ByteDance, the China-based company that owns TikTok as well as one of the biggest overseas VR makers, Pico, is taking a long look at its VR headset business, finding that all those metaverse champions were way too “optimistic” in their estimation that virtual reality would take over the world. Pico Interactive CEO Zhou Hongwei reportedly told staff in a companywide meeting that they’ll be making sweeping changes to how the company will make headsets going forward.
Last month, Pico was telling anybody who would listen that it wasn’t done yet making VR. This was despite reports from some analysis firms that ByteDance wanted to abandon its plans for virtual reality. ByteDance originally bought Pico for an undisclosed amount, rumored to be more than $1 billion in 2021. This was just as Facebook was rechristening itself “Meta” and was promoting its loss-leading Meta Quest 2 headset.