Microsoft is developing 3D applications and shared virtual spaces for Xbox and its game portfolio as part of broader plans to bring the metaverse to gaming, CEO Satya Nadella said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
Company intends to expand games into 3D metaverse
Nadella confirmed the company is “absolutely” focused on games for the metaverse and cited three Microsoft-published titles as examples: Halo, Minecraft and Flight Simulator. He said these franchises already contain metaverse-like elements today and Microsoft intends to move them from largely 2D experiences into fully 3D worlds.
“You can absolutely expect that we will do things in games. If you take ‘Halo’ as a game, it is a metaverse. ‘Minecraft’ is a metaverse, as is ‘Flight Simulator’. In a sense they are 2D today, and the question is whether now you can take that to a fully 3D world, and we plan to do that,” Nadella said.
No timeline yet; avatars and shared spaces first
Although Nadella outlined the company’s intentions, he did not provide a timeline for when Xbox or Microsoft games will evolve into a 3D metaverse. For now, the company’s efforts emphasize 3D avatars and shared virtual spaces rather than announcing concrete launch dates for broader 3D metaverse features.
Past experiments with augmented and virtual reality
Microsoft has previously demonstrated AR and VR potential for its games. Minecraft received a HoloLens demonstration that paired the title with augmented-reality hardware; that special HoloLens effort was reportedly developed over six years, though only a small number of users experienced it.
Outside the HoloLens work, Mojang Studios launched Minecraft Earth, a mobile augmented-reality game, at the end of 2019. The game was active until mid-2021 and was discontinued due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Mojang.
Flight Simulator and Minecraft already offer immersive features
Microsoft pointed to Flight Simulator as an example of a title that enables players to explore a fully 3D world together in multiplayer, simulating weather and real-world locations. Both Flight Simulator and Minecraft currently support virtual-reality functionality, which Microsoft can build on as it develops 3D metaverse experiences.
Source
Reporting based on an interview with Satya Nadella on Bloomberg TV and coverage by The Verge.
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