Metaverse

(upbeat instrumental music) (static buzzing) - Oh, hi there. You may have heard about something called the metaverse, and you may be wondering if it's something that you should learn more about. So let's start by defining what the metaverse is. It's the natural progression of what the internet is today when taken into account what mark Zuckerberg calls, "The feeling of present." It's an immersive sensory experience. Let me explain that to you with one of my favorite games. I love playing ping pong but a ping pong table takes up a lot of room in the real world. It's not just a table, but the room around the able. what an immersive experience can do is make your brain think that it's experiencing a new reality. The other problem with my game of ping pong is that it's hard to find someone who wants to play around the house when I do or perhaps someone that will be challenging to play with but not too challenging. Now that's where the metaverse can step in by giving you a virtual environment that makes you think that you're there. I can play against the robot that challenges me at just the right level. The space I need is minimal, and the computer can match me with players of similar skill level on-demand from all over the world. That virtual environment changes your perception of reality and it can make you feel like you're moving around anywhere in the world or even anywhere that's out this world. It's also the merging of the digital, and physical worlds. Like Satya Nadella said, "The metaverse enables us to embed computing into the real world, and the real world into computing." You can ask the metaverse for example to learn about your physical store. Run layout optimizations. Pricing variant through a set of virtual customers to figure out how to best utilize your space, and maximize profits. It could give you real-time stats when you're watching a game at a stadium, and update your fantasy league. Now, hopefully you can see the possibilities are pretty awesome, but you may be wondering if it's something that you should worry about right now. According to Qualcomm, "Meta sold 10 million Oculus Quest 2 headsets." Meta also announced that their content store had surpassed $1 billion on purchase VR content, and surpassed $51.3 million in monthly revenue in January, 2022. The Metaverse is already here, and having a real business impact primarily in gaming but that's about the change. Microsoft, our parent company, has big plans for the metaverse. You may have heard about their $69 billion purchase of game publisher Activision or their 7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda. This purchase is not just about the games but also the environments, the developers, the code and the user base. This gives 'em access to hugely popular brands like "Call of Duty." "The Elder Scrolls." "Doom." "Fallout." And "Warcraft." Beyond that, it gives them huge amounts of development talent that understands real, and virtual worlds. Plus the technologies that understand how to manage millions of real-time users in a three-dimensional environment. Every other major technology, and entertainment brand from Disney to Apple to Sony is right in the middle of working out their metaverse strategy. So how do you fit in? Now, companies are getting ready to provide you with the tools that are going to fundamentally change how you do business and leisure. Think about how the internet changed everything. It's about to happen again in the metaverse. So get ready for a new world coming sooner than you think.