Some companies really believe in the multiverse, this is particularly the case with Meta. Epic Games is also looking into the subject and its boss Tim Sweeney did not hesitate to tackle Apple by evoking the subject during an interview with GamesIndustry.
Will Apple bury the metaverse?
Epic Games wants a vision “unified” for the metaverse, but you still have to be able to get there. Tim Sweeney doesn’t want this to become “another walled garden”. He is referring here to iOS which is often considered a walled garden knowing that there are restrictions, such as the obligation to go through the App Store to download applications.
The leader says:
They [Apple] will either try to crush the metaverse or take full advantage of it. One or the other. Apple does not allow the use of a competing rendering engine for browsers. So they can do the same thing with the metaverse, they can say ‘you have to use Apple’s limited metaverse engine, you can’t make your own, you can’t use Unreal’. They could just change all the platform rules tomorrow to kill everything everyone else is doing, and that’s why we need really strong antitrust laws. That’s why we fight so hard.
Tim Sweeney continues on Apple by explaining that the manufacturer could totally dominate “this sector if they are allowed to use their market power and hardware to achieve this. So we are fighting against that.”.
Epic is taking a keen interest in the metaverse, with Tim Sweeney saying the company wants “compete in the field of engines with the Unreal Engine”with “server hosting in the future” And many more. “But in the future there will be an open economy for that. We want to have the best asset market”he explained.
He then tackles iOS: “We’re terribly frustrated with markets like iOS where you can’t build an Epic Games Store for iOS because Apple says, ‘You can’t compete with us’.
The Apple headset in a few months
Apple has no real plans to jump into the multiverse. Tim Cook himself said he does not believe that the general public knows what this word defines. “I always think it’s important for people to understand what something is”.
Apple will venture into the virtual and augmented reality market this year with its Reality Pro headset. It should be announced in June at WWDC.