According to three persons with knowledge of the situation, China’s Tencent Holdings formally bet on the metaverse notion of virtual worlds by announcing to its workforce on Monday that an “extended reality” (XR) unit had been established.
The branch will be overseen by Li Shen, the chief technology officer of Tencent Games Global, and will be a part of the company’s Interactive Entertainment business area. It is tasked with growing Tencent’s extended reality business, which will include both software and hardware.
Tencent has been lowering costs and limiting hiring, two of the insiders predicted that the unit will eventually employ more than 300 people. The corporation will change the headcount for the unit dependent on its performance, so they also issued a warning that the recruiting plans are still tentative.
According to the three individuals, the unit was initially established previously this year but maintained its anonymity. Extended reality is a concept that describes immersive technologies that are thought to be the foundation of the metaverse, such as augmented and virtual reality.
Since Mark Zuckerberg introduced the idea of the metaverse, which recently later renamed to Meta Platforms, investors, business owners, and established IT giants all over the globe have taken an interest in it.
Tencent, which is primarily known for its software like as its game suite and social networking programmes, will make a rare step into hardware with the XR device.
The launch of the new team contrasts with other areas of Tencent that have been downsizing to deal with the fallout from regulatory crackdowns. Tencent has been enacting cost management measures and reducing non-core operations, such as the closure of its Penguin Esports arm.
Regarding its plans for the metaverse, Tencent has generally been mum in public. It did not provide any additional information when it told analysts in November last year that it has many “tech and capacity building blocks” to address the metaverse possibility. Last November, it told analysts it had a lot of “tech and capability building blocks” to approach the metaverse opportunity, but did not go into details.
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