The XR Week Peek (2020.05.04): VR usage rises, Mozilla creates an open metaverse, and more!
While in Italy we get ready for the “Phase 2” of the lockdown, I write the best AR/VR news of the week just for you!
Top news of the week
VR adoption is increasing, but beware of the virus
The biggest news of the week is the one that you can see in the above graph: in the Steam Hardware Survey for April, it is possible to see a big spike of connected headsets. This spike accounts for +1M VR users with respect to the previous analysis for March and has been caused, as you can imagine, by Half-Life: Alyx.
Notice that we have to be very careful about this news: it doesn’t mean that we had 1M of new headsets sold because of Alyx: that wouldn’t be realistic given the estimated sales of the game (around 1M in that period, according to SuperData), and the limited production of headsets due to the pandemic. This means that we had 1M more active users. Part of them were new VR owners, others were people that weren’t using the headset the months before and took it out in March to play Alyx.
In any case, this is good: more people bought a VR headset, and other ones got more engagement with the technology, maybe after months of having left the headset in the closet.
This was predictable and it will be more interesting analyzing how many people will keep using these VR headsets, that is how much the curve will drop next month. This will give us the true value that Alyx has given to the VR ecosystem. Because what does count is not the number of headsets, but the engagement they have. This is why we praise so much the Oculus Quest (1M+ of engaged users) and not the Cardboards (20M devices, almost unused).
Talking about the Quest, it is doing great as well. In its quarterly earnings call, Zuckerberg has repeated the same sentence that he always says: “The Quest is exceeding our expectations” (notwithstanding the great sales, he every time keeps his expectations low so that he can be surprised every month) and that they are selling the devices as soon as they manufacture them. In fact, this week the Quest got back in stock everywhere, but it got sold out in few days as always (check the availability in your country, if you want one). What is interesting is that Facebook’s non-advertising revenues in Q1 2020 signed a +80% with respect to the same period last year, for a total of $297M. This money includes all the revenues not related to the main business of Facebook (advertisement), but Facebook has clearly specified that this big increment is mostly related to Oculus hardware and software. It is an amazing piece of news and shows how the standalone VR market is healthier than ever.
This seems all great, but actually, SuperData warns us not to be that happy. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the supply chain of headsets has been hurt, so in Q1 2020 there have been fewer sales than in Q4 2019 (and this confirms my impression of the spike in Steam not being due to 1M new headsets) and this trend will continue also in this quarter. Sectors like LBVR will be highly impacted and will lose 72% of revenues if compared with 2019. The upcoming worldwide recession/depression will make fewer people buy VR headsets. Things in Q3-Q4 should be better, but the resulting prediction is that in 2020 XR will have a similar turnaround of 2019. I hope not, but I think so.
More info (Steam Hardware Survey)
More info (Facebook’s revenues for Q1 2020)
More info (Quest and Rift S stock, updated)
More info (SuperData’s report)
Other relevant news
Mozilla launches Hubs Cloud, the foundation of the free and open metaverse
Mozilla Hubs is an opensource online VR meeting tool, that lets you meet other people using whatever device by just clicking on a single link. This week Mozilla has decided a service related to it, Hubs Cloud, that is the foundation of a future metaverse.
Hubs Cloud is an initiative to let you install Mozilla Hubs, with its full infrastructure, everywhere: at the moment only AWS is supported, but the Mozilla Foundation is already working on an exporter for Digital Ocean and other platforms like Azure, or even a self-hosted server. With these easy installers, it will be possible for every individual/company to host its own version of Hubs, on its own servers. This will include personal rooms, avatars, etc… and since Hubs is opensource, this will also mean personal customization of the behavior of the ecosystem.
Hubs can so become the first completely decentralized open metaverse, with everyone being able to host his own rooms, in the same way that in the ’90s anyone could host his own web pages. If it will become widespread, this can be the foundation of the Web3.0, the immersive one. I really hope so.
Valve drops Mac support for SteamVR
Valve has decided to drop MacOS support for SteamVR, and Mac owners can now only rely on a Windows installation to play with virtual reality. The reason for this is probably the low percentage of Mac users on Steam, that made Valve uninterested in the platform. At the same time, Apple having always mediocre graphics cards on its laptops and its closed ecosystem have not helped much either in keeping this VR support alive. Not to mention the fact that Apple has always said that it is not interested in VR, but only in AR.
Mac support for VR has been a thing, and I think it’s a true pity that it has been abandoned. Mac is the device that many categories of creatives use: 3D artists, architects, comic drawers, etc… and these are exactly some categories of professionals that would find many advantages in using virtual reality. These people, of course, love MacOS, and they would find it great to be able to use a VR headset for improving their creative creations.
I think that Valve and Apple have lost a great opportunity here: when I speak at VR events dedicated to professionals, I always receive the question “What about support for Mac?” and this means that in certain niches there is a lot of interest for virtual reality. I wonder why these corporates are blind to these requests.
Sony reveals finger tracking technology for controllers
In a research paper released by Sony and presented at CHI2020 it is possible to see the work that Sony is doing in finger tracking inside VR controllers. Just to be clear: this is not a rumor or a patent, this is a scientific article with attached videos about the technology in action.
Watching the video, it is possible to see that thanks to some machine learning magic, the user is able to have in his hands two controllers full of capacitive sensors and the system is able to predict with very good accuracy the full pose of the hand, even in complicated conditions like the hand being full of sweat. The system is not perfect (the video also shows some conditions under which it doesn’t perform well), but the overall result is very good.
This makes us think that PSVR 2 controllers will feature full hands tracking, and will so be very similar to the Valve Knuckles. Anyway, this is not a piece of official news, just a healthy speculation. We’ll see the actual controllers only in 2021.
A rumor about Oculus Go 2.0 appears in the wild
I love rumors, even when they have very little foundation. I also love good stories. So I’m very intrigued by the fact that a redditor claims that he had a business meeting with a person very close to Facebook, and this person mentioned that “there will be an Oculus Go 2.0 at a $200 price point”.
We have no further details, and honestly, the source is just a random redditor with a brand new account created just to spread this rumor (it is not uncommon on Reddit for this kind of leaks). So, it may be highly unreliable. But given the news on a new Del Mar headset, and the fact that the Oculus Go is now sold out everywhere, it may be a possibility. So let’s just remember this for future cues we may find in the next months.
News worth a mention
HTC is now selling Vive Cosmos Elite headset-only
Finally, HTC is selling the Vive Cosmos Elite not only as a full bundle anymore but also as a headset-only option for $550. You can pair this headset with your already owned SteamVR basestations and controllers (e.g. Valve Knuckles). And you can also buy the external tracking faceplate to attach to your Vive Cosmos for $200.
I received the external tracking faceplate, so expect a review pretty soon!
HTC launches Vive Sync
Vive Sync, the collaboration tool created by HTC to organize business meetings is now available also in the West. It allows for 30 people in the same virtual room, and it is integrated with Onedrive and other services. It will be free for everyone for the whole 2020.
Oculus makes developers’ life easier on Quest
Oculus has announced some interesting features for the Oculus SDK. First of all, there are some facilities that let you preview your application on the Quest faster, without having to build the full bundle (that we all know is a long and boring process). And then it has also finally added Dynamic Fixed Foveated Rendering, which basically adapts the FFR at runtime, making it more aggressive only when it is required because the scene to render is too heavy.
More info (Preview facilities in Unity)
More info (Dynamic FFR)
How to make mixed reality videos for Quest
Mike Virtual Reality Oasis has made an amazing videotutorial that shows you how to create stunning mixed reality videos of you playing with the Oculus Quest. Of course he has a green-screen room, but even with just a green blanket you should be able to obtain very good results.
Cool experiments on VR emerge
In my last roundup, I have shown you some cool research projects happening around VR haptics, and I would like to continue talking about the topic of VR research.
The first project that I link you below, aims at giving you the impression of breathing warm or cold air. It works by spraying in your nose eucalyptol (when you have to breathe cold air) or capsaicin (when you have to breathe hot one). These substances stimulate your trigeminal nerve and give you the impression of hot/cold temperature.
The other experiment I have found aims at giving you the sensation of the weight moving in your hand, like when you have a glass with some ice cubes in that you are making oscillate in your hand. The design of this controller is pretty cumbersome, and I don’t see it becoming a product soon, but as an experiment, it is very interesting.
More info (Hot and cold simulation)
More info (Moving weight simulation)
Test your VR app with mouse and keyboard with VVR
A redditor has created Very Virtual Reality, a SteamVR driver to let you use VR applications using mouse and keyboard to move the VR head and controllers. This can be useful for devs not having a VR set to test their applications.
Israeli president visits the home of his citizens in AR
Because of the lockdown, it is not possible to make public gatherings anywhere, so Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, has decided to visit personally the houses of all his citizens, digitally, in augmented reality. The application is a very simple one, and technically speaking, there is not much to talk of (just smartphone AR made with The 8th Wall), but what is interesting is that a government is using now augmented reality to speak with its people. This is quite new and is a big endorsement for the future of AR and VR.
All next-gen of VR games should have believable physics
Skydance Interactive chief technologist and co-founder Peter Akemann said in an interview to Venture Beat that games like Alyx, Boneworks, and TWD: Saint and Sinners have raised the bar of VR games, and especially they showed people that believable physics interactions in VR are fun and immersive. This means that next-gen VR games should all feature them.
As a developer, I 100% agree, but the problem is that developing such systems requires months of work, so we need that these features become offered by game engines or related cheap plugins, otherwise indie devs will have difficulties in creating games with a compelling gameplay plus realistic interactions.
Echo VR for Quest is coming in beta on May, 5th
While the coronavirus has delayed Lone Echo II to an unspecified date, Ready At Dawn has worked hard to ship Echo Arena for Oculus Quest, and the game is coming very soon. Tomorrow, May, 5th, the studio will start a free open beta round, that will let you play the game for free, so that RAD will be able to iron out all its bugs. Echo Arena requires full freedom of movements and I think it will be awesome on Quest.
More info (Lone Echo II delayed)
More info (Echo Arena Beta)
Some news on content
- Realities.io has developed a very beautiful 3D puzzle application made with 3D objects created with photogrammetry. It seems very relaxing;
- Pistol Whip is launching on PSVR this summer, but the exact date is unknown at the moment;
- A new remake of Quake in VR is out, and it’s probably the best one on the market;
- Beat Sage is able to create custom maps for Beat Saber automatically thanks to artificial intelligence: you just provide the music, and it makes a custom map for you. For pop/electronic songs, it works quite well;
- HyperDash, a new fast-paced multiplayer shooter, is now available on SideQuest!
More info (3D jigsaw)
More info (Pistol Whip on PSVR)
More info (Quake VR)
More info (Beat Sage)
More info (Hyperdash)
News from partners (and friends)
From May, 5th, VRrOOm will host the GoEast festival on VRChat + Viveport. You will be able to enjoy the 360 movies of this festival on the VRrOOm platform on VRChat, while you will be able to play the 6DOF interactive experiences by downloading them from Viveport for a limited time! This is the first online festival allowing you to play both 3DOF and 6DOF experiences, and I’m proud to say that together with MID and my team at New Technology Walkers, I’ve worked hard to make sure that this could have been possible!
Learn more (GoEast festival lineup)
Learn more (How to access the virtual GoEast festival)
An Italian project undergoing a crowdfunding campaign aims at helping psychologically all the doctors and nurses that have been involved in the coronavirus emergency. These people are undergoing a terrible pressure due to the difficult situation, and some of them are having psychological problems (some of them in Italy have even suicided). A project from University of Milan aims at using Virtual Reality to help them to recover from all the stress they had to suffer.
Learn more and support this project
Two redditors have created a cool parkour game called Dingleberries. They have been laid off from their company, so they decided to create their own VR game, and it turns out to be very cool. What makes Dingleberries stand out is that it is really physics-based, in the sense that you need to lift yourself and push the ground to walk, jump, and punch. Jump direction and speed depend on how strong and at which angle you hit the ground with your fists.
Check out this game and download the free demo from Steam! (You find the link in the comments of the post I’m linking here)
Some XR fun
This Cardboard is so affordable… but that’s a pity that there is the $1 for shipping…
A very cute emoticon for virtual reality!
If Neo eats the wrong pill, there may be some problems
Don’t spend too much time playing videogames…
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