Will Disney Embrace the Meta?
Here we go again.
Another tech company wants to take over the augmented reality market, and they have come knocking on Disney’s door.
Walt Disney Company
Will your favorite company play ball? The answer isn’t quite so simple. So, will Disney embrace the Meta? Here’s what’s happening.
Déjà vu All over Again
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Two years ago, almost to the day, I evaluated the future of Disney. At the time, the buzzword of the moment wasn’t AI.
No, that term wouldn’t overwhelm Wall Street boardrooms until the following year.
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Back then, people were still talking about the metaverse. Okay, most people weren’t, but Apple enthusiasts still were.
That’s because Apple made a fascinating, borderline arrogant bet. The company confidently plotted the release of a product virtually nobody wanted.
Photo: apple
For a time, the Metaverse earned the same headlines as AI is receiving right now. Honestly, the similarities are uncanny.
Then, the first few mainstream metaverse products came out, and society quickly judged the concept as vaporware.
Photo:Rappler
I’m not saying that’s going to happen with AI because there’s too much money spent for it to be discarded, just that these things are cyclical.
Once everyone turned on the metaverse, even saying the word infuriated the almighty algorithm.
Photo:seoclerk.com
Seriously, you’ll notice in the 2023 column that I explicitly said that. SEO sites were openly posting warnings not to use the word metaverse. It was reviled.
Alas, corporations often commit/overcommit resources to the hot new thing, I say as I look at the Copilot search window embedded in Windows 11.
In 2023, Apple committed this sin with a new launch product, but they weren’t the first.
By this point, Meta, formerly known as Facebook, had literally changed its name and brand identity to celebrate the Metaverse.
Photo: Computer Hope
That’s like getting a back tattoo of Despacito. It (barely) makes sense for a very short period of time. Afterward, nobody wants to talk about it.
And history is about to repeat itself again. Before we get there, let’s discuss the recent past.
The Bad Idea and the Worse Idea
Let’s start at the place where we’ll eventually return.
Name the worst gambling disaster you’ve ever heard. Now multiple the ferocity of that debacle by a million…almost literally.
Photo: skillastics.com
According to a 2023 report, Meta – and it’s hilarious calling Facebook that, given the subject matter of this factoid – lost $46.5 billion on its ill-fated metaverse gamble.
That’s roughly the gross national product of Tunisia that Meta threw away by chasing an idea whose time had yet to come.
Photo: Amazon
Just to be clear, that $46.5 billion isn’t some vague estimate, either. Those numbers come straight from the corporation’s ledger sheets.
I guess that Mark Zuckerberg fell in love with Ready Player One so much that he risked his entire company on the premise of a persistent online virtual universe.
Meta acquired Oculus VR, the makers of the Oculus Rift, for $2 billion in 2014. It makes that Juan Soto contract look reasonably priced.
We later found out that Oculus VR had done some bad stuff, which forced Meta to pay another $500 million.
Photo: vecteezy.com
This seems like a good time to mention that Meta’s current VR headset line earned only $412 million last quarter.
So, that’s less than Meta paid in the lawsuit it lost regarding the technology. Even worse, revenue fell from 2024 to 2025.
Meta
Successful products in the tech industry should go up, not down, as more people adopt the technology. That’s not happening because the metaverse is a dud.
That’s not even the wild part of this story, though. Knowing everything they did, Apple watched Meta set itself on fire and thought, “Hey, we should do that, too.”
Photo: Apple
Enter the Apple Vision Pro. It’s quite possibly Apple’s least successful product launch since the Apple Newton. Ask ChatGPT, kids.
Disney’s Old Partnership
Walt Disney Company
Whenever a new technology product prepares to enter the marketplace, the executives always focus on branding.
They know that loyal consumers may purchase an entire piece of hardware, even an expensive one, if they love a product enough.
As an example, if the Switch 2 had launched with a new Animal Crossing game, I would have had to attend a midnight launch party to stay happily married.
Thankfully, Nintendo did me a solid by saving the further adventures of Tom Nook for another day.
Photo: Apple
At Apple, their line of thinking is almost always, “Throw money at the problem,” something they’re currently doing with their streaming service.
Apple TV+ has given the world Ted Lasso and Mythic Quest and for that, I will always be grateful. But the service is losing $1 billion a year.
Photo: Apple
Disney fired Bob Chapek in 2022 for something similar. It’s a big deal to any corporation that must worry about the bottom line.
Apple doesn’t, which liberates it to chase fool’s errands like the Apple Vision Pro, a device I swear to you I idly considered buying.
Photo: Apple
That’s because Apple paid Disney a lot of money to create content for this augmented reality headset.
You can watch Disney+ on it, you can play Marvel games on it, you can watch Avatar on it, and some of the content is even in 3D.
Photo: Getty
Apple cared so much about its Disney ties that Bob Iger appeared during the launch announcement, and the Disney+ tie-in was heavily promoted.
That’s super-strange once you remember that Apple runs a competing streaming service.
How did it all work out? Well, Disney got its money. As for Apple Vision Pro sales, they were at 370,000 in late 2024. I mean in total.
Here We Go Again
Photo: Apple
Apple watched the metaverse annihilate Meta’s financial documents, yet they thought, “We’re Apple. We can sell anything.”
Fun fact: They couldn’t. Apple has taken a bath on the Apple Vision Pro, partially because of its comical price of $3,499.
Photo: Apple
However, one of the oft-mentioned highlights of this device is its Disney content.
Those folks who don’t mind the headset love watching Disney stories in a new format.
Photo: Apple
Frankly, the Disney parts sell the Apple Vision Pro’s tech better than the Apple stuff does.
Do you know who noticed that? Meta. In sports terms, Meta is in full “trust the process” mode.
Photo by BERTRAND GUAY / AFP
They’ve committed to losing money as long as it takes to turn this premise into a viable business model.
Say what you will about this folly, Zuckerberg is committed.
Meta
And now Meta is preparing a new VR device, one they believe is equal to the Apple Vision Pro for less than one-third of the price.
What does Meta do? They reach out to Disney for content for this augmented reality device. The metaverse is back on the menu, folks!
Meta
Okay, not really. Disney fired that entire division. By any realistic evaluation of what Web 3.0 is, Epic’s Fortnite universe qualifies, though.
Even if it didn’t, Disney had previously committed to making a Star Wars game for the Meta Quest. Now, it gets an upgrade.
Photo: Complex.com
Also, James Cameron will advise on an Avatar game for the device, which sounds like a headset version of Avatar Flight of Passage.
Final Thoughts
Walt Disney Company
Will any of this work to sell devices? That cannot be a serious question.
Here’s a real quote from the Wall Street Journal article: “Reality Labs lost $17.7 billion on $2.1 billion of revenue last year.”
Photo: Getty
Note that this isn’t a mistake. Losing $2.1 billion from a division earning $17.7 billion in revenue would be bad. This…this is different.
Meta somehow earned $2.1 billion while spending $17.7 billion. The 2024 Dallas Cowboys were a better investment.
Walt Disney Company
Jokes aside, those numbers are apocalyptic. Companies fold when they’re in that much financial distress.
Disney doesn’t care, though. Meta obviously isn’t afraid to lose money on the metaverse. Honestly, it seems to be all the company wants to do.
So, Disney can open another revenue stream here by populating content on the new device while learning more about consumer preferences as it prepares for its Fortnite launch.
When you hear that Disney is embracing the Meta, please understand that it’s a totally one-sided deal in the Mouse’s favor.
Photo: Disney
These are products only a few hundred thousand people will ever play, but it’s easy money for Disney as well as valuable intel.
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