Bloomberg has interviewed PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi and published a piece with a metaverse "snub" claim in the title and that's being picked up on and reported by others as dismissive of the whole idea.

But a read of the interview paints a different picture.

Kutaragi is now with an AI startup who specialise in robotics and are developing new software and sensors for industrial use, but he sees other applications for their work.

Beyond industrial robots, Kutaragi wants to utilize the visual data gathered by Ascent’s robots and sensors to reproduce digital scenes in the real world. He envisions a revolution in e-commerce, which is still rooted in decades-old web technologies, as hologram representations of products provide a whole new shopping experience. Or the tech could be used to recreate a distant meeting place in the real world, allowing people to socialize remotely without having to resort to cumbersome headgear.

In Star Trek parlance, he's talking about holodeck technology but with the added capability of remote interface.

Remote interface and virtual environments are the essence of the metaverse.

Though Kutaragi's vision of it employs a much more sophisticated interface - holograms rather than VR headsets. It's the headsets and Zuckerberg's vision of the metaverse which he's truly snubbing.

Is this another tech giant's flight of fancy, like Facebook's metaverse PR bonanza?

Perhaps not.

Ascent doesn’t presently make consumer products and is secretive about the details of its long-term plans. Kutaragi will start sharing more of his vision publicly this year and also look to form an open-collaboration group just as he did when making the PlayStation business, the CEO said.

“I don’t plan to spend a decade or two on making my dreams a reality. I’m 71 and time is short,” he said.

Intriguing.

[ Main Image: Ken Kutaragi. Credit: Game Developers Choice Awards 2014. ]

References

Mochizuki, Takashi and Furukawa, Yuki (January 20, 2022). PlayStation Creator Kutaragi Snubs Metaverse and VR Headsets. Bloomberg.

Sengupta, Dwaipayan (January 21, 2022). PlayStation Inventor Bashes the Idea of Metaverse; Says It Is Pointless! Beebom.