Asian Tech Press (June 22) -- Meta, Microsoft and other tech giants have formed a body to foster the development of open standards for the metaverse, but without Apple as a member.

The group, called the Metaverse Standards Forum, announced its creation on Tuesday, is a group to set industry standards to make the digital worlds of member organizations or companies compatible with each other.

Its members include many of the largest technology companies from chipmakers to gaming companies, as well as existing standard-setting organizations such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the new group said in a statement.

It is worth noting that Apple is not participating in the organization. But analysts expected that once Apple launches its mixed reality headset this year or next, it will become a dominant player in the metaverse race.

Apple has yet to publicly acknowledge plans for the development of a mixed reality headset, but there were reports that the company has demoed the product to its board of directors.

Gaming companies such as Roblox and Niantic are also not participating in the forum, and emerging cryptocurrency metaverse platforms such as The sandbox and Decentraland are similarly absent.