to see in its virtual worlds. That point is perfectly illustrated by this tweet dunking on Zuckerbergās 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.