The XR Week Peek (2021.12.27): a great Christmas for Quest 2, Rec Room is worth $3.5B, and much more!

Happy Winter Holidays! It is that time of the year when people relax, eat, and hope for a better future, and while I’m not relaxing that much, I’m for sure eating a lot :D. This week I have written a long post to wish you Happy Holidays and a wonderful new year, and if you haven’t done that, go reading it now, because I’ve also used the word “Christmasverse” in it haha
 
Working-wise, it’s been a great week for me: my article on my hands-on with AR contact lenses had success, and with New Technology Walkers, I have launched the final update of the free demo for our game HitMotion: Reloaded, and until now it’s going pretty well (please get it on App Lab and leave a positive review!).

Top news of the week

Oculus Quest 2 had a great Christmas

The VR ecosystem can end 2021 with a big smile on its face. The sales of Oculus Quest 2 have been great during the holidays, and the Quest has been a Christmas gift very much appreciated by kids (but wasn’t there an age limit?).
 
 There is proof everywhere about that:

• The Oculus app on the iOS App Store has been at the #1 place among the most downloaded app of the day on Christmas. This is huge;
• There are many videos on social media about kids opening their gifts and getting crazy when they find the Quest;
• Developers are posting the download graphs for their applications, and there is a huge spike around December, 25th (someone says that is the double of the spike happening last year);
• We of New Technology Walkers saw ourselves a growth of downloads for HitMotion even if we are just on App Lab. Part of the growth is due to our new update, but the curve instead of going down after the initial spike due to the marketing push, it is keeping growing and this is very unusual
• VR websites and VR YouTubers report a huge growth of views around Christmas, especially on the posts that may be more useful for a newbie, like “The best VR games to download for your Quest”

All the above cues are proof that Quest 2 sold well this Christmas. Of course, this doesn’t mean that VR is mainstream yet, because we have to verify what have been the actual sales numbers and also what will be the retention of these new users in 3–6 months. But it is anyway great news and makes us hope for a great 2022 for the whole XR ecosystem.

More info (Oculus App being at #1 spot on App Store)
More info (Many videos of people playing with Quest this Christmas)
More info (A kid too happy of getting the Quest this Christmas)
More info (A developer showing its spike in downloads)
More info (Upload VR talking about a spike in views)
More info (A youtuber talking about a spike in views)
More info (Another youtuber talking about a spike in views)
More info (Growing downloads for our game HitMotion: Reloaded)

…and if you get your Quest for Christmas…

… and you found this article for whatever reason, first of all, welcome to the club! Then, I link you here below some resources that may be useful to get you started with virtual reality and with Oculus Quest 2 in particular.

More info (Getting started with VR)
More info (Best 5 Quest games to start with)

Other relevant news

Rec Room is now worth $3.5B

Another great piece of news got announced this week: Rec Room got another $145M investment, for a new evaluation of $3.5B. This has been thanks to its massive growth: according to Rec Room’s Shawn Whiting, in March 2021 the total number of users was 2 million, while now they are 37. It’s more than 15x in growth in less than one year!
 
These numbers are impressive for a VR company, and show how a virtual reality company can be successful now. Yes, for sure the m**averse hype has helped in having this money. Yes, Rec Room is available on almost all platforms, and most downloads come from mobile and other platforms and not from VR, but it is still an experience born in VR and designed since the beginning with VR in mind. It is still a VR company, and I’m sure that many of the kids that got a Quest this Christmas will enjoy playing in Rec Room.

More info (Rec Room’s new evaluation)
More info (Some stats on Rec Room’s success)

A look back at 2021

It’s the end of the year, and it’s time to look back at what has happened in 2021. It is also the time when all magazines create a list of “best of” the year and give awards to the best content and hardware… about which there is always someone that doesn’t agree. Let me link here below the awards given by Upload VR and Road To VR to the best content, so that you can think about the best that this year has given us.
 
I am a bit sad no one gave an award to The Unity Cube, though… I would have loved to get a “Worst Application Award 2021” from Road To VR….

More info (Upload VR’s best XR stories of 2021)
More info (Upload VR’s 2021 awards)
More info (Road To VR’s 2021 awards)

Somnium Space gives detail on its new hardware

Somnium Space confirms to be one of the most interesting social VR spaces of the moment. It is a social VR experience created with blockchain at heart, so it can exploit two hypes of the moment, the one of the m**averse and the one of Web3, and is growing in a pretty interesting way.
 
Some weeks ago, it announced it was going to build its headset, also thanks to its partnership with VRgineers. This week, it has revealed some new details on it. The device will be a standalone HMD based on Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2s and will offer 6DOF inside-out tracking via four cameras. Some of the specifications are:

• Two 2,880 x 2,880 displays
• FOV > 115 degrees
• 90 Hz refresh rate (possible upgrade to 120Hz)
• 512 GB Storage
• 8 GB RAM
• Wi-Fi 6E support
• Wireless/Wired PC Streaming
• Android 11 operating system

The headset should be modular and with an open ecosystem, with even the operating system open to customizations. This is great.
 
The headset is expected for Q4 2022, with no preorders available. I think this is a solid approach: Somnium is not starting a Kickstarter campaign, or getting some preorders money; it is not promising a headset with bombastic features, and not hinting at a close release date. Everything they have announced is realistic, and it gives the company the impression of being reliable. I like this approach.
 
Apart from the hardware, Somnium is moving well also on the software side: the graphics of the virtual world is improving over time, and soon will be released the first game built on top of Somnium. I wonder if this will give life to a good creators’ economy inside the space, too. Let’s wait and see.

More info (Somnium Space headset details)
More info (The first game built on top of Somnium Space)

News worth a mention

CES 2022 is going to be less cool than expected

Some months ago, it was announced that CES 2022 would have had a physical edition again. Thanks to the vaccines and the pandemic that seemed more or less under control, this seemed a possible scenario, and in-person successful events like AWE 2021 confirmed this hypothesis. Many big brands, that were eager to exhibit something again, registered to exhibit at CES.
 
But the new Omicron variant and the Winter, which with its cold temperatures helps the virus, has to led to the 4th wave of the pandemic, and so we are all under new restrictions again. The result is that many big brands are canceling their presence at CES: Google, Intel, Microsoft, Meta, Lenovo, and many others, have decided not to go, and maybe provide their news virtually. This is a huge pity: CES 2022 won’t be cool as we expected… but we still hope to see interesting XR announcements from there.

More info (Many brands canceling their attendance of CES)
More info (Google canceling its attendance of CES)
More info (Microsoft canceling its attendance of CES)

Some shower of realisms on the Metaverse

It’s impossible not to talk about the M-word, so let me point to you some articles that could deflate a bit the hype about it:

• The Chinese giant Baidu (the Chinese counterpart of Google) is investing in building an open Metaverse ecosystem. But it said that it needs at least 6 years to make it become reality. Considering that in China, speed of execution is the most important feature, if a company claims it needs 6 years, it means that the metaverse is really distant away, and we shouldn’t hype it as it should happen tomorrow;
• Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has downplayed the Web3 hype, claiming that this decentralization and freedom stuff is good in theory, but actually at the moment, all the ecosystem is controlled by VCs that are speculating on it;
• Elon Musk has downplayed both the Metaverse and Web3. But to be honest, he downplayed the metaverse because he thinks it is something like Ready Player One, so he hasn’t understood the concept. And this is worrisome: if one of the most esteemed tech entrepreneurs has not got what the metaverse is, it means we are really sucking at explaining it is the spatial evolution of the internet;
• An article on WIRED talks about all these virtual worlds integrating NFTs and land sales and shows they are all speculation and hype. The journalist visited Decentraland, one of the most famous of these spaces, where land is really expensive and found it to be mostly a desert.

More info (Baidu claims it needs 6 years to build its metaverse ecosystem / 1)
More info (Baidu claims it needs 6 years to build its metaverse ecosystem / 2)
More info (Jack Dorsey on Web3)
More info (Elon Mask on the metaverse and Web3)
More info (Wired on virtual lands sales)

Two crazy and cool inventions

Two cool and crazy upcoming gadgets have caught my attention this week.
 
The first one comes from Japan (of course), and it is the prototype of a “lickable TV” (that you can see in the header image of this post): basically, the system prepares at exact timings a flavor mixing various liquids and then lets it slip on a screen, onto which is installed a special film. So if on the screen you see for instance a tomato, you can lick it and feel the real taste of the tomato. I don’t know how it should work to watch a movie together with your friends… and I’m too afraid to ask. By the way, I love experiments on virtual tastes, and I think this is interesting.
 
The second one is a device that should be presented at CES: the OWO haptic suit. The suit is something similar to bHaptics, but it is mostly focused on letting you feel pain during action games. For instance, with it, you can feel as if you are being stabbed, with the blade (and also the pain) going from your chest and coming out from your back. It’s exciting, but also scary: I’m not sure I want to feel these sensations. But I’m sure that it will be successful in BDSM communities…

More info (Lick It Up TV)
More info (Owo haptic suit)

Two XR headsets that have just been announced

Let’s get back to more standard devices.
 
Huawei this week has announced a new pair of smart glasses, available in China for around $270. They are visually similar to standard glasses, they provide no augmented visuals, and just give you audio notifications, let you listen to music, have phone calls, and talk with Huawei assistant. It seems to me that Huawei has released something similar to Ray-Ban Stories.
 
On the VR front, VRgineers has announced XTAL 3, dedicated to enterprise use. The features are fantastic: 4K per eye, 75Hz, 180° horizontal FOV… but the price is more than $8300, so I guess this is not the affordable consumer headset you were looking for.

More info (Huawei smartglasses)
More info (XTAL 3)

NVIDIA’s new AI system can give you accurate full body tracking

A research paper by NVIDIA shows a new AI system that is able to detect the full pose of a body in motion from just a single camera feed. It works well also in complicated scenarios, like a runner starting when he hears the bang of a gun. This has been possible thanks to the mix of computer vision tracking, AI, and body physics simulation that ensures that the detected pose is physically accurate.

More info

Users reported download issues on the Rift store

Many Rift users reported problems in using the Oculus Store on PC this week, in particular in downloading games. Triggered about the news, Meta answered that it was working in solving the issue. I think that the fact that the problem originated and that it needed so much time to be solved proved once more how little now Meta cares about PCVR and its users.

More info

Godot Engine has received a new grant from Reality Labs

Meta has provided a new grant to the Godot Engine to make it keep developing its XR features, and of course to guarantee proper support for the development of Quest 2 titles.
 
This is a very good tactical move by Meta in my opinion. First of all, it makes sure that all Godot developers can develop for Quest, and this means that there will be more content created for Meta’s most popular headset.
Then, it guarantees that there is an open-source alternative to Unity and Unreal, so if in the future Meta wants to build its own engine, it could start doing that by forking Godot. Let’s remember that Zuckerberg said in that famous letter that he wants to have full control of all the tech stack of XR and that Facebook already tried to buy Unity for that. A modified version of Godot could become Facebook’s currently missing piece after it already controls the hardware, operating system, and best content of XR: it could let it control also the creators’ tools. I’m not saying it will happen, but I think that this grant makes sure that this opportunity remains viable, especially if the relationship with Unity worsens over time.

More info

Add fixed foveated rendering to your SteamVR runtime

A user has created a custom version of OpenVR DLLs that implement Fixed Foveated Rendering so that to reduce the computational burden of all the SteamVR applications your run on your PC. In case you don’t have a powerful machine, this open-source project is worth a look.

More info

Matrix 4 Resurrections is not a masterpiece

4 Days ago, Matrix Resurrections has been made available in most cinemas worldwide, and while I have not watched it, I have read many friends in the communities talk about it. The feedback is that this is not an amazing movie: the first part seems to be quite good, but then the movie turns out to be just decent. What a pity for a legendary movie… that should have remained just a single episode 😛

More info

Enjoy the Holiday Sales

It is that time of the year when you can find great deals on VR games: go on the Oculus Store and Steam and take advantage of them!

More info (Oculus Store holiday sale)
More info (SteamVR Winter Sale guide by OXIOXIOXI)

Some news on content

• Unity Slices, the great tech demo about multiplayer and passthrough AR by Unity, is coming in 2022
• We have some footage of the upcoming Hitman 3 for PC VR with motion controls support
• Upload VR has reviewed Warplanes: WW1 Fighters and has appreciated that every player can customize the gaming experience according to his/her needs
• Waltz of the Wizard has been updated to add voice interactions from Oculus Voice SDK
• Upload VR has reviewed Cooking Simulator VR and found it fun to be played
• VR JRPG, Sword Reverie is coming in Early Access on January, 21st, 2022
• Indie game Peco Peco is getting an update that adds Multiplayer, and the dev behind it is running a promotion so that everyone can have some keys to give his/her friends to play for free together with him/her!

More info (Unity Slices)
More info (Hitman 3 on PCVR)
More info (Warplanes: WWI Fighters)
More info (Waltz Of The Wizard)
More info (Cooking Simulator VR)
More info (Sword Reverie)
More info (Peco Peco)

News from partners (and friends)

Mystic Moose, a new game studio, has raised $5 million to build a gaming ecosystem based on the web, with blockchain at heart. The player will be able to create his own character, that will be the same across all games, and can be customized and upgraded between gaming sessions. The first game will be Planet Mojo, a PvP tactical strategy game that will also use Augmented Reality elements and have a charitable eco-friendly component.
 
 Mystic Moose’s founder is Mike Levine, that you may remember as the man behind Sam&Max: This Time It’s Virtual, and a guarantee that the games will turn out to be fun to be played.
Learn more

My friends at Field Of Vision are working on a new game called “Pipe Dream Co.”, which is a classical puzzle about building the pipes to make the water go from point A to point B.
 
They gave me some free keys to distribute to my readers… I gave a lot of them to my Patrons, but I kept a few for all of you my readers that haven’t joined Patreon yet. Here you are three keys for App Lab, first come, first served:
 
 M7MKT-CXMEG-MQTF9-XTN63-R4YJK
 GKTJ3–4RXTX-GRQAR-9WPT6-WYHGM
 64QJQ-4WEKM-GA7HN-P7YJY-JCMWA
 
Disclaimer: I have a Pipe Dream Co. banner on my website, but this mention in the newsletter and the free keys are outside of the advertisement deal, I do this because I am a friend with the dev studio)
Learn more about the game

SlashData is organizing an AR/VR survey and asked me some help in promoting it and I accepted because it is also an opportunity for you, since there are prizes to win (e.g. a $100 Amazon Card). If you want to join it, click the link below.
Participate in the survey

Some XR fun

Memories of old VR devices…
Funny link

How I write the code of my VR experiences
Funny link

Happy Half-Life Alyx holidays!
Funny link

Metaverse lessons from 2021 (sort of)
Funny link

How I imagine the interface of the upcoming Linux VR headset to be
Funny link

The last Patreon request of the year

2021 is coming to an end, so let me ask you for the last time this year to donate me some money on Patreon to support my efforts in writing tutorials, reviews, interviews, and editorials about AR/VR for the whole community!
 
 These are the people and companies that are currently supporting me. 2021 times thank to them!

• DeoVR
• Raghu Bathina
• GenVR
• Jonn Fredericks
• Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
• Reynaldo T Zabala
• Richard Penny
• Terry xR. Schussler
• 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
• Lynn Eades
• Sb
• Vooiage Technologies
• Caroline
• Liam James O’Malley
• Paul Reynolds
• Hillary Charnas
• Donald P
• Wil Stevens
• Brian Peiris
• Rhys Coombes
• Simplex
• Matias Nassi

Click here to support me on Patreon. It’s your last chance for 2021!

(Header image credits: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon)