Another obstacle stands in the way of Meta’s aspirations to broaden the metaverse

Despite incurring billions in losses and being charged by competition authorities, Meta is still committed to the metaverse project. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently filed a complaint to prevent the business from acquiring a virtual reality studio Within. As a result, the company has now postponed the acquisition due to VR antitrust allegations.

According to a court document, Meta has postponed the purchase of Within by one month. Instead of adhering to its August agreement to not close the deal until 11:59 p.m. on December 31, the business will now wait until January 31.

According to the FTC, Meta purchased Within the business that created the virtual reality workout program Supernatural to eliminate competition in the fitness sector. Beat Saber, an app similar to Supernatural, is already owned by Meta.

It was widely believed that regulators might step in to address the company’s “increasing dominance of the consumer VR market” due to its alleged illegal monopolization of the VR sector. Meta has refuted this accusation.

Meta CFO Dave Wehner remarked earlier this year that the business had endured significant losses over the previous two years. According to numerous estimates, Meta lost over $10 billion in 2021 and $9 billion by November 2022.

Reality Labs is a Meta-owned company that creates hardware and software for virtual and augmented reality, including virtual reality headsets like Quest. Q3 2022 saw a $3.7 billion loss for Reality Labs. The executive added that operating losses for Reality Labs will increase noticeably year over year in 2023.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, fewer than 20% of the company’s resources are used to develop the technology and software that support the metaverse.

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