AltspaceVR is closing on March 10, 2023

Microsoft had already acquired Altspace VR in 2017 and has so far stuck to its VR platform. But in the course of the latest austerity measures, this is where the scissors come in: As announced in a blog post, the AltspaceVR platform will finally close its doors on March 10, 2023. The step also shows that the Metaverse hype, which the industry is trying to fan more or less desperately, has not yet borne the hoped-for fruit.

In case AltspaceVR hasn’t come to you before, it’s a social platform in VR that made you wonder if it really makes that much sense beyond the gimmick effect. In the meantime, this result has probably also been reached in Redmond, because the entire AltspaceVR team has to resign. Incidentally, the HoloLens team is said to have been reduced.

The idea behind Altspace VR was to create a kind of chat and social experience with lots of visual elements in virtual reality. Among other things, various Oculus platforms such as the Quest were supplied with it. According to the official farewell post, Microsoft’s focus is now elsewhere – for example on teams and immersive experiences to be powered by Microsoft Mesh.

Developers and the community are advised to plan farewell events before March 10, 2023 and to download any personal data and content before exit. AltspaceVR also provides further information on this in German at this point. Ultimately, however, one has to accept that AltspaceVR will soon be history.

Is there a user of the platform among the readers? Or did the whole thing pass you by anyway? I’m curious to see if Meta will also slow down its Metaverse plans a bit or continue to stick to it. At least at Microsoft, the focus is changing.

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