Facebook is looking to become a different type of company, starting with its name: The social networking giant is rebranding its parent company to Meta.

Meta will oversee Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus, the latter of which is of growing importance to Facebook’s ambitions in the metaverse — hence the name.

The rebrand was revealed by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the company’s Connect event on Thursday.

Zuckerberg presented new fitness offerings and other functions in the company’s Oculus Quest VR headset.

• Oculus is adding VR fitness apps and features including a boxing workout to its “Supernatural” workout app, new studios in its “FitXR” program, and new features for hand-tracking fitness game “Player 22 by Rezzil.”
• Facebook is looking to make its VR hardware more amenable to intense workouts. Next year it will release its Active Pack for Quest 2, which will include controller grips and a facial interface that will help prevent the headset from getting too sweaty.
• Zuckerberg touted the new possibilities enabled by its technology, including playing virtual three-on-three basketball with a group of friends, fencing someone on the other side of the world, and working out in unique landscapes against AI.

Facebook bought Oculus VR in 2014 for $2 billion.

The company is also rolling out new apps and functions in its Horizon Home interface, allowing people to work and socialize within the metaverse.

The Summer Olympics accounted for over a quarter of NBCUniversal’s media revenue, as Comcast swapped cable subscribers for streamers.

The Tokyo Games were responsible for $1.8 billion of NBCUniversal’s $6.8 billion in media revenue and led a 73% year-over-year boost in advertising revenue. NBCUniversal, which also owns studios and theme parks, brought in $10 billion in total revenue, with $1.3 billion in adjusted EBITDA.

The 57.9% year-over-year growth for NBCUniversal was part of a strong overall performance for Comcast amid changing consumer behavior.

• Comcast’s broadband, cable, and other communications services banked $16.1 billion, lifting the entire company to $30.3 billion in Q3 revenue, up 18.7% year-over-year.
• The company shed 408,000 cable subscribers while gaining 300,000 broadband users.
• Peacock’s revenue grew 88.5% from the previous quarter to $230 million. The streaming service’s losses, however, increased to $520 million from $363 million in Q2.

Comcast paid $7.75 billion for the broadcast rights to the Olympics from 2021 to 2032. The company will have its next chance to make good on that investment in February, when China hosts the Winter Games.

Sony lifted its operating income forecast for the year by 6% to $9.2 billion following Thursday’s earnings report. 

The Japanese tech giant posted $21.5 billion in revenue in fiscal Q2, a 13% increase year-over-year. The results were driven by Sony’s Game & Network Services segment, which saw sales jump 27% to $5.7 billion.

The PlayStation 5 has sold 13.4 million units globally since its November 2020 release, making it the fast-selling console in Sony’s history. The company sold 3.3 million PS5 units in Q2.

Despite strong PS5 sales, Sony’s PlayStation Network saw monthly active users decline for the third quarter in a row. The service reported 104 million users at the end of the period.

Sony has otherwise expanded its gaming reach through a series of recent acquisitions.

• In September, it acquired Liverpool-based gaming studio Firesprite.
• The same month, it purchased Texas-based developer Bluepoint Games for an undisclosed amount.

Earlier this month, Sony Pictures sold GSN Games — a division of its Game Show Network cable channel — to mobile gaming publisher Scopely in a deal valued at $1 billion.