This period I am busy as hell… it seems that life has decided that everything should happen to me in these last months of this year. I’ll try to survive all of this work… if I can not, well, I’ll actually become a ghost, which is pretty fascinating. Send me hugs while I’m still human!
Top news of the week
HTC is probably going to announce Vive Flow
With a surprise move, HTC Vive has started teasing the launch of a new product. The company has set up a virtual event on the platform ENGAGE (of which HTC is an investor) for October, 14th 2021 at 8 am PDT.
The motto of the event is “Go With The Flow”, and Upload VR has discovered that HTC recently has trademarked the name “Vive Flow”, so it can be expected that the new device will have that name. What is the device is not clear, considering that the trademark has been associated vaguely with “AR and VR products”.
We are sure that it is a device and not a piece of software because the company has started publishing teaser images with an empty cylindrical container, making us understand that Vive Flow is something that goes inside that holder. But it is not clear if it is a headset, a pair of glasses, or some accessory, though. We just know that it fits “a small package”.
The background of the invite image seems to hint at two lenses, so someone speculates that this may be the Vive Proton. Others say that it is something similar to Nreal Air: a pair of lightweight AR glasses. Others (like me) joke on the fact that in the photos you can see something that looks like a thermos, so we are hoping for Vive Thermos, tracked in VR, priced at $999 + $199 to have the wireless module.
There is no public info about this device, and I guess you have to wait for the 14th to know what it exactly is.
More info (HTC teasing Vive Flow)
More info (More teaser images of Vive Flow)
More info (Launch event invitation / Western World)
More info (Launch event invitation / China)
Other relevant news
Valve is working on a standalone VR headset codenamed “Deckard”
Youtuber Brad Lynch of the channel “Sadly It’s Bradley” has discovered, thanks to “a tip”, some references to a device codenamed “Deckard” inside some SteamVR firmware files.
Analyzing the references, it seems that Deckard is a standalone VR headset. Ars Technica has confirmed with some sources of its that Valve is actually working internally on a prototype with that name. The sources claim that Valve is working on two different kinds of VR headset prototypes: one is a PCVR headset akin to Valve Index, and the other one is a standalone headset. It is also rumored that Valve wasn’t able to develop satisfying inside-out tracking algorithms, and so it has asked the help of an external supplier for it.
We already knew that Valve was working on a standalone headset because they vaguely hinted at it while talking about the Steamdeck (they said that the lessons learned while developing such a device would have been useful for other products they were building). But having these confirmations is surely something that is making all the community excited. The hype among VR enthusiasts has just started.
I have to say that this “leak” comes in a very timely fashion, by chance exactly at the moment when Facebook was building the hype for Oculus Quest 2 Pro, convincing so some people to wait for Valve’s moves before buying the new Oculus headset. The new Oculus device was by the way another piece of hardware that was by chance “leaked” in a timely way so that to excite everyone for Facebook Connect 2. How many coincidences happen in the VR ecosystem… all the leaks happen exactly at the right moments!
Anyway, if you are a Valve fanboy, I wouldn’t hold my breath to see this device on the market soon. Valve is well known to kill internal prototypes, and even if this is going to come to the market, it would come with the famous Valve Time. We are in the middle of a cheap shortage, and now Valve hardware product lines are devoted to the SteamDeck, so it’s improbable that a new production line is starting immediately. But we VR people are patient, and we can wait for a product that promises to be good…
More info (Ars Technica report on Valve Deckard)
More info (Upload VR reporting the news)
Nreal launches Air lightweight glasses
Chinese startup Nreal has just announced its new product: Nreal Air, a pair of lightweight glasses devoted to media consumption.
Nreal noticed that in some countries, users of Nreal Light AR glasses used the device just to watch video content on a big virtual screen, so it has understood that there is a market for this kind of device. Air has been born to satisfy the needs of this market, with a set of glasses that are very lightweight (just 77g), comfortable, and affordable. Nreal Air offers very high resolution and pixel density (49 PPD), with many comfort configurations, so users can enjoy watching their favorite movies on a giant AR cinema screen at home or outdoor for hours.
The device connects with the phone via USB-C and features only 3DOF tracking: it is not a headset for prosumers, but for consumers. It offers few features but implements them very well.
The headset is going to launch in December 2021 in three Asian markets for an undisclosed price, which is said to be anyway much lower than the one of Nreal Light. At launch, we’ll understand if Nreal’s bet on this kind of affordable viewers has been a winning choice.
3 big titles are showing the current trends of VR gaming
This week we had three big news regarding the VR gaming world.
The first one is about Resident Evil 4 VR: Capcom’s title is coming exclusively to Oculus Quest 2 on October, 21st. This is one of the most awaited titles of the year, and the arrival of it on Quest will draw people passionate about the saga to buy an Oculus headset to be immersed in its horror world. The first images are promising: the title doesn’t feature amazing graphics and the cutscenes are still in 2D, but first previews talk about an amazing game nonetheless. As a big fan of Resident Evil, I will instabuy it. The game is said to need around 12GB to install properly, and some metadata from the store page seems to hint at a 40€ price.
The second one is “Medal Of Honor: Above And Beyond”, which is coming to Quest 2. This exclusive title, which was released with many bugs that have now been fixed, was only available on PC, but now it has come to Quest 2, where Facebook hopes to sell a good number of copies of its. The game will cost $40, with cross-buy with Rift, but not cross-play.
This news is super important for three reasons:
- It shows that Facebook is super committed to Quest: it had no interest in the PCVR version of the game, which in fact has been released also on Steam, and the plan has probably been to port the game to Quest for various months. This confirms that Facebook has de facto abandoned PCVR;
- It marks the beginning of a new trend for VR games: the game occupies around 40–45 GB on the device, so it is not suitable at all for the original 64 GB version of Quest 2. I expect more games to start occupying always more space, so slowly 64GB Quests may have problems with games in the future. This shows why Facebook has started selling 128 GB ones. As a 64GB owner, I thank Facebook a lot for this;
- It confirms the new trend of releasing games and features that are only compatible with Quest 2. Owners of Quest 1 will have to sooner or later abandon the device if they want to enjoy the lastest games for the platform.
The third news is about “Zenith: The Last City”, the MMO game developed by indie studio Ramen VR. The studio has just got $10M in funding to develop the game.
This is incredible because it is another VR success story, and it could lead to the development of a complete MMO game in VR. MMO is a very successful type of game on traditional devices, and having a game of this kind in VR can contribute a lot to the success of this platform.
Zenith statistics confirm this completely: during the alpha stage, the studio found that “player retention numbers in Zenith: The Last City resemble those of the most popular F2P games, with some players spending as much as 40 hours a week in the game.”. This is fantastic, and I can’t wait for this game to fully release to the market to see the success it can have.
More info (Resident Evil 4 Release Date and Price)
More info (Resident Evil 4 Storage Required)
More info (Resident Evil 4 Rumored Price)
More info (Resident Evil 4 Gameplay Video)
More info (Medal Of Honor: Above And Beyond coming to Quest 2)
More info (Medal Of Honor: Above And Beyond space requirement)
More info (Medal Of Honor: Above And Beyond cross buy)
More info (Zenith VR getting 10M of funding)
News worth a mention
Tokyo Game Show has been the first big gaming event held in VR
Tokyo Game Show has been the first big gaming event to be held in virtual reality: dubbed TGSVR, the event let you wander around a virtual space full of booths about popular games, and watch videos and posters about them. The experience, held on the Japanese platform xambr, was nice, and the environments very colorful, but it was probably a bit too static for the users, that had not enough objects to interact with. A very interesting event that we hope will be the first of a long series.
More info (TGSVR)
More info (TGSVR booths)
More info (First impressions on TGSVR by Upload VR)
More info (First impressions on TGSVR by me)
More info (My interview with the company behind xambr)
Pico launches Pico Neo 3 Pro and Pico Neo 3 Pro Eye
Pico Interactive has finally launched in the West the Pico Neo 3 Pro and Pico Neo 3 Pro Eye, the prosumer counterparts of the consumer-oriented Pico Neo 3 with which the company aims to conquer the Chinese market.
From my initial tests with the Pico Neo 3 Pro, this seems a good competitor for Oculus Quest 2 in enterprise settings, and for a price that is lowest of its category: the Pico Neo 3 Pro costs $600 and Neo 3 Pro Eye costs $750. This is less than the price of Oculus Quest 2 For Business or Vive Focus 3, making the Pico Neo 3 Pro a device interesting for small and medium enterprises.
Fast Travel Games opens a publishing branch
Fast Travel Games is one of those game studios that have already proven to be successful in VR, publishing great titles like Wraith: The Oblivion — Afterlife, The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets, and Apex Construct. The company has recently got $4M to expand its efforts, and one of the goals it is pursuing with this money is becoming a publisher. It is looking for small indie studios to help them reach success, and I invite all of you developers to consider this opportunity for your game! You can write a letter to the company proposing your game and see if they can help you with funding, advice, or marketing help.
While reading this news on Mathew Olson’s newsletter, I have found a sentence from Fast Travel Games about the current status of PCVR the perfectly depicts current situation of the VR market: “Wraith […] has sold close to 90% of its copies on Quest […] The PC market hasn’t shrunk or anything, it’s just that the Quest has been growing so fast”.
The Void is going to be relaunched
The pandemic has hurt all the Location-Based VR sector forcing many companies to shut down, but now that the COVID situation is improving, as LBEVR expert Kevin Williams had predicted on this blog, the sector is bouncing back.
And so it is happening that a company that seemed gone for good like The Void is coming back. Hyper Reality Partners has raised $20M to relaunch The Void, it has acquired its previous IP for $2M and it is going to propose the same amazing LBEVR experiences but with a new business model, with entertainment centers that are not only centered on warehouse-scale VR experiences but also offer traditional gaming stations and food and beverages.
Apple Maps are going AR
iOS 15 finally brings AR navigation instructions to Apple Maps, in a way similar to the one that Google is already offering. Even if Apple has not released its glasses yet, it is building a strong AR ecosystem that will be very valuable when its hardware will be out.
Facebook is investing $50M in research projects to build the Metaverse responsibly
Facebook is investing $50M in research projects that can help to understand how to develop the metaverse in a responsible way, fostering inclusion, wellbeing, personal safety, and privacy.
On paper, this is a good thing. In reality, it depends on how many of these findings it will actually implement.
Is it possible to work full time in VR?
An article from a professional of the XR4Work community highlights how it is not only possible to work 40–50 weeks in VR, but it also gives many advantages, like the possibility of having an unlimited virtual screen and of staying deeply focused on your work.
The post is well-written and interesting, but I have to warn you that this experience is not for everyone: wearing a Quest 2 for a prolonged time, given its mediocre comfort, the vergence-accommodation problem, and the isolation it gives from the people around you, may not be a pleasant experience for you. But if you feel ok using it, then it’s a nice possibility.
Microsoft is going to release a database of synthetic faces
Microsoft is going to release soon FaceSynthetics, a big database of 100,000 synthetic faces, free to use for academic and research purposes. Since synthetic faces can be used reliably for training AI algorithms, this database can be very useful for research centers.
Facebook hires the first Oculus Ambassadors
Facebook has welcome 10 YouTubers in its Oculus Ambassador program, where content creators receive exclusive news and previews of Oculus products in exchange for talking more about Oculus hardware and software. It seems to me a smart way that Facebook has found to increase even more the big coverage that Oculus products are having, leaving always less space for the other brands.
NASA is using AR/VR on ISS
NASA is using AR and VR a lot, and it has just released a blog post highlighting 9 ways it is using immersive technologies on the International Space Station. This is another proof of the importance of AR/VR in all sectors.
Lone Echo 2 and Pimax Swords are finally coming
“Better late than never” is the motto of two products that are coming to the market.
Lone Echo 2, the Duke Nukem Forever of VR, is finally coming on the Oculus (Rift) Store on October, 12th, after years of delay caused by the fact that now Facebook is focusing its efforts on the Quest platform.
Pimax is finally releasing its Sword Lite controllers, which were announced in 2018, and that every one of us had already forgotten at this point. The total joke is that they are releasing with touchpads, a control system that no one wants in VR anymore. Pimax has said that the Sword controllers (not the Lite ones) are coming even later… maybe in 2040?
More info (Lone Echo 2)
More info (Pimax Sword Lite)
A list of good deals
These are some interesting opportunities I have found for you to exploit:
- HTC is selling in Europe the Vive Cosmos Elite bundled with its wireless adapter for €1,029.00 / £899. It’s a decent price for a wireless PCVR headset;
- Some VR games, like Star Wars: Squadrons, can be redeemed for free by Amazing Prime gaming subscribers;
- Project Cars 2 and 3 are heavily discounted on Steam (-80% and -70%);
- Steam Next Fest is offering many demos of upcoming VR games for free!
More info (Vive Cosmos Elite)
More info (Amazon Prime Gaming)
More info (Project Cars)
More info (Steam Next Fest)
Some news on content
- Ultrawings 2 is reported to offer 40–60 hours of gameplay, quite a record for a VR game;
- Jurassic World Aftermath Part 2 is available on Quest for $14.99, as a DLC for the first part of the game. According to the first reviews, it is a solid addition to the first title;
- Virtual Desktop keeps adding features to compete with Oculus Air Link, and now it has added the interesting possibility of streaming 2D videos from your PC with low latency and high quality;
- Aldin dynamics has just published a big update to its game Waltz Of The Wizard;
- FitXR is adding 6 workout classes that can be played by staying completely seated. This is great for accessibility;
- Walkabout Mini Golf has added a new course called Quixote Valley as a free update;
- Neverboard, an experience that offers multiplayer board games to play with your friends, has been released for Quest;
- Upload VR has reviewed very positively the roguelike shooter Sweet Surrender.
More info (Ultrawings 2)
More info (Jurassic World Aftermath 2 release date)
More info (Jurassic World Aftermath 2 preview)
More info (Virtual Desktop)
More info (Waltz Of The Wizard)
More info (FitXR)
More info (Walkabout Minigolf)
More info (Neverboard)
More info (Sweet Surrender)
News from partners (and friends)
Indian VR professional (and my friend) Eddie Avil has written an article highlighting the best XR startups in India. India is a country that most of us Westerners don’t know very well, so this post is a good way to get to know some interesting companies from there.
Learn more
Laval Virtual, one of the oldest and most important VR events in Europe, is promoting a game jam about VR games inside the Game Jam Plus circuit. If you like game jams, have a look at this one!
Learn more (Laval Virtual organizing a game jam)
Learn more (Game Jam Plus)
AWE, one of the best worldwide organizations about VR, is organizing AWE Asia both as a physical and an online version. You can join the VR version in the next few days, and meet with people from XR companies from China and other surrounding countries for free! It is a good opportunity to connect with the Eastern part of the world.
Learn more
XR Bootcamp is hosting an interesting workshop about networking frameworks to develop multiplayer games in VR. If you are a dev, it looks like a cool event to attend.
Learn more
Some XR fun
Grabbing and throwing objects in VR is… magic!
Funny link
I guess that technically Vive Flow could be used also for this…
Funny link
Donating brings you luck
I have heard that donating on Patreon to a blogger brings a lot of luck, and a lot of good things may happen to whom does that. I don’t know if it is true, but don’t you wanna try?
These are the people that are already very lucky because of the donations to this blog:
- DeoVR
- Raghu Bathina
- Jonn Fredericks
- Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
- Reynaldo T Zabala
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Michael Bruce
- Paolo Leoncini
- Immersive.international
- Bob Fine
- Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
- Jake Rubin
- Alexis Huille
- Jennifer Granger
- Jason Moore
- Steve Biggs
- Niels Bogerd
- Julio Cesar Bolivar
- Jan Schroeder
- Kai Curtis
- Francesco Strada
- Sikaar Keita
- Ramin Assadollahi
- Jeff Dawson
- Juan Sotelo
- Andrew Sheldon
- Chris Madsen
- Tracey Wong
- Matthew Allen Fisher
- Horacio Torrendell
- Andrew Deutsch
- Fabien Benetou
- Tatiana Kartashova
- Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
- Eloi Gerard
- Adam Boyd
- Jeremy Dalton
- Siciliana Trevino
- Joel Ward
- Alex P
- Marguerite Espin de la Vega
- Sb
- Vooiage Technologies
- Caroline
- Liam James O’Malley
- Paul Reynolds
- Hillary Charnas
- Donald P
- Wil Stevens
- Brian Peiris
- Matias Nassi
Join them: get lucky by clicking on the link here below! I can’t guarantee it works, but I can guarantee I’ll get the money 😛
(Header image by HTC Vive)