Reggie Fils-Aimé doesn’t believe in Meta’s verse

theverge.com:

Reggie Fils-Aimé (who led Nintendo of America before Bowser took over) isn’t impressed with the company formerly known as Facebook, or its idea of the metaverse. He lobbed a few fireballs in Mark Zuckerberg’s direction during an interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang at South by Southwest over the weekend, saying that Meta isn’t innovative and that it bought or copied almost all of its interesting ideas.

Just so we’re all on the same page when discussing this concept, Fils-Amié defines the metaverse as “a digital space where you interact with your friends in a social and gaming type of environment” during his interview. (You can also read our great explainer on the idea here if you want to go deeper.) In general, Fils-Amié doesn’t seem terribly down on it — he says that Roblox is an example of something where elements of the metaverse already exist.

When it comes to the idea that Mark Zuckerberg’s trying to sell us all on, though, he’s not convinced. “I’m not a buyer of that idea. I don’t think that their current definition is going to be successful. I say that because, first… and I don’t know if anyone from Facebook is here, but you have to admit that Facebook itself is not an innovative company. They’re not.”

After the crowd was finished applauding Fils-Amié for his dunk — yes, really — he continued, saying that Meta has “either acquired really interesting things, like Oculus, like Instagram, or they’ve been a fast follower of other people’s ideas.” (He does credit the company with “the very original social platform that was created many years ago,” but who wants to be known for that these days?) Returning to the company’s plans for the metaverse, he commented “that’s why I look at the vision that’s been to date