The XR Week Peek (2021.02.01): Facebook is very confident in Quest 2 sales, Valve is working on Neural Interfaces, and more!
Haaaappy February, amazing XR community! Another week has just passed by and it was a cool one with many news and articles to talk about! Also, the first Awe Nite Florence that I co-organized was good, considering that it was the first one (would you mind registering to the next one at this link?).
Stay tuned on this blog, because in some days I will publish an EXTRAORDINARY interview related to one of the most awaited VR games of 2021! I’m sure you will love it, so don’t miss it! Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when it will be released 🙂
Top news of the week
VR adoption is increasing, and Quest is its lead
This week we had much-encouraging news on the growth of the XR market.
The best of them comes of course from Facebook. Zuck in its quarterly earning calls has said to investors that the sales of the Quest 2 are going so well that it is on track to become the first mainstream headset (that probably means 10M units sold). Thanks to it, the non-advertising revenues of the company incremented by 156% if compared to the previous quarter. Making some maths about the total revenues, VR journalists have inferred a number of sold Quests around 1–1.5M. Not bad for a headset that has been on sale for just 3 months. If it keeps this pace, it could go beyond the 10M mark in 2022. The 10M mark is a magic number to have a market big enough for AAA studios to enter and create amazing VR content, that in turn will attract more people to VR.
All the Quest ecosystem is healthy: more than 60 games had revenues beyond 1M dollars, and now the number of reviews on games on Quest have exceeded the ones for Rift. This is in my opinion both due to the great sales of the device and to the strict content curation: if many people have a headset but they can buy just a few games, it is obvious that these games will have a great adoption and earn a lot of money.
Zuck has also revealed that a new Quest is already in the works, but honestly, this is a non-news: the real question if it is going to launch this year or not.
Apart from Zuck’s show, there have been other separate announcements that offer good news for us VR people. Skydance Interactive has revealed that The Walking Dead: Saint And Sinners has made more than $29M in revenues. Medal Of Honor: Above And Beyond, notwithstanding the mediocre launch, has been one of the 20 Steam games that in December has generated the most revenue in their first two weeks after release. And the Valve Index has been one of the top 5 grossing items on Steam for 13 weeks straight.
These are all very positive news for VR: the technology is slowly getting adoption and while not mainstream yet, I agree with Zuck that in 1–2 years we’ll start getting there.
More info (Zuck’s earning calls announcements)
More info (One estimate of the sales of the device)
More info (Quest 2 increments Facebook’s “other revenues”)
More info (More than 60 titles grossed 1M+ on Oculus Store)
More info (Game reviews on Quest exceeded the ones on PC)
More info (The Walking Dead grossed $29M)
More info (Valve Index being one of the best products on Steam)
More info (Medal Of Honor’s sales)
Other relevant news
Valve has partnered with OpenBCI to work on Neural Interfaces
In a new interview given to a New Zealander magazine, Gabe Newell talks about the work that Valve is doing with Brain-Computer Interfaces. The game studio has partnered with OpenBCI, a well-known company in the field, and is experimenting with neural interfaces, both as a way to study players while they test Valve games (so they can see if testers are enjoying the game they have been proposed) and as a way to develop more amusing games (a game could perceive that the player is getting frustrated through the BCI, and so lower its difficulty, for instance).
GabeN highlights how neural sensors in XR headsets are so useful, that every game studio should already have one in its office. He forecasts that all headsets will have some form of BCIs soon, and he also says that in the future BCIs will be able to inject any form of reality into our brain. Our brain is very plastic and the BCI could trigger the right parts of the brain so that you feel haptic sensations on 6 fingers if your avatar has 6 fingers. Thanks to BCI, we could have a virtual reality that goes beyond physical reality.
All of this is cool, but I think it’s also a smoke of hype. I’m interested in BCIs, too, and I have some device in my office. The technology is amazing, but I think it’s too rough to be reliably used nowadays in gaming. Neurable has already proven that you can make some little games with a VR+BCI headset, but the EEG technology employed can only give very rough information about the brain status. When I tried the Looxid Labs add-on for the Vive I’ve found it interesting, but its data were pretty noisy, and some community members defined it as “another random numbers generator”. I think this definition shows you the faith that VR developers have in commercial BCI devices.
Talking about injecting information inside the brain about which GabeN is talking about, we are at the status that thanks to TMS we can inject binary information like on/off into the mind of the user. A bit behind the Sword Art Online scenario Newell is talking about.
Just to give a timeline about BCIs, Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, the head of Facebook Reality Labs, said 2 weeks ago that he expects the BMI input from Ctrl+Labs, the startup that Facebook acquired, to be implemented in a Facebook headset in a crappy way in 3 years, and more refined in 5–10 years. And we are just talking about something like typing on a virtual keyboard using the electrical impulses from our brain to our hands. For something like SAO, you can expect a time frame of 30–50 years maybe. Maybe even more.
Newell is just creating hype, maybe to show that Valve is always at the cutting edge, maybe because he’s an enthusiast, maybe because he wants to attract the best talents so that he can make happen the things he’s fluffing about (a bit of what Musk is doing with Neuralink). Don’t believe that BCI will be a thing soon. In fact, it’s a year that Gabe is talking about BCI in public, but he’s not showcased anything yet.
More info (News on Road To VR)
More info (News on Upload VR)
More info (Original interview to Gabe Newell about BCIs)
Oculus official side distribution platform is coming soon
Last year, Facebook announced that it was going to release in 2021 a new side content distribution platform for the Oculus Quest. This new way of distributing your apps that have not been approved for the Official Quest Store should work through unlisted store pages: if your game has not been approved on the store, you can still create an unlisted page on the Oculus Store for it, and send the link to the people you want to download and play your experience. This way the Official Store remains curated like a console, but sharing unapproved apps become much easier than having to use Sidequest and sideloading in general (and also gives Facebook more control on unofficial apps).
In an Instagram AMA, Andrew Bosworth has said that this feature is coming very soon: it should have already been launched, but some bugs added delays to the expected timeline. So, we can expect it to be launched in the coming weeks. Independent sources of mine have confirmed this: the launch is imminent. Get ready!
Google makes Tilt Brush opensource
Google has just announced that the VR painting program Tilt Brush has been put opensource on GitHub. This is both bad and good news.
The bad news is that this means that Google has abandoned it. Google is slowly abandoning everything about VR, and, strangely, it is even abandoning one of its most successful programs, that is Tilt Brush. The software is very famous, and some videos about artists drawing with it have become so viral that even mainstream people have seen them. Google is becoming well-known for abandoning the interesting project it creates. This announcement can be the start of the death of Tilt Brush.
The good news is that the software has not just been discontinued, but it has been released open-source, so the community can keep it alive and improve it. There’s been a strong hype about this, and I’ve already seen porting of Tilt Brush to AR (HoloLens) and WebXR; I’ve seen a new free version appearing on SideQuest; someone has also created a prototypical multiplayer version of it. This is a piece of great news. But what is important is seeing what is going to happen in the next 6–12 months: the initial hype is great, but maintaining a software is a tiresome long journey, and I’m curious to see how many of these projects will become complete and polished experiences. Fingers crossed that this is going to happen.
More info (Google Opensources Tilt Brush)
More info (Some of the projects created by the community)
More info (Rough implementation of multiplayer)
More info (Tiltbrush ported to HoloLens)
More info (A funny detail inside the source code)
Echo VR tries to monetize the game with premium cosmetics
Echo VR, the VR sports game available on Oculus headsets, is getting a ‘battle pass’ system called Echo Pass. Like other battle passes for free-to-play games, the pass will allow players to unlock some free cosmetic customizations (beautifications), while premium cosmetics can be unlocked with real money.
In both cases, to unlock the beautifications, the player should go through some challenges: the free pass will offer only 10, while the premium passes the full set of 50. If he/she doesn’t want to win a particular challenge, he/she can also pay to get immediately the reward. The premium pass costs $10, and every reward can be unlocked without any effort paying an additional $2.
You may wonder why I give so much importance to this rather marginal news. I’m putting a spotlight on this because it is an interesting testbed for the VR gaming market. The mobile gaming market is mostly composed of free-to-play games, while in VR the only model that has proven to be viable is the premium one (that is, you pay to buy the game) because the market is too little to try freemium/IAP models.
Echo VR is free, it runs on Quest, and has a very solid community, so it could be one of the few VR games that have some chances to become profitable with IAP. If this proves to be true (we need Facebook to release some data about it), this would mean that the VR gaming market is becoming more mature, and game studios can experiment with more variated business models.
I’m very curious to discover how this will play out.
Canon launches its Mreal S1 headset
Canon has just announced the launch in Japan of MREAL S1, its latest mixed reality headset for the industry. It is going to be distributed in Japan starting from this month.
MREAL S1 is a passthrough mixed reality headset: it features two high-definition front cameras through which is possible to have augmented reality and augmented virtuality. The headset is very lightweight and has many regulations to guarantee the comfort of the user. The design is very original and the front plate can also be detached and be held with the hands. All in all is a very interesting and original device, that also offers some software facilities that can help a lot Canon’s industrial customers.
All of this for the affordable price of $38,500. I’m happy that Canon is finally helping the XR ecosystem with a price point that can guarantee mainstream adoption of the technology. It’s a steal and I’ve already preordered 4 for me and my family. And yes, we Italians love sarcasm.
News worth a mention
HaptX launches DK2 version of its haptic gloves
HaptX is one of the most known brands for what concerns haptics in XR because it produces the HaptX Gloves, a pair of gloves that can provide you the exact haptic texture of the virtual object you are touching, plus force feedback. These devices also became famous because Jeff Bezos tried them looking like an evil overlord.
HaptX has just launched the new version of these devices, the DK2, which make them much smaller than the previous version, adding comfort to the user. They are still bulky, and still very expensive, but they have made a great step forward in ergonomics, while also improving their tracking and force-feedback performances.
I can’t wait for this to become mainstream.
(Disclaimer: A member of the company is a Patron of this blog. Not that this changes anything, but it’s better that you know)
Mozilla Hubs refreshes its UI
Mozilla has just released an update for its social ecosystem Hubs. In this update there is mostly an overhaul of the UI, to make it usable on all platforms, especially the non-VR ones from which most of the people were connecting.
Apart from the update per se, the great news is that Hubs is still alive. Mozilla was developing many WebXR projects, but after the layoffs happened in 2020, the roadmap for all of them became uncertain. This piece of news shows us that Hubs is still alive and kicking, and we can hope for an open WebXR metaverse in the future.
More info (Announcement Post)
More info (Twitter Thread about this update)
The Sundance Film Festival has just kickstarted
The Sundance Film Festival, one of the most important movie festivals happening every year, has just started. Since it can’t be held physically, it has been made as a digital event. The event is so happening in a WebVR ecosystem, where you can join from whatever device and meet the other participants and the creators in a cozy lobby.
There are still passes available for $25 through which you can enjoy the wonderful creations showcased there. One of them is Namoo, the latest short XR movie by Baobab Studios.
More info (Sundance Film Festival in WebXR)
More info (The best of Sundance)
More info (How to access Sundance Festival)
More info (No Proscenium’s diaries about Sundance, with many reviews)
Rony Abovitz launches Sun And Thunder
After stepping down from the role of CEO of Magic Leap, Rony Abovitz has started a new venture called Sun And Thunder about digital beings. Intelligent Digital Humans are a new important trend of XR and Abovitz wants to enter there with the big expertise in art and technology that he has developed at Magic Leap.
The startup is very… Abovitzian. The first digital human will be Jako Vega, whose avatar is a man playing the guitar with a yellow helmet with cybernetic rabbit ears on. Rony states that the digital humans won’t be just products of the companies, but they will be part of the team, will work together with the real humans of the company every day.
I don’t know if he will succeed, but for sure we’ll have some good memes for the next years.
More info (Sun And Thunder on VentureBeat)
More info (Sun And Thunder on Road To VR)
UltraLeap launches Gemini hands-tracking runtime
UltraLeap (formerly known as Leap Motion) has just launched the 5th iteration of its hands-tracking runtime, called Gemini. This new runtime improves a lot the accuracy of hand tracking on Windows PCs, even with the old Leap Motion Controller. The real improvement happens with two hands interactions: you can make the fingers of your two hands cross with each other, and the tracking would keep working. This is the first time it happens with a hand tracking solution for XR.
Virtual Fashion is on the rise
Virtual Fashion is another important trend of the latest months: there are people that buy exclusive digital clothes, with which they can appear in photos on Instagram for tens of thousands of dollars. This may seem pure craziness, but in a society where appearance is everything and most of it is showcased online, spending thousands of dollars to have an exclusive look to show on social media may be a reasonable choice.
Thanks to Cathy Hackl, I have found an article that details many examples of this new industry, and I think you should give it a read too.
Gravity Sketch is now free
If you were looking for a free tool to model 3D objects in XR, you can consider having a look at Gravity Sketch. There is now a completely free version of it, so you can start using it at no cost!
Microsoft announces HoloLens Industrial Edition
Microsoft has announced HoloLens 2 Industrial Edition, a slightly modified version of HoloLens 2 that adheres to some certifications so that it can be used in highly controlled environments. This makes the HoloLens usable in certain industries where safety is of paramount importance.
Tundra Labs’s Kickstarter campaign launch date announced
Tundra Labs is a startup that is going to launch soon the Tundra Tracker, a competitor of the Vive Tracker that is cheaper, smaller, and more versatile. Some communities (like the VRChat one) are already hyped about it, and now finally we have a launch date: March, 29th 2021. That day the Kickstarter campaign of the device will start, and I’m 100% sure that it will be funded in the first 48 hours.
Why do VR headsets use Fresnel lenses?
Almost all VR headsets use Fresnel lenses, even if we know they have some drawbacks, like the introduction of godrays. Why have headsets manufacturers made this choice, then? A Reddit thread explains it: they were the lenses minimizing the worst effects the other lenses could have (like for instance pupil swim), while at the same time having some drawbacks that could be limited by the screen and the rendering software.
A 360-degree view on the metaverse
VentureBeat has just finished holding an interesting event about the “Metaverse”, featuring amazing speakers like Cathy Hackl, Rony Abovitz, and Tim Sweeney. Its main organizer, Dean Takashi, has written a final post summarizing the event, and it is a very good post that analyzes all the main features of the Metaverse, defining what it is and how we could get there. A post worth reading.
Oculus Quest is coming to Korea
Thanks to a partnership between SK Telecom and Facebook, Oculus Quest 2 is finally going to launch also in South Korea starting tomorrow!
Some news on content
- I Expect You To Die 2 has been revealed! And given the big success of the first one, we are sure it will be a great game;
- Ven VR Adventure arrives on Steam;
- Gorn has released on Oculus Quest;
- Angry Birds VR gets a new level pack on all platforms;
- Reakt is a very interesting fitness game that trains your concentration and reaction times. It has launched on the Oculus Store, but it seems more a professional tool than a consumer one;
- Upload has reviewed Yupitergrad and found it nice, even if sometimes frustrating;
- Hitman 3 will for sure have a DLC, and we hope it will be compatible with VR;
- Into The Darkness is an indie game inspired by Boneworks;
- Baobab Studios showcases its latest creation Namoo at Sundance;
- The Secret Of Retropolis tries to bring back point-and-click-adventures to VR! If you were a fan of Monkey Island, for sure you have to check this out.
More info (I expect you to die 2)
More info (Ven VR Adventure)
More info (Gorn)
More info (Angry Birds VR)
More info (Reakt)
More info (Yupitergrad)
More info (Hitman 3 DLC)
More info (Into The Darkness)
More info (Namoo)
More info (Secret Of Retropolis)
News from partners (and friends)
Mohamed Jean-Philippe Sangaré is the man behind the very interesting Dimensions XR 2020, an event that featured many high-level speakers from the immersive realities ecosystem. He has just decided to release all the videos of the talks for free, as an enormous gift of knowledge to the community. You can find them all (including mine) on SSVAR’s Youtube channel. Don’t you think that this is fantastic?
Learn more (SSVAR Youtube Channel)
Learn more (The video with my speech about the 5 senses in AR/VR)
The Metamovie’s creator Jason Moore (that is also a Patron of this blog), has just released an amazing interview to XRMust, talking about his adventures as a storyteller in virtual reality. I think it deserves a read, and I’m also very proud of Jason that is growing professionally very fast.
Some XR fun
Oh, wow, I wasn’t expecting Biden to endorse my favorite game engine!
Poor Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2
I would go… and you?
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(Header image by Oculus, from Road To VR)
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