Roblox Attempts Metaverse Age Cliff Leap With PlayStation Expansion, Dating Experiences and (Sigh) Generative AI

Pictured: Frontlines, recent user-created Roblox experience ideal for PlayStation crowd

I'm tardy on blogging the whirlwind of recent Roblox announcements, but taken together, they read like the company's concerted attempt to the leap the Metaverse Age Cliff, where usage tends to drop sharply when the user base reaches adulthood:

• Roblox is coming to PlayStation 4/5 next month, connecting it to an install base of over 150 million households, primarily comprised of core gamers in their 20s and 30s.
• The company also unveiled a generative AI assistant (video below) to create 3D content.
• Roblox CEO David Baszucki is again promising "dating experiences" coming to adult-age users in the next 5 years, where "thousands"  of people will start real life relationships. This is basically re-branding an existing phenomena for a mass market/Wall Street audience — thousands of people already do that in virtual worlds every day.  Indeed, the 20-something developer couple I profiled in the book first met in Roblox. (More on them later.)

This is on top of the recent Meta Quest integration and the little covered news (from a reputable data gathering source) that Roblox is amassing 300 million monthly active users. If the PlayStation launch is successful, the company will have a near-unbeatable lead among metaverse platforms.

As for the generative AI, I'm still a bit skeptical that it will be more than a brief novelty — but it will take a platform of Roblox's size to determine that. Watch below:

More on the Roblox developer blog.

Read More: nwn.blogs.com