Roblox sees Apple Vision Pro as ‘an interesting’ place to expand
During its quarterly earnings call, Roblox’s CEO hinted at the possibility of expanding the game to the Apple Vision Pro and expressed the company’s desire to have “Roblox everywhere.”
Roblox held its quarterly earnings call on Thursday, and among the topics discussed was the company’s stance on expanding into new VR platforms. Roblox is already available for the Oculus Quest and PlayStation VR but hasn’t expanded to a handful of others — including the Apple Vision Pro.
There is a lot of curiosity among people about whether certain apps will be available on Apple’s headset. Eric Sheridan, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, directly asked the company if they have plans to introduce Roblox on the Apple Vision Pro.
“Hey, really, proud to be on Quest with Meta and, along with PlayStation in Q4, highlighting our vision that immersive 3D connection and communication. It should be on phones, tablets, computers, VR headsets, consoles. We can span the other platforms where we’re not on — and those are all logical candidates.
Vision Pro obviously, is an interesting candidate. There are others out there that you all know about as well. And I think looking way off into the future, we’re excited about the really connection and communication things we’re building out on our platform, including our open source Roblox Connect that shows up a lot of communication APIs, and we’re well aware that some of this communication may go beyond VR into MR and AR as these platforms become more prevalent.”
Roblox monthly users since February 2016 | Credit: Backlinko
Should Apple’s headset be a hit, Roblox would be wise to create an app for it. After all, Baszucki said that he would like to see “Roblox everywhere,” and that moves to bring the game to VR have successfully attracted new users.
On Monday, we announced that our own AI model is powering real-time AI chat translation, allowing people around the world to communicate with people who are chatting in a different language.
On Roblox everywhere, in Q4, we released Roblox on PlayStation and on Meta Quest. Both of them attracted new users and continued on our vision that we want Roblox everywhere. In our vibrant economy expansion, in Q4, we delivered developer subscriptions.
Roblox is a video game and creation platform available on most mobile devices, consoles, and PCs. Players choose from experiences built by developers and can use in-app purchases for in-game content and other perks.
Due to the platform’s cutesy design and the freedoms it provides to players, Roblox has become a standout hit among children. The pandemic only spurred its growth as adults sought alternate incomes in development and children were stuck at home playing games. These forces combined to create the giant that Roblox is today.
Roblox isn’t without controversy, though. It provides some of the worst payouts for content producers who sell through the platform — a paltry 35%. This has lead to concerns that the platform is exploiting its developers — most of whom are young.
In 2021, Roblox rebranded itself as an experience, rather than a game after the distinction came up in the ongoing Epic Games v. Apple trial.
