Walt Disney Co. (DIS) has appointed an executive to lead the entertainment giant’s charge into the metaverse.
Mike White, who has been with Disney for more than 10 years, will oversee a team that includes senior leaders. In a memo to staff, the Mouse House said that the metaverse is “the next great storytelling frontier.”
Technology giants, including Meta Platforms (FB) and Microsoft (MSFT), are pouring billions of dollars into the metaverse, a virtual reality world that is largely conceptual at this point.
Mr. White becomes Disney’s Senior Vice-President for Next Generation Storytelling and Consumer Experiences. In the newly created role, he will allocate resources, explore partnerships and encourage knowledge sharing on the metaverse, the company said.
He will also lead a team of technologists, strategists and storytellers.
Last week, Disney reported that sales at its theme parks in the US had climbed above pre-pandemic levels. It also announced that its Disney+ streaming service had added 11.8 million subscribers in the last three months of 2021, taking the total to almost 130 million worldwide.
The vision for the metaverse is an online world where people can game, work and communicate in a virtual environment, often using virtual reality headsets. It is being hailed by some of the world’s biggest technology companies as a key development in the next generation of the internet.
Last year, social media company Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta Platforms and said it planned to spend more than $10 billion U.S. to develop virtual reality software and hardware.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has said it was adding 3D virtual avatars and environments to its Teams chat system as part of its push towards the metaverse.
