After Facebook, Disney wants to build its own metaverse

• Disney CEO Bob Chapek said the company is planning to enter the metaverse world.
• Chapek didn’t reveal details but said that Disney will create “unparalleled opportunities for consumers to experience”.
• Disney will be joining a growing number of companies preparing their own metaverses.

Disney is the latest company to hop onto the metaverse train, the most trending buzzword on the internet right now. Disney CEO Bob Chapek said the company is preparing to enter the metaverse world, and that this transition is consistent with its long history of adopting new technologies.

But what is the metaverse? The metaverse is an immersive digital world where people interact with each other through their digital avatars. The possibilities are endless as people will be able to not just socialise, but even shop, have immersive experiences, collaborate on projects, and more.

Chapek didn’t give out any details other than confirming that Disney will create its own metaverse. The announcement was made during Disney’s quarterly earnings call.

“Our efforts to date are merely a prologue to a time when we’ll be able to connect the physical and digital worlds even more closely, allowing for storytelling without boundaries in our own Disney metaverse, and we look forward to creating unparalleled opportunities for consumers to experience everything Disney has to offer across our products and platforms, wherever the consumer may be,” Chapek said.

We can also expect something like a theme park metaverse, according to what Disney’s former executive vice president of digital, Tilak Mandadi, wrote on LinkedIn in 2020. Here, people will be able to experience the digital world through wearables, smartphones and digital access points.

This wouldn’t be Disney’s first foray into combining the physical and digital worlds. It launched Disney Movies VR that provides an immersive experience of various Disney worlds from Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Pixar. These virtual reality experiences are available through the Oculus VR headsets.

Disney isn’t the only one preparing to launch what’s predicted to be the next big thing on the internet. While there have been talks before, the metaverse term rose to popularity when Facebook announced its new company name ‘Meta’, and that it would now dedicate its efforts into bringing the “metaverse to life.” Companies like Microsoft and Roblox are also working on their own metaverses. More companies are expected to jump on the bandwagon and it’s exciting and scary to see what's in store for future.

SEE ALSO:

PUBG: New State now available – how to play, what’s new and everything you need to know
iOS 15 feature to warn children of nudity in images is coming soon — here’s how it will work