There are many people who roll their eyes at the mere mention of the term “metaverse”. Meta Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is giving himself ten years to confound these skeptics. He is convinced that they will regret their pessimism well before 2032. And if he was right? The creators of an entirely Quebec metaverse are convinced of this.
This Wednesday will take place in the premises of SNC-Lavalin a conference bringing together a few dozen entrepreneurs who are working to set up an immersive virtual environment entirely from Quebec. It already has a name: Xprience. It should be made public next March. All you have to do is put on virtual reality glasses like Meta’s Quest 2, precisely, to access it.
The conference is organized by the people of the Association VR/AR de Montréal. Its objective is to present the different technologies that will be integrated into this future immersive environment: performance stages, conference rooms, collaborative spaces, transactional tools, etc. All this in virtual form.
Xprience is inspired by VRChat, an environment that already exists on the sidelines of major platforms such as Meta. This digital universe began as a virtual reality messaging app, but quickly grew into a world of its own, home to some 25,000 small, independent virtual communities.
Fall in love with a burger
VRChat is an immersive social network where you can play, chat, make friends, and even have intimate encounters. The next big frontier of dating apps is no longer finding the right person in your neighborhood, it’s finding your soul mate in the metaverse. It doesn’t matter what form it takes: people who fall in love with a cat or hamburger avatar don’t want to know the true physique of their crush…
Casually, apps like VRChat have instilled a certain lasting dynamism into virtual reality. Meta says it has sold more than 15 million Quest headsets worldwide. In Quebec, there are at least 20,000 owners of the device who are regular visitors to the metaverse, estimates Gabriel Brien, one of the main promoters of virtual reality in Quebec who also participates in the Xprience project.
Mr. Brien is a YouTuber who regularly comments on virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (XR) news. The latter is a mixture of the other two which is superimposed on the real world.
“There is really an ecosystem that is forming in Quebec around mixed reality,” says the man who helps organizations like the Just for Laughs Group to find a place there. Gabriel Brien works for XPR Labs, a developer of virtual or augmented reality applications founded by Mickael Nadeau, a Beauceron entrepreneur from the computer security sector.
The entertainment industry is one of the first to take an interest in the phenomenon, he notes, moreover.
It is easier for this industry to adopt metaverse technologies: tickets sold for a virtual or in-person show can come with an NFT, an exclusive image or video that will then be the property of the spectator. This summer, Quebec comedians organized their first show in the metaverse. Other projects would be in the cards for the next few months.
Towards an “iPhone of the metaverse”
Virtual reality is a technology that you have to try to fully understand it. Its promoters will of course say that to try it is to adopt it and, indeed, the immersion offered by the most recent headsets, like the Quest Pro that Meta put on sale at the end of October, is very convincing.
Unfortunately, access is limited by the prohibitive price of these accessories. The Quest Pro costs $2000. Similar headsets from other brands, like the Pico 4, cost less, but still sit at $500, a high cost for the general public. A new, more affordable Quest model expected in spring 2023 could make the metaverse more accessible.
Gabriel Brien goes further: a possible headset signed Apple could be what this fledgling industry needs. A “metaverse iPhone,” as he dubs it, will pique the interest of a much wider audience than those who are naturally intrigued by new technologies. However, rumor has it that Apple has not one, but two headsets ready to go on sale from next spring.
The arrival of Apple would in no way guarantee the success of the metaverse, but the Californian giant has a certain flair for investing in technology sectors just when they are starting to grow exponentially.
Interesting detail: if it is ever put on the market, a possible virtual, augmented or mixed reality headset signed Apple is likely to be partly inspired by a Quebec technology, that of a young shoot from Sherbrooke called Vrvana, which Apple acquired in 2017.
Of course, we’re not there yet. Mark Zuckerberg is far from having won his bet to impose the metaverse on the planet. But if the technology takes hold in ten years, it may well be partly thanks to Quebec genius…