Facebook, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, was rebranded as Meta on October 28, 2021. The name aims to echo the main product that Mark Zuckerberg hopes to represent the company- the metaverse. However, Reggie Fils-Aimé said Facebook “is not an innovative company”. He also said that the 20 million VR headsets sold to date would have been good single-year sales at Nintendo. And this leads us to think, Meta sucks?
Meta Sucks?
Former COO and President of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aimé, spoke at Southwest’s South by Southwest (SXSW). He criticized Meta and provided some not-so-favorable projections about the company. When asked about the tech giant, Fils-Aimé openly said it was not a ground-breaking company.”
In an interview with Bloomberg reporter Emily Chang at SXSW, Fils-Aimé stated:
“I don’t think their current definition of the metaverse will be successful. You have to admit that Facebook itself is not an innovative company. Meta have either acquired interesting things like Oculus or Instagram, or they’ve been a fast absorber of other people’s ideas. They are simply the original social platform established many years ago.”
The gaming industry veteran is highly skeptical about Meta’s vision. Like the cloud five years ago and even the internet 20 years ago, every business now is trying to latch onto the metaverse. Instead of Facebook’s parent, the digital future will be powered by smaller companies that are innovating.
A representative for Meta didn’t respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment on Fils-Aimé’s statements.
The Controversial Oculus VR
Oculus was purchased by Meta (formerly Facebook) in 2014. It is the leading manufacturer of virtual reality hardware, and its Quest 2 headset is known as the best product of its kind. Strong sales figures and flattering reviews are encouraging signs for Meta’s vision. But Oculus’s complicated history with hardware launches makes Fils-Aimé worry whether these early successes will continue as other competitors enter the market. He claims the Facebook Portal “wasn’t a big idea” and says the estimated 20 million VR headsets sold to date would’ve been an excellent single-year sales figure during his time at Nintendo.
“The last number I saw was that, in total—and not just Oculus—in total, about 20 million VR devices have been sold,” Fils-Aimé said. “When I was leading Nintendo, that was a good year, one year, in terms of hardware sales.”
The former Nintendo executive thinks the metaverse will become a more significant part of our lives and says some elements already exist (like Fortnite and Roblox. However, Fils-Aimé doesn’t think Meta will be at the forefront. He says that companies need to prioritize customers and bring new ideas into the marketplace to be innovative. Instead of doing so, Meta has put ad revenue above anything else.
Fils-Aimé said he prefers augmented reality over virtual reality regarding what devices we’ll be using in the future. The best product, in his eyes, is a lightweight set of glasses that let you interact with a “digital experience.”
Who is Reggie Fils-Aimé?
Fils-Aime is a seasoned gaming executive whose Haitian parents fled the Duvalier regime in Haiti and settled in New York. His book, “Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo,” talks about his upbringing, path to Nintendo, and why he got the alias, the “Regginator.”
As a Black executive who rose from the ranks of a famous Japanese company, he criticized the gaming industry for not advancing fast enough to address its diversity issues.
Fils-Aime joined GameStop Corp. in 2020. He was on the board for a year, ragged the company, claiming that the current administration had rejected his ideas. Based on the reports, he is no longer a shareholder in GameStop, although he wouldn’t disclose when he sold his stock.
