Announcing the shutdown of PlutoSphere
After a period of long and intense negotiation and unforeseen challenges with a partner, it is with profound regret that we announce the cessation of PlutoSphere operations.
While we strongly believe that streaming spatial computing use cases to standalone devices is a necessary and exciting use case with a lot of potential, it is not possible to continue.
We are shutting down the PlutoSphere service imminently.
Due to our inability to launch on the Meta app store and grow our user base, we’ve been unable to honor our commitments with our third-party reseller of AWS cloud services.
Our journey with PlutoSphere has been unexpectedly complex and full of headwinds. The lack of approval on the Meta appstore for our use case, effectively banning cloud streaming, significantly hampered our marketing strategies, restricted our growth and prevented us from fulfilling our usage obligations. Despite concerted efforts to renegotiate our agreement for committed AWS services over the past year, we reached an impasse.
We are now compelled to shut down PlutoSphere. This entails discontinuing our products and services, downsizing our team, and initiating the process of winding down operations.
This outcome is far from what we envisioned when we began our cloud partnerships. We are responsible for having signed a contract with commitments that didn’t get met, even if it’s surprising that we couldn’t find a way to renegotiate. We have exhausted all avenues to avert this situation and it is with a heavy heart that we share this news. We understand the impact this will have on our team, our users, and the broader XR community. We deeply apologize for the disappointment and inconvenience this may cause.
Your support and understanding during these challenging times mean the world to us. Working on PlutoSphere has been an incredible journey, and it is with sadness that we face its conclusion. We are grateful for the opportunity to have contributed to the XR landscape and will carry forward the lessons learned into future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Jared Cheshier
Co-Founder and CEO
Pluto VR
