Zuckerberg debuted Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality social app, in France and Spain earlier this week, sharing a slightly flat, goofy digital avatar in front of an animated Eiffel Tower and the Sagrada Família.
The internet immediately jumped in, mocking what many users saw as (hopefully) preliminary graphics for a company that Meta spent at least $10 billion on last year. New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose likened the graphics to “worse than a 2008 Wii game” on twitter. Slate used the term “buttcheeks”. Twitter was less friendly, popping up “eye-popping ugly” and “an international laughingstock”. Comparing it to the early ’90s graphics, many pointed out how lifeless and childish the Zuckerberg selfie looked. It quickly gained the “dead eye” designation.
Well, Zuckerberg has apparently seen the memes, because on Friday he announced big updates are coming — along with new avatar graphics. On Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg posted a photo of his more advanced-looking avatar.
“I know the photo I posted earlier this week was pretty basic – it was taken very quickly to celebrate a launch,” Zuckerberg wrote in the caption, adding that the graphics in Horizon are “a lot more can” and that it “is improving very quickly.”
Zuckerberg added he will share more details at Connect, the company’s annual conference, held in October last year.
Facebook planned to spend at least $10 billion on Facebook Reality Labs in 2021 and allocate significant resources to its augmented and virtual reality products and services in last year’s third-quarter results.
Meta’s Horizon Worlds for the Quest headset is already available in the US, Canada and the UK.