The FTC is currently suing Facebook (Meta) to prevent the company from acquiring the virtual reality developer, Within Inc, who make the virtual reality game Supernatural.
The trial is taking place this week, and during the course of the trial, the government revealed that Facebook had been in talks with Peloton in 2021 for a proposed partnership to bring a rhythm game into the fitness space, through a possible partnership with Peloton.
Reuters reported on this proposed plan today, which had been called, “Operation Twinkie”, saying:
“Meta could have chosen to use all its vast resources and capabilities to build its own dedicated VR fitness app, and it was planning on doing that before it acquired Within,” Dennis said, pointing to a plan from early 2021.
The plan, called Operation Twinkie, involved expanding a rhythm game app the company had acquired in 2019 into the fitness space via a proposed partnership with digital fitness company Peloton (PTON.O), Dennis said.
She cited an email from Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg saying he was “bullish” on fitness and calling the proposed partnership with Peloton “awesome.”
Note that from this report, it’s not clear how far along the proposed plan had gotten – or if it had sign off from Peloton’s side, or was just something Facebook was proposing and pursuing.
The rhythm-based game referenced above that Facebook acquired in 2019 was called Beat Saber – which Facebook talked about here.
It’s not clear why Facebook dropped their plan to work with Peloton to bring Beat Saber to Peloton.
In this 2018 announcement of Beat Saber you can see how the gameplay of Beat Saber looks.
Peloton did end up bringing their own video game to market – which is called Peloton Lanebreak. Lanebreak was released in February 2022, and was first announced in summer 2021.
If you’re not familiar with Lanebreak, you can see some screenshots & videos here, or see a quick demo below.
Would you have wanted to see Peloton working together with Facebook?
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