China-based software and tech company Tencent has announced its metaverse service suite targeted at Asian countries such as Singapore and Thailand. The company’s ‘metaverse-in-a-box’ proposal aims to make it easier for third-party companies to build virtual worlds.

The company has decided to offer these services through its cloud division in a move that aims to complement the media services offering launched by Tencent in 2022. Companies that operate in fields such as gaming, media, entertainment, and retail will be able to use these tools to build and design metaverse spaces. The metaverse service suite is aimed at Asian markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore.

Tencent representatives cited by news. bitcoin. com revealed the company’s goals of adapting to an efficient, transparent digital future by leveraging its technical expertise when it comes to games, audio, and video, and providing technical support for Web3.

The company also wants to work with industry partners to create a more immersive experience and support a better Web3 ecosystem. According to the same source, the company launched an extended reality unit in June 2022 in a bid to develop native hardware for experiencing virtual worlds. However, recent reports indicate that Tencent is going to cut down on a significant number of jobs in its metaverse divisions.

It’s worth noting that Tencent dismissed a series of reports that indicated the disbandment of this division, but it did reveal that it was making staff adjustments due to a change of plans. Microsoft shuts down its industrial metaverse group While Tencent is shuffling things around in a bid to focus more on metaverse software development, other companies such as Microsoft are shutting down entire metaverse projects. To be specific, Microsoft is planning to shut down one of its divisions dedicated to the development and promotion of the Industrial Metaverse group.

Microsoft has reportedly terminated its entire industrial metaverse core group, which was composed of 100 employees, as part of the 10,000-person layoff rounds announced in January 2023. The US-based software giant plans to abandon the metaverse in favour of other initiatives. The company announced internally the disbandment of the Industrial Metaverse core group, a division of the company directed to bring the metaverse to industrial environments.

The group was formed in 2022 and acted as a link for the implementation of metaverse interfaces to control electrical power plants, industrial robotics, and transportation networks. The division was part of the efforts directed to bring the metaverse to industrial environments by bridging software to this initiative. .