Righto, so as the gif suggests - this one is a bit of a hot take.

Sony have just filed a patent for tracking in-game items with NFTs, and this (in our minds) is the most likely candidate for kick starting the metaverse.

We don't see the metaverse starting as a VR experience, or in a singular 3D virtual world where any game/experience can be accessed.

That comes later.

No, the metaverse starts quietly - to the point that it's almost indistinguishable from modern gaming. It starts with basic interoperability.

For example:

If you play the latest Pokemon release, you'll be able take all of the Pokemon you catch with you, seamlessly, into the next release - because they're represented as NFTs and linked to your crypto wallet.

(Instead of spending hours trading each Pokemon one-by-one into each new title, over bluetooth).

It's similar to how we used to transfer data from our old phones to our new ones...you'd grab a lightning cable, back up your old iPhone to your laptop, plug in the new one and wait a few hours as it transferred everything over.

Now, you just turn on your new iPhone, sign in to iCloud and it pulls everything over in the background.

End result: the phone is ready to use, almost immediately.

On the surface - sure, this kind interoperability will no doubt be welcomed in gaming, but it doesn't feel revolutionary...

Which is true. The BIG change comes from the potential to create massive in-game economies, that benefit players and game makers alike.

E.g. You catch a Pokemon with rare attributes → it's minted as an NFT → you can sell it on the open market (like a digital version of Pokemon cards) → every time a sale is made, the game makers get a cut.

...and once this basic ground work of interoperability is laid out, the dominos can start falling:

• Save files and items can be ported between the same game title, but on different consoles (e.g. from PlayStation to Xbox).
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• Competing game studios start to collaborate to allow items/characters from one title to be taken and used in a completely different one (e.g. fight as Pikachu, in Street Fighter).
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• Console makers create their own virtual worlds, where different areas host different games (kind of like a 3D virtual menu screen, where you can interact with other gamers).
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• These worlds then become their own metaverses.
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• These siloed metaverses then start linking up, so they're more broadly explorable.
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• These combined virtual worlds, and many more, eventually make up 'the metaverse'.
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• Users buy VR headsets to fully immerse themselves in the experience.

...could a lot of these things be done with Web2 technology? Sure, you could probably jerry-rig some solutions together.

But Web3 technology offers the path of least resistance, and the easier something is to do, the more it's utilized.