Meta Platforms will open its first physical store where buyers can try and buy virtual reality headsets and other gadgets as the company charts a course to take its hyped Metaverse mainstream.
The 1,550-square-foot Meta Store on the company’s Burlingame campus in California will open May 9 and will feature demos for its Quest 2 VR headset and portal for video calling devices, as well as Ray-Ban’s augmented reality glasses, it said Meta on Monday.
The devices, with the exception of the Ray-Ban glasses, will be available in store. The products can also be purchased online through a new shopping tab on meta.com, the company said.
Meta is investing heavily in the Metaverse—a virtual space where people interact, work, and play—by adding new capabilities to hardware devices that serve as entry points to the virtual world.
Earlier this month, the Facebook owner said it would begin testing tools for selling digital assets and experiences within its virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds, a VR platform Meta launched late last year.
Meta also said it would collect a 47.5% fee from creators of digital experiences and assets, a move that has been criticized by some app developers.
Buyers haunting the room are awaiting the next iteration of the Quest 2 VR headset, which is expected to launch in Q2 and is widely believed by analysts to be crucial to the company’s Metaverse plans.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/25/facebook-owner-meta-betting-on-metaverse-with-first-physical-store/ Facebook owner Meta opens physical store in Metaverse bet