Microsoft makes a vague commitment to metaverse gaming

Microsoft's metaverse ambitions extend well beyond a handful of Teams features. The Verge reports chief executive Satya Nadella told Bloomberg the company is "absolutely" planning on creating a gaming metaverse with "full 3D" worlds. The claim was about as vague as can be, and didn't include a timeline or software, but it's (eventually) in the works.

The question, of course, is just what those metaverse experiences will look like. Nadella wasn't exactly clear on the definition of a metaverse and believed that games like Halo, Minecraft and even Flight Simulator were simpler "2D" metaverses. Sorry, Nadella, but they're not — merely having a multiplayer space doesn't create a metaverse, especially not with match-oriented games like Halo.

The potential is there, though. Microsoft has dabbled in metaverse-like projects such as Minecraft on HoloLens and the defunct Minecraft Earth. The software creator could easily translate lessons learned from that software to a shared virtual environment, even it looks nothing like any of the company's best-known franchises.