The XR Week Peek (2020.01.27): Samsung may be working on a new headset, Half-Life: Alyx will ship on time and much more!
Hello everyone! With great pleasure, I announce to you that we have updated our game HitMotion: Reloaded (the first mixed reality fitness game) on Viveport, and now we have far better bonuses management, apart from having fixed lots of bugs. If you have a Vive Focus Plus, go out on Viveport M and download it!
Plus, if you are in Karlsruhe, I’ll be attending the LEARNTEC event and I’ll be there on Thursday morning… if you’re there, we can meet!
That said, let’s have a look at this interesting week in AR and VR
Top news of the week
Samsung may launch a next-gen Samsung Odyssey
A recent filing at the Chinese IP offices makes us speculate on a new PC VR headset in the works by Samsung. The Korean company has submitted a design patent for a PC VR headset, and it looks pretty interesting. What is interesting the most are not the features, that more or less are the same as most other headsets: integrated headphones, halo+headband, IPD adjustment, etc… It seems a mix of a Samsung Odyssey and an Oculus Rift S.
What is worth noting are these three things:
- It shows us that Samsung is still highly committed to VR and will most probably launch new devices in the future;
- The front design is pretty intriguing since makes the user look like a robotic fly. It is a bit different than the usual design of a shoebox with cameras, and I like it a lot. It shows more attention to aesthetics;
- It has a front lattice (behind the glass), that seems to be there to hold SteamVR sensors. That would be a surprise move, considering that all companies are going inside-out now (with the exception of Valve), and that Samsung has only produced this kind of headsets until now. According to David Heaney of Upload VR, in the patent, it is possible to spot the place for 4 tracking cameras, and this makes us instead speculate that it is actually an inside-out headset. But this opens another debate: if it uses 4 cameras, does it mean that it won’t be based on WMR reference design anymore? Or that Microsoft is working on a new reference design that fixes the issues of the first one? And again… is it possible that this headset can accommodate both forms of tracking? Unluckily, we have not the answers to all these questions…
Considering the usual high quality of Samsung XR devices (Gear VR and Odyssey were both the best devices in their (unfortunate) categories), I’m very intrigued by this product and I can’t wait to hear more. Keep in mind, though, that this is just a patent, and this project may actually never ship.
More info (Patent spotted by Android Headlines)
More info (New images and info by Upload VR)
Other relevant news
Half-Life: Alyx is set to ship on time
Valve has answered to many questions on its AMA on Reddit, satisfying (in part) the curiosity of its fans. Some of the most interesting answers have been:
- Half-Life: Alyx has been developed by a team of 80 people. Bigger than the usual indie VR team, but pretty little for an AAA game. It is anyway the biggest team working on a game for Valve. Valve uses top-notch talents, and this may reduce the team size a lot;
- Valve plans shipping the game on time. They said they have used ValveTime(TM) before actually announcing the game, so it has actually already been delayed without us knowing it :). The game is already there, playable from the beginning to the end. It just needs some adjustments in the final part and bug fixing;
- On this game have worked many people already involved with other Half-Life titles;
- More gameplay videos will be shared in these weeks;
- The team has worked hard to ensure that gamers could enjoy just hang around in the environment and explore them.
To prepare players (especially non-Millenials) to the launch of this new episode, all previous Half-Life titles will be playable for free on Steam until March! Time to get again your gun, Gordon 🙂
More info (Full Half-Life AMA)
More info (Some selected answers on Road To VR)
More info (Half-Life: Alyx shipping in time)
More info (Half-Life titles free on Steam)
PSVR 2 could be revealed next month
This week, a rumor spread among XR communities: next-gen PSVR will be announced at a press conference to be held by Sony on February, 5th.
Honestly, I hope so, but I’m pretty skeptical. The reason is that Sony has already announced that it will launch PSVR 2 only after the PS5, to not confuse its buyers by selling too many things together. PS5 has not even been fully revealed, so I wonder how they could reveal the PSVR 2. You may think that so they want to launch the PSVR 2 before the PS5, and it may be, but actually, if this device truly wants to be next-gen, it can’t be compatible with the rather old hardware of PS4.
Personally, I think that at maximum they can announce that PSVR 2 will exist and will reveal some features. But of course, I hope for a full reveal 🙂
Oculus Go is not part of the Oculus For Business program anymore
Oculus has announced that Oculus Go won’t be part of the for-long-announced Oculus For Business program. It seems that from the tests on its close partners, most companies were only interested in the Quest.
I think that it is another nail in the coffin for the Go. The device has been rumored to be abandoned by Xiaomi, has been mostly ignored during OC6, has been permanently discounted and now it has been removed from the business program by Oculus. As I’ve written in the VR predictions for 2020, I guess that the device will be discontinued this year. And this may be the reason for the removal: from my experience as a consultant, there is still space for 3DOF headsets in 2020 (for marketing, education, etc…), so there are companies interested in buying big batches of 3DOF viewers. If Oculus is removing the Go from the offering is because it is just because it doesn’t think to support the device anymore.
The Walking Dead: Saint and Sinners is the game of the moment
Skydance Interactive has just launched The Walking Dead: Saint and Sinners, and the game has been received awesomly both from the critics and the gamers. People are praising especially its great horror vibes, and the game is able to mix adrenaline rush and pure terror sensations like few games before. It is not the classical zombie waves shooter game: you have to take decisions, explore the city to find items, and have a good strategy to complete your tasks before the sun sets and horde of zombies kill you.
It doesn’t try to make too much: the developers focused on making a confined game, but very good in everything they created. It is getting lots of downloads, and many enthusiastic reviews. It is the game to try in these weeks!
And the studio already announced that it is coming to PSVR and Quest…
More info (Review on Road To VR)
More info (Review on Upload VR)
More info (Porting to PSVR and Quest incoming)
More info (Gameplay article)
More info (Gameplay video)
News worth a mention
North is working on Focals 2.0
After having halted the production of its Focals smartglasses, North is working full steam ahead on the second iteration of the device. CNET’s Scott Stein has been able to try them and loved the very slim design, almost similar to the one of standard glasses and also the capability of correcting perfectly its myopia like no other XR device before. I admit I am intrigued.
Some interesting stats on VR show that gamers are not into VR
This week I have read the results of two very interesting surveys:
- GDC, as every year, has asked VR developers what platform they’re currently interested in. While in all past years the answer had always been “HTC Vive”, now the king is Oculus, with both the Rift S and the Oculus Quest getting the majority of answers (especially the Quest). Valve Index got much interest, but few developers are actually working on it. HTC lagged a bit behind, but it is also true that the answers regarding the Taiwanese company have been split across all its devices (Cosmos, OG Vive, Vive Pro, etc…) so probably its numbers are actually comparable to the ones of the Rift S. The true takeaway is that the Quest is getting the most interest;
- ISFE and Ipsos MORI’s GameTrack surveyed gamers, asking them what features they are most interested in for the future. The result is that the most requested features have been incremental updates like: more resolution, better graphics, faster loading times, etc… VR was important only to 37% of all surveyed gamers, and to 43% of the console gamer crowd. This makes us clearly understand that gamers are still not really into VR, and confirms the thesis by Microsoft that is not adding VR to Xbox. But analyzing the data better, we can spot that people are just requesting incremental updates and not disruptive ones. As Henry Ford was used to saying: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. People don’t understand completely the value of VR, probably because they never tried it the right way, so they just ask for improvements to what they already know well. This shows us that we should make more people try VR with the right games and applications, to make them understand why they should want it. Half-Life: Alyx could serve this purpose.
More info (GDC Survey)
More info (ISFE and Ipsos Survey)
Unity changes how it handles XR Plugins
In an attempt to finally realize its “develop once, deploy everywhere” vision for XR, Unity has again restructured how it manages XR plugins inside its engine version 2019.3. There will be an XR plugins manager, and some of them will be managed by Unity together with its partners (e.g. the one of Oculus), while others (like the one of OpenVR) will be developed and maintained directly by the providing company. The big surprise for me has been that Unity has now dropped its official integration with Vuforia: it seems that PTC wants to make Vuforia a completely enterprise-oriented solution, considering that ARCore and ARKit will serve for free most developers. So sad for me, considering the 5 years I’ve spent using Vuforia in Unity… so many memories…
More info (Announcement by Unity Technologies)
More info (Comment by Upload VR)
Oculus fixes its stuttering problems on Rift
After more than a month, Oculus has finally released an update on its Public Test Channel that solves the stuttering issue for Oculus tethered headsets. The fix seems to work, but to use it, you have to switch to the PTC (beta) branch. In the next times, it should come to the release distribution channel as well.
5G will take time…
I continue repeating it so many times (and I have also said it in my predictions for AR in 2020): be cautious of the big 5G hype. This technology has still to prove its utility and won’t be widespread for long. Some market analysts envision that 5G phones will surpass the number of 4G ones only in 2022–2023 (the period of the rumored AR glasses by Facebook… is it just a coincidence?). So don’t expect it to revolutionize AR or VR soon.
More info (Reality Check on 5G — 1)
More info (Reality Check on 5G — 2)
More info (Number of 5G phones over time)
Project North Star is the first AR headset having a SteamVR driver
The amazing project North Star, that aims at bringing affordable and opensource augmented reality to everyone, has just reached another milestone: it now has a SteamVR driver, so that you can use it with some already-existing SteamVR content. Cool to know!
More info (Announcement tweet) More info (GitHub repo)
Get to know VR Esports
I’ve found a very interesting article detailing VR esports, also showing the passion of people that is keeping up this niche gaming movement alone.
Antilatency now supports full-body tracking on Quest
Tracking company Antilatency has announced a bunch of interesting new features:
- The possibility of applying the tracking mat on the ceiling, if the floor has to be kept clear;
- The addition of support for full-body tracking on Quest;
- The release of two hands-controllers that remind two knuckles.
If you need a tracking system for your LBVR venue, check this out.
Form Swim Goggles are smartglasses for swimming professionals
If you like swimming, you can check out Form Swim smatglasses, that give interesting info (like heartbeat, speed, etc…) in front of your eyes while you swim.
How to install Oculus Quest custom home environments
Various tutorial show you how to create and install custom home environments for your Oculus Quest.
More info (Make a custom home from a 360 picture)
More info (Make a custom home textual tutorial)
More info (Where to find and how to install custom homes)
Some info on content
As always, some info on interesting content:
- A guy made an awesome AR demo of an avatar playing a physical piano using ARKit + CoreML;
- Disney Mith: a Frozen Tale seems to be a great VR experience at Sundance Festival;
- Dear Angelica (still my favorite artistic experience) and Henry come to Quest… but only as 360 videos;
- To The Top, after being rejected by Oculus, comes to SideQuest for $15. It will be interesting to see its sales if sold this way.
More info (AR Pianist)
More info (Disney Myth)
More info (Henry and Dear Angelica on Quest)
More info (To The Top on Sidequest)
News from partners (and friends)
SIDI (Swiss Institute for Disruptive Innovation) is running a Workshop all about VR, in VR, on February 22–23rd. It will touch all the main themes regarding the present and the future of immersive realities, also including topics like Brain Computer Interfaces and AI.
If you’re interested in it, you can learn more by clicking this link (notice: the event will be in Italian)
XR Intelligence will hold a new event, the XR Immersive Enterprise Conference, on May 5–6, 2020 at the Revere Hotel in Boston. By attending it, you can gain these things:
- Insights on how to identify & overcome the barriers to XR implementation and how to sell your boss on XR
- Learn the business of XR — its costs, its ROI and how XR can be scaled to your unique business needs
- Observe more than 20 case studies across multiple industries and sectors, including automotive, aerospace, construction, oil and gas, retail, healthcare and more
- Attend roundtable discussions geared towards every step of XR awareness and participation, led by moderators experienced in XR
- Experience the latest XR hardware, software, and content specifically designed for business purposes
Some XR fun
3D Scanning with a phone works well. Oh maybe…
What would happen if Pimax opened a restaurant?
Just one more thing…
These long and detailed roundups are possible only thanks to the support of these amazing people:
- DeoVR
- Michael Bruce
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Paolo Leoncini
- Jennifer Granger
- Jason Moore
- Kai Curtis
- Francesco Strada
- Vooiage Technologies
- Caroline
- Matias Nassi
They are my supporters on Patreon. Click the button below to provide me a monthly donation so that I can keep you up-to-date with all the news regarding AR and VR!
(Header image by 91 Mobiles)
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