By Dawn Chmielewski

(Reuters) – Mickey Mouse has a plan to explore the metaverse.

Walt Disney (NYSE: CEO Bob Chapek stated that the entertainment conglomerate was preparing for the technological leap to a virtual reality universe first imagined by scientists fiction writers.

It is a popular destination these days, ever since Facebook (NASDAQ:) CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the future of his company would be devoted to creating a robust, three-dimensional environment where users’ digital avatars would work, hang out and pursue their hobbies.

There are also other big businesses like Epic Games and Roblox Corp, which make video games, as well as software companies such as Microsoft. Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:) are creating their own metaverses. Disney’s plan was notably devoid of specifics, beyond dropping a buzzword that has animated Silicon Valley.

Chapek told investors Wednesday that entering this new digital frontier is consistent with Disney’s long history of technological innovation, dating back nearly a century to Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon to feature synchronized sound.

“Our efforts to date are merely a prologue to a time when we’ll be able to connect the physical and digital worlds even more closely, allowing for storytelling, without boundaries in our own Disney Metaverse,” Chapek said during Disney’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

In an interview with CNBC, Chapek said he envisions it as an extension of streaming video service Disney+ — through the “three-dimensional canvass” he envisions for new types of storytelling.

Disney’s former executive vice president of digital, Tilak Mandadi, wrote on LinkedIn in 2020 about creating a theme park metaverse, where “physical and digital world converge” through wearable devices, smartphones and digital access points.

Not all of Disney’s digital forays have had happy endings. Its online children’s social network, Club Penguin, shuttered in 2017, after 11 years. Through its purchase in 2010 of Playdom for $563.2million, it entered social gaming. This led to a write-down. In 2014, it attempted to take advantage of the increasing popularity of YouTube video clips by buying Maker Studios at $500 million. This resulted the operation being taken over into other departments of the company.