Watch: I Talk to Yahoo Finance About The Metaverse Comeback of 2024 Led By Fortnite & Roblox

Segment starts at around 1:35:20!

Woke up at 6:15am today to talk with the fine folks on the Yahoo Finance broadcast, chatting about how the Metaverse is poised for a comeback in 2014. Inevitably the topic was framed around generative AI, though as I try to explain on the segment, we're still not clear how much gen AI will scale — but seeing how it's actually used by hundreds of millions of metaverse platform users should help clarify that question.

Here's some New World Nots posts on generative AI in the Metaverse for supplemental reading:

Also talked about the importance of metaverse platform Rec Room being a partner with Apple for Vision Pro. Plus here's some Q&A notes I sent to Yahoo Finance's producer to prep for the show:

Where do we stand with the metaverse? Is it making a comeback?

The Metaverse never went away, it's just that the marketplace and media focused way too much on Meta, which has never been a leading player in the space. In 2024 we should expect to see the market focus much more on companies which actually lead metaverse development — particularly Roblox, which now has upwards of over 300 million monthly active users, and Epic's Fortnite, which continues expanding its features and user growth in the wake of Epic's successful lawsuit against Google.

For next year, I'd point to Epic's win against Google as encouraging greater expansion of metaverse platforms into mobile in 2024, and the launch of several new metaverse platforms including Everywhere, from developers of the huge Grand Theft Auto franchise. The total market for metaverse platforms is conservatively 600 million users now and should get close to 1 billion by next year.

Outlook for big tech/ magnificent seven stocks. Can we expect them to dominate again?

NVidia and Amazon definitely seem unstoppable; Meta should enjoy a good year, not so much for its metaverse offerings, but due to the implosion of X/Twitter. Speaking of which, I'm not confident in Tesla's future due to continued troubles with Tesla's self-driving technology and fallout from its declining brand/Elon association.

I expect both Google and Apple to take a hit from the Google vs. Epic lawsuit and the end of its duopolistic power over the app store market. However, Apple is launching its much anticipated Vision Pro XR headset in 2024, which will generate market enthusiasm and a new ecosystem for the company.

Can you provide some 'winners' or stocks investors should buy watching in the new year?

Roblox is definitely one to watch as it continues growing in active users and features — especially in the wake of the Epic vs. Google lawsuit, which should bring the company more revenue, since it's very smartphone-focused. After its successful lawsuit against Google, I would keep an eye on Epic making its long-rumored move at going public in 2024.

Nvidia's growth seems unstoppable, as it dominates the market for 3D graphics required for games and metaverse platforms and AI's demand for Nvidia's compute power is unquenchable.

Side note trivia: My audio/video was actually streamed on Zoom from my iPhone 11, because my laptop camera/visual quality wasn't good enough for broadcast.