The XR Week Peek (2023.06.20): Samsung to change its XR plans, Upload made a cool showcase, and more!
Another week, another roundup! I didn’t forget my promise of a big article about the Vision Pro, I just had to postpone it because I was too busy. But it’s coming this week, so be prepared…
Top news of the week
Samsung may have changed its plan because of the Vision Pro announcement
We just finished reporting the rumors about the Vision Pro and we start now reporting the rumors about the next big headset, the XR device that Samsung is designing together with Google and Qualcomm.
We all joked about Samsung waiting for the Apple Vision Pro announcement to copy it, but according to some rumors, this is exactly what is happening. It seems that the Korean brand was building a Galaxy XR device with a 2,000 PPI display, but after Apple revealed that the Vision Pro will boast 3400 PPI, the new plan is a device with at least 3,000 PPI. But having these new displays is a huge undertaking, and the production may only start later this year. This means that the release of this headset may not happen before the end of 2023 for sure.
Apart from the delayed launch, I’m worried about costs: if Samsung is copying Apple and is going to launch another headset worth $3,500, I’m not sure how this switch to hyper-expensive headsets can be beneficial for our ecosystem.
Anyway, these are all rumors, so take them with a big grain of salt.
Other relevant news
Upload VR Summer Showcase brought news about many games
As usual, Upload VR had its Summer Showcase, in which it announced many pieces of news about many VR games. And as usual, no piece of news was mind-blowing (yeah, Half-Life 3 is not confirmed this year, either), but all together show a vibrant ecosystem of VR game studios. Upload has also partnered with Humble Bundle to offer a bundle of PC VR games together with the launch of the Showcase, which is pretty cool.
The pieces of news are too many to link them all here below. I’ll link the ones I’ve personally liked the most… for the other ones, you can watch the whole video of the showcase, or go directly to the Upload website and look for all the posts of June, 14th.
As of things to keep an eye on, I found it interesting to see two trends: 1. More games are experimenting with Gorilla-Tag-like movement mechanics, and 2. More games are experimenting with mixed reality, which is the trend of the year.
Big kudos to all the VR game studios involved!
More info (Upload VR website)
More info (Upload VR Summer Showcase 2023 Full Video)
More info (Upload VR Humble Bundle deal)
More info (Inverse VR Survival Horror)
More info (JoyWay shares updates on Stride, Dead Hook, and Stack)
More info (Outta Hand game)
More info (Espire 2 Mixed Reality missions)
More info (Coastermania in mixed reality)
More info (Toss, a new game with monkes and bananas)
More info (Vail on Quest 2)
More info (Dyscronia: Chronos Alternate 3)
More info (Retropolis 2: Never Say Goodbye)
More info (Final Fury — Closed Beta)
Meta to reduce Quest 2 minimum age to 10 years old
It seems that Meta is intentioned to lower the minimum age to use the Quest 2 from 13 years old to 10 years old. Pre-teen accounts will have very strict safety measures and they must be set up by an adult, which will have total control over it. Preteen accounts will have their social profile set to private by default and they still won’t be able to use Meta Horizon Worlds.
I do not know what to think about this. On one side, I’m totally contrary, because it seems to me just a measure to increment the sales of the device after a stagnating period, and also prepare for better sales at Christmas. Meta quoted no trial regarding age and safety, so it seems that are is no scientific reasoning behind this decision, which is bad. On the other side, considering that already many preteen children were using the Quest, it’s better to have them regulated than have them using the account of their mother and father, which is even more dangerous. As usual when we are talking about these sensitive topics, there is no perfect answer.
Ready Player Me launches monetization tools for developers
This has been in my opinion one of the biggest news of the week. Ready Player Me, the startup offering cross-platform and cross-application avatars, has just announced the release of its monetization tools in beta.
Thanks to these tools, it will be possible for the studios that develop applications that employ Ready Player Me avatars to start selling avatar customizations. The monetization beta SDK lets developers create, upload, and publish outfits for sale directly in the app. Soon, it will be possible to sell these items across the entire Ready Player Me Network, giving devs even more possibilities to make revenues.
Alpha partners utilizing the tools include Hiber, Wink, and Omlet Arcade. If you are interested in accessing the monetization SDK, too, you can do that on the Ready Player Me website. I would suggest you do so, because for us developers, every new monetization possibility in XR is precious, and with RPM, you can access a big network of avatars that spans 9,000 apps. I think it is possible for a hobbyist to make good money with a successful avatar on RPM, so I can’t wait to discover if this can become a rich XR marketplace.
Whatsapp may be coming to Quest 2
According to a very recent rumor, WhatsApp will allow you to link your existing account to Meta’s Virtual Reality headset. If this happens, you should be able to use Whatsapp on your favorite VR headset and be able to receive notifications of messages while you play in VR. This is great to favor a better integration between VR and the social media we spend our lives the most on.
Now the result is that even if you go to Mars in VR, you can’t escape the notifications of the annoying Whatsapp Groups…
News worth a mention
Karl Guttag analyzes the Apple Vision Pro
One of the most shared articles of the week has been the analysis on the Apple Vision Pro by Karl Guttag. The optics expert expressed both praise and critics about the headset with a very objective analysis that is worth a read. One of the things that I found most interesting is that Apple has avoided putting a passthrough camera in the optimal position (in front of the users’ eyes) to favor the EyeSight display, which has just an aesthetical function.
More info (Why Apple Vision is better than Quest Pro)
More info (Problems of the Apple Vision Pro)
The Church and the metaverse
Another article I found worth a read this week has been the report about the use of the metaverse for religious purposes. For instance, there are VR Churches where people gather together to pray. This is an interesting mix of tradition and technology.
Hugo Swart talks about the future of XR at Qualcomm
Hugo Swart has been interviewed by VentureBeat about Qualcomm’s vision of XR. It’s interesting to read about the many different technologies that Qualcomm makes available to OEMs and how this open ecosystem compares to the closed Apple’s one.
Tamagotchi enters the metaverse
The WTF news of the week has been for me the entrance into the metaverse by Tamagotchi. Now your little digital being can enter into a place called the Tamaverse together with the ones of the other players. I hoped to die before reading the word “Tamaverse” in my life.
Quest Gift Cards are now available in more countries
Quest Gift Cards, which let you gift friends some credit for the Quest Store, are now also in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Germany, France, and Japan. I think they are great for simple gifts to friends and for giveaways from us content creators, so I’m happy they are expanding.
The City Of Shanghai releases its metaverse plan
As it is typical for local and central governments in China, the municipality of Shanghai has released its multi-year plan for the metaverse. This is good news for local companies because it should mean public investments in the sector. I hope more cities will follow suit with similar plans.
Quest Pro may have sold 50 times less than Quest
Guy Godin from VR Desktop shared the stat that Quest Pro users of his applications are like 2% of all Quest users. This is an embarrassing number. It may be that Quest Pro users use less VR Desktop than Quest 2 users, but still, I think this stat shows how bad the Quest Pro is selling if compared with standard Quest.
Some news on content
- Pixel Ripped 1978 has launched with a new trailer. Road To VR has gone hands-on with it and loved all the nostalgia references it contains
- PlayStation announced 4 new games for PSVR 2: Pixel Ripped 1995, Tiger Blade, The 7th Guest VR, and Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate
- VR Giants look like a great asymmetric game that VR people can play with their non-VR friends
- Drop Dead The Cabin announces mixed reality mode. As I’ve told you above, this is becoming a trend
- Wallace and Gromit In The Grand Getaway arrives this year on Quest
- The opening credits of I Expect You To Die 3 are very well made, and worth a watch!
More info (Pixel Ripped 1978 — Launch Trailer)
More info (Pixel Ripped 1978 — Review)
More info (4 new games for PSVR 2)
More info (VR Giants)
More info (Drop Dead: The Cabin)
More info (Wallace And Gromit)
More info (I Expect You To Die 3)
Other news
It seems that Quest 3 will feature an Elite Strap, too. I hope it will break less, though
Canon unveils the prototype of a VR camera that can shoot both 180 and 360 videos
Learn how to use UE5 Metahumans thanks to the resources shared by Alex Coulombe
Unity 2022 LTS has some interesting features for XR people
News from partners (and friends)
Discover Drunk Or Dead 2
Drunk Or Dead 2 is the n-th game where you have to kill zombies in VR… but there is an original fun catch: to survive you have to constantly be drunk!
Fill SlashData’s survey and win prizes
Also this year I’m supporting the survey about XR that SlashData is carrying on. So fill it to have the possibility of winning many interesting prizes! This is its description that I lazily copy-pasted:
AR/VR creators, this survey is for you. Which tools and platforms are you using to build mind-bending creations? Take the survey to help the global community learn more about the skills and technologies necessary to succeed in 2023 and beyond.
The survey takes about 15 minutes and covers VR, AR, and mixed reality sectors. It’s available in English, Chinese (Simplified), French, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Russian. Just pick a language you’re most comfortable with.
In return for your effort, you will enter prize draws for a chance to win a Nintendo Switch, Gift cards and Crypto to use towards your AR/VR project, swag, and more. If you have a few extra minutes, promote the survey for a chance to win up to $1,000 USD in cash in our referral program.
The survey welcomes creators of all profiles: no-code, developers, students, hobbyists, and professionals. Take the survey before it closes, on August 6.
Listen to me and Gian
Gianluigi Perrone invited me to his MindCathedral Youtube channel to speak about the Apple Vision Pro. If you speak Italian, you may want to give it a look 🙂
Some XR fun
The resemblance is striking
Donate for good
Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate for my blog, but to the poor people that in Ukraine are facing the consequences of the war and the ones that in Italy have been victims of the flood. I will leave you the link to donate for these two causes below.
Let me take a moment before to thank anyway all my Patreon donors for the support they give to me:
- Alex Gonzalez VR
- DeoVR
- GenVR
- Eduardo Siman
- Jonn Fredericks
- Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
- Reynaldo T Zabala
- Richard Penny
- Terry xR. Schussler
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Paolo Leoncini
- Immersive.international
- Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
- Jake Rubin
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- Wisear (Yacine Achiakh)
- Jennifer Granger
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- Julio Cesar Bolivar
- Jan Schroeder
- Kai Curtis
- Francesco Strada
- Sikaar Keita
- Ramin Assadollahi
- Juan Sotelo
- Andrew Sheldon
- Chris Madsen
- Horacio Torrendell
- Andrew Deutsch
- Fabien Benetou
- Tatiana Kartashova
- Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
- Eloi Gerard
- Adam Boyd
- Jeremy Dalton
- Joel Ward
- Alex P
- Lynn Eades
- Donald P
- Casie Lane
- Catherine Henry
- Qcreator
- Ristband (Anne McKinnon & Roman Rappak)
- Stephen Robnett
- KaihatsuJai
- Sb
- Enrico Poli
- Vooiage Technologies
- Caroline
- Liam James O’Malley
- Hillary Charnas
- Wil Stevens
- Brian Peiris
- Francesco Salizzoni
- Dimo Pepelyashev
- Alan Smithson
- Steve R
- Brentwahn
- Pieter Siekerman
- Matt Cool
- Simplex
- Gregory F Gorsuch
- Matias Nassi
And now here you are the links to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
Support the populations affected by the flood in Italy
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