Meme-themed headline aside, former president of Nintendo America Reggie Fils-Aime just took a serious shot at Meta’s metaverse ambitions. Speaking at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW), Reggie cast doubt on just how successful Mark Zuckerberg’s venture into the still vaguely-defined future will be.

It wasn’t the idea of the ‘metaverse’ in general that Fils-Aime took exception to. It’s just Meta’s proposed implementation. Epic Games, and a few smaller companies, were given credit for doing interesting work on the proposed metaverse. Meta itself? Not so much.

Say how you really feel, Reggie

Speaking on stage at SXSW, Fils-Aime pointed out something that most of us already knew. “Facebook itself is not an innovative company,” he said. That in itself is pretty devastating, but it’s what came next that counts as a serious kick in the nards.

“They have either acquired interesting things like Oculus and Instagram, or they’ve been a fast follower of people’s ideas. I don’t think their current definition will be successful.”

Which isn’t to say the metaverse isn’t going to happen. But if former head of Nintendo America Reggie Fils-Aime thinks your idea of it is a poor one, perhaps you’re not destined to be at the head of the line. You know, once the whole metaverse hardware/connectivity/definition/purpose thing is ironed out.

Source: Bloomberg