Zuckerberg is most worried about Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony and others as the main competition for the 'metaverse'

• Facebook's parent company, Meta, is spending billions every year in an attempt to create "the metaverse."
• Its main competition, the company said, is from Microsoft, Sony, Apple, Epic Games, and Google.

Facebook's parent company, Meta, is investing $10 billion this year alone in creating "the metaverse." In the coming years, the company expects to increase that investment.

Though no such market for a "metaverse" exists just yet, Meta is already sizing up the competition: "As we invest in the metaverse, we know that we face fierce competition from companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Snap, Sony, Roblox, Epic, and many others at every step of this journey," the company said in a statement to Vox this week.

It's no surprise that Meta is eyeing the biggest players in tech and video games given its goal of creating a virtual shared space, as depicted by Mark Zuckerberg in a presentation last month.

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In the video, Zuckerberg laid out the company's vision for a future where people don headsets and become virtual avatars in a virtual space shared by people around the world.

"We believe the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet," Zuckerberg said. "We'll be able to feel present, like we're right there with people, no matter how far apart we actually are."

He went on to show a variety of examples of this future virtual world, with everything from virtual board games to virtual board meetings.

It's a vision of the future that resembles modern online gaming worlds going back decades, from "Second Life" to "World of Warcraft" to VR chatroom apps. As such, it's no surprise that Zuckerberg sees the likes of Sony, which makes PlayStation, and Microsoft, which makes Xbox, as part of the group posing "fierce competition" in the still non-existent metaverse marketplace.

Notably, Microsoft has already announced intentions to enter the space, and rumors have been floating around for years that Apple is working on some form of virtual or augmented reality headset.

Competition appears to be heating up.

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