The XR Week Peek (2021.08.30): Bytedance acquires Pico, Quest 2 back on sale, and more!

I am super busy working on the last touches for the Venice VR Expanded world on VRChat. The artists have made an amazing job and the world is wonderful… I invite you all to check it out on September, 1st when the Venice Film Festival is starting… and in case you go there, let me know what you think about it!

Top news of the week

Bytedance reportedly acquires Pico for 5B RMB while it also pushes on mobile AR

Bytedance, the parent company of TikTok, is working towards increasing its presence in the XR market, following the footprints of Facebook, its competitor social media company.
 
 The big news of this week is that Bytedance has reportedly acquired VR headsets manufacturer Pico. The news was at first rumored by Bloomberg and then confirmed by online publication Nweon that was able to read an internal memo reporting the acquisition. The amount of the deal has not been disclosed, but Chinese magazine VRTuoLuo reports that it has been 5B RMB (a bit less $800M), while another Chinese portal reported the sum of 9B RMB, but then removed this detail from its article later on. The two companies have not publicly confirmed the deal yet (so take this news with a grain of salt).
 
 Someone compared this news to the acquisition of Oculus by Facebook, and I agree: Pico is a very smart startup, like Oculus was, and Bytedance is a very rich company that controls one of the most popular social networks, like Facebook. Pico, exactly as Oculus, deserved this acquisition: this Chinese company has been able, with limited resources, to carve its own niche in the VR market and become one of the most esteemed companies in the enterprise VR ecosystem.
 
 As it has happened with Oculus, this news is good and bad for Pico and VR in general. It is good because this new acquisition from a major company will give investors more faith in VR and so more money will come to XR startups. Also with Bytedance’s huge cash reserves, Pico will be able to grow faster and increase its efforts in the consumer VR market in China (kickstarting the consumer VR market there), and maybe later on also try to compete with Oculus in the West. That would be beneficial for the whole VR ecosystem: we need some company that can compete with Facebook.
 
 But this could also have the same unpleasant consequences that happened to Oculus: Bytedance is another company known to harvest as much data as possible from its apps, and for sure will want to continue this trend in XR too. Recently it has even changed its privacy policy to report that it can collect biometric data from its users. This can cast some shadows on Pico devices in the future.
 
 Bytedance is not focusing only on VR, but also on AR. Recently it has announced that it is building TikTok Effect Studio, a suite to let content creators develop AR filters to be used inside TikTok. It is still an experimental project but it shows how Bytedance is understanding the enormous potential of mobile AR and wants to exploit it in a way similar to what Snap and Facebook have already done.
 
 It is positive to see such a big company committed to XR. I just hope its vision will be a good one and not the usual one of ads and data harvesting…

More info (Report on the acquisition)
More info (Nweon confirming the news)
More info (VRTuoLuo disclosing the amount of the deal)
More info (TikTok Effect Studio)
More info (Recent worrying changes in the privacy policy of TikTok)

Other relevant news

Oculus Quest 2 is back on sale with 128GB of storage

It seems that Oculus Quest 2 is back on the menu! After having suspended the sales of its product for a skin irritation issue caused by its facemasks, Facebook has put back the Quest 2 on the shelves, with two little gifts for its new purchasers: a free silicone mask included in the box (existing Quest owners can also request it for free), and double of the storage for who acquires the lowest-tier SKU, that now features 128GB of space to install games (instead of the previous 64GB).
 
 Facebook has so solved in the best way possible a little problem it had in its product, using this forced stop to improve the experience of its future users. Some of the existing owners of a Quest 2 are a bit angry at the fact that new users are going to get more than us old-timers, but actually, it is pretty common that you pay more for having been an early adopter of a new product.
 
 I am pretty sure that Quest 2 will sell as well as before the stop, and it will be even more successful close to the Holiday season when the Quest 2 will prove out to be an amazing gift for gamers and tech enthusiasts.
 
 Together with the update on the hardware, Facebook has also released a software update for Quest: the v32 version of the runtime brings some improvements to Oculus Move, on Friends management, and makes gifting a game now possible from within VR. There are no disruptive new functionalities, but many welcome improvements.
 
 The update pace of the Quest keeps being impressive.

More info (Oculus Quest 2 128GB on sale)
More info (Oculus Quest runtime v32)

FCC documents disclose some details of Project Aria

The FCC listing of the glasses used by Facebook’s Project Aria now features the user’s manual of the device, and from that, we can understand something more about it.
 
 First of all, the glasses are codenamed “Gemini” and exactly as Facebook said, they feature no display. If you recall well, Aria is Facebook’s project to start collecting data about how the user could interact with AR glasses, and they are meant just for that: to gather data and not show augmentations.
 
 They work with a Qualcomm chipset and feature tracking cameras that are the same that are equipped on Quest 2. Probably Facebook wanted to be cost-effective and at the same time, use some cameras its engineers knew already well.
 
 The glasses can work together with prescription lenses, and this is for sure good news for all glasses wearers because makes us speculate the future Facebook AR glasses will work with them, too.
 
 Gemini works together with a smartphone app called Ariane: for sure it works with iOS devices, while there’s no reference to Android ones. This companion app is useful to set up the device, and I think also to provide it connectivity.
 
 This is all we can extrapolate from the document: it is not much, but is already interesting.

More info (Article on Project Aria on Protocol)
More info (Article on Project Aria on The Verge)

News worth a mention

Snapchat Scan is meant to make you discover the world through your camera

Snapchat has just upgraded and given more visibility to its “Scan” functionality, which lets you scan objects around you to have more information about them. For instance, you can frame a plant to identify what species it belongs to or a piece of clothing that you like to identify similar items that you may like and eventually buy.
 
 Snapchat is so planning to compete with similar products like Google Lens or Samsung Bixby. What is very important of Snap’s approach is that the engine that implements this functionality is open, that is external developers can contribute to it: the app Vivino is behind the wine scanning feature, for example. This is very powerful because it means that while Google and Facebook will work on creating all the AI/ML algorithms by themselves, Snap can rely on the work of others and so grow its functionality in a faster and cheaper way. This will let it compete with the other big tech giants even if it is a smaller company.
 
 I’m a big fan of open systems, so for sure I approve of this idea. And I also can’t wait for this feature to arrive to Snap’s Spectacles in the future…

More info

Enjoy some promotions related to VR

This week I’ve heard about some very interesting VR-related promotions and discounts that may interest you:

• Sony is hosting a huge PSVR Summer sale, with more than 200 PSVR titles available with discounts of 50% off or more! If you have a PlayStation VR, this is the time to get some amazing game like Astro Bot or Firewall Zero Hour for a very cheap price;
• HTC is offering one month of free Viveport Infinity subscription to all Oculus Quest 1 & 2 owners. Viveport has grown a lot lately, so it’s an offer worth taking;
• Some HTC Vive headsets (including the Cosmos and the Pro Eye) are on sale in the UK now;
• Popular game Contractors is currently discounted -50% on Steam

More info (PSVR sale)
More info (Viveport promo)
More info (Vive headsets discount in UK)
More info (Contractors discounted)

VRChat proves to be a successful platform also for game developers

Like many similar platforms devoted to content creators (e.g. Roblox), also VRChat is proving to be a good platform for game developers. An article on New World Notes highlights how a developer known as “Jar” is creating games in VRChat that have a high number of concurrent users and this makes her live out of Patreon donations doing the game dev work full time.
 
 What is impressive is the concurrent users’ number: as Wagner James points out: 

Since launching last December, her survival co-op game world Murder 4 has been visited nearly 8 million times, and her two most popular games typically attract 2,000 to 4,000 concurrent players at any given time. By contrast, as I write this, only 1,800 people are playing Beat Saber on Steam, while less than 600 are playing Half-Life: Alyx (according to VRLFG) — and those are among Steam’s most popular VR titles.
 
 Of course, it is not possible to make an exact comparison on the popularity of these two different kinds of content, but these numbers show how VRChat can be an amazing platform for content creators.

More info

The Matrix Resurrections is coming soon

At CinemaCon, Warner Bros has revealed some important info about the upcoming 4th episode of the saga of The Matrix. The movie will be called Matrix Resurrections, and will feature again Keanu Reeves as Neo and Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity.
 
 The Matrix Resurrections will hit theaters and HBO Max (for 31 days) on December 22. Let’s hope it is better than the 3rd episode…

More info

I Expect You To Die 2 is a great sequel of the famous VR game

On August 24th, Schell Games has released I Expect You To Die 2 and the game has been reviewed by all the most popular VR journalists and influencers. From the various reviews, it is possible to understand that this is an amazing sequel to the original game. It doesn’t introduce anything new, but it provides you a bunch of new levels built with the usual great attention to details.

More info (Review on Road To VR)
More info (Review on Upload VR)

Some news on content

• Space Pirate Trainer DX, the free update of Space Pirate Trainer that will let you play with your friends in a big physical arena, is slated to come on September, 9th
• Jurassic World: Aftermath part 2 is coming on the Quest Store on September, 30th
• Space Explorers: The ISS Experience episode 3 and 4 will feature footage from outside the International Space Station filmed with a special 360 camera
• Puzzling Places is coming to the official Quest Store this week
• A remake of Anshar Wars 2, the game originally available on Gear VR and Rift in 2016, is coming to Oculus Quest
• Spatial Update 5 answers to Facebook Workrooms introducing many new features like portals between rooms and improved avatars
• Beat Saber is going to have a new DLC (probably about electronic music) on August, 31th
• Shadowgate VR is going to bring the classical saga Shadowgate on Oculus Quest on October 7th
• Skybinder is a very original minimalist puzzle game now available on App Lab for $14.99
• Upload VR has finally reviewed A Township Tale on Quest, praising its depth and criticizing the difficulty in learning how to play the game
• Niantic has reverted its decision on Pokemon Go, keeping 80 meters as the base interaction radius for PokéStops and Gyms globally, as was asked by the community

More info (Space Pirate Trainer)
More info (Jurassic World Aftermath)
More info (Space Explorers VR)
More info (Puzzling Places)
More info (Anshar Wars 2)
More info (Spatial 5)
More info (Beat Saber DLC)
More info (Shadowgate VR)
More info (Skybinder)
More info (A Township Tale Review)
More info (Pokemon Go)

News from partners (and friends)

ZenVR is an indie experience meant to teach you in VR how to properly meditate. I had a quick test with it, and while it needs some polishing, it is interesting that it truly tries to teach you the meditation techniques. This makes it different from the other applications about relaxation.
Learn more

A Russian VR enthusiast that wants to see more VR games localized in his language is offering game developers free or very cheap translation services to Russian for their VR experiences. If you are a game developer as well, keep in mind this possibility for the localization of your product…
Learn more

Some XR fun

Beware of the angry Valve VR fans
Funny link

Not all VR games are about peace and meditation
Funny link

A short movie about buying a new headset
Funny link

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