Meta shifts Horizon Worlds to mobile-first strategy

On Thursday, Meta announced a major update to Horizon Worlds, shifting the platform’s focus to be almost exclusively mobile. The company is explicitly separating its Quest virtual reality (VR) hardware platform from the virtual world. By moving to a mobile-first strategy, Meta is positioning Horizon Worlds to compete with established platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, aiming to tap into a much larger market of mobile users.

The strategic shift follows severe financial strain within Meta’s hardware and virtual reality efforts. Reality Labs, Meta’s division responsible for VR and smart glasses development, has lost nearly $80 billion since 2020. In response to these mounting losses, Meta has significantly scaled back its VR ambitions. Last month, the company reportedly laid off roughly 1,500 employees from Reality Labs, representing about 10% of the division’s total staff. Additionally, the VR fitness app Supernatural, which Meta acquired in 2023, will reportedly move into maintenance mode—a state where the product receives minimal updates and no new content.

Meta is now redirecting its focus toward developing AI wearables and advancing its AI models. During an earnings call last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that sales of the company’s smart glasses tripled within the last year, calling them some of the fastest-growing consumer electronics in history. Zuckerberg noted that it is hard to imagine a world in several years where most glasses that people wear are not AI glasses.

Despite the heavy pivot toward AI and mobile gaming, Meta executives maintain that the company is not abandoning VR hardware entirely. Samantha Ryan, Reality Labs’ VP of content, stated that the company has a robust roadmap of future VR headsets tailored to different audience segments as the market matures. However, the immediate priority has shifted to leveraging Meta’s existing social media reach. “We’re in a strong position to deliver synchronous social games at scale, thanks to our unique ability to connect those games with billions of people on the world’s biggest social networks,” Ryan said, noting that this strategy started to unfold in 2025 and is now the company’s main focus.

Why it matters

Meta’s move marks a significant retreat from its high-stakes metaverse bet, prioritizing mobile accessibility and AI hardware as it attempts to recover from massive losses in its Reality Labs division.