The XR Week Peek (2024.09.23): Quest 3S may cost $299, Meta and Luxottica to partner until 2030, and more!

September 23, 2024September 24, 2024

These are my last hours in China. I’m currently in Beijing and today I’m taking the plane to get back to Italy. As usual, when a trip ends I’m a bit sad about what I leave, but I’m also a bit happy because I see my own country again and I can finally eat some good pasta :). By the way, if you want to read a bit more about my trip, be sure to check out my article on the XR ecosystem in China.

The upcoming week will be an exciting one thanks to the Meta Connect, but also this past one has been full of interesting XR announcements… let’s see them all!

Top news of the week

Meta Quest 3S may cost $299 and ship around October, 16

Thanks to all the rumors and leaks, we got to know almost everything about the Quest 3S, the upcoming headset by Meta, with the exception of the price and the shipping date. Those were the two only remaining things for which was worth watching the Meta Connect. Of course, they have been leaked as well, so now we can all sleep during Meta’s event.

An Amazon ad appearing on the streaming platform Peacock shows the Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S and the caption: “Meta Quest, starting at $299.99”. The video has been shared by Reddit user Vast_Front259, who never shared anything before (which looks a bit strange…). So, unless someone took a lot of time to recreate a video ad just to troll the whole community, we now know the price of the headset will start at $299.99. $300 is a good price, it is the same at which the Quest 2 launched, too. I really hoped for the rumored $199, because that would have been a bomb price, but $299 is good as well and will guarantee very solid sales of this headset during Christmas. I’m pretty sure this device is going to make the VR numbers grow again.

Regarding the actual release date, we have also a rumor: someone spotted on the Australian Amazon page an entry about the Quest 3S and the availability date being October, 16. Store pages in the past have not been fully reliable about shipping dates because sometimes they use placeholder dates, plus Amazon availability may come slightly after Meta ships the preorders, so take this rumor with a grain of salt. Anyway, it seems reasonable to me that something around October 16 may be the right time for the shipping of the Quest 3S.

More info (Quest 3S costs $299 — Road To VR)
More info (Quest 3S costs $299 — Upload VR)
More info (Quest 3S may ship on October, 16th)

Other relevant news

Meta and Luxottica extend their partnership until 2030

Meta and EssilorLuxottica came to an agreement to continue their partnership about creating glasses together until 2030. The terms of the agreement are not public and we have no info also about the rumor that suggested that Meta was going to directly invest into Luxottica.

I personally think this has been a very smart move by Meta: the Ray-Ban Meta have been a huge success and this has been specifically because of the partnership with the Italian company. EssilorLuxottica is able to create fashionable glasses that people want to wear and it has also a wide distribution network that puts these glasses in many stores worldwide where people can try them. Here in Italy, I have no idea where to buy any smartglasses, but I’ve seen many shops selling Ray-Ban Meta.

If this partnership is exclusive, Meta has just got a huge edge over its competitors like Samsung or Google. Apple makes an exception because it is a fashionable brand itself and it has already a wide network of stores where people can buy its devices.

I can’t wait to see the next pair of glasses these two companies will be able to come up with…

More info (Meta and Luxottica extend their partnership — Road To VR)
More info (Meta and Luxottica extend their partnership — Upload VR)

Immersed Visor had a negative launch

The VR/MR headset Visor, announced by Immersed, the company building a productivity app for XR, was one of the most awaited of the year. But it had a pretty negative announcement launch.

There were mainly two problems with the launch event. The first is that the headset is in the end bulkier than the renders showed for months, that is slim glasses. The device looks like a mixed reality headset that is smaller than Quest, and it even features a classical MR strap because having just the hinges supporting the visor would make wearing it too uncomfortable. The CEO of the company said that the initial glasses-like renders were there just to attract people to the idea, and this sounded a bit strange to the ears of the attendees.

The second and bigger issue is that the glasses were not working during the launch day because of a problem with a firmware update. The only thing that some journalists were able to verify was that a hardware prototype exists and it actually has bright high-resolution displays. But no one was even able to verify that these glasses can do any XR, even less that you can do productivity with them.

There was a lot of skepticism around Visor, and this launch day had the purpose of showing the world that this is actually a real product and that Immersed can deliver it. Because of these problems, it had the opposite effect and now many people are canceling their preorders. I don’t think it’s a scam as some people say, but I think that probably Immersed tried to chew more than it can handle, and tried to create a too-ambitious headset in too little time. I really hope it can deliver because it is an interesting project and there are many people that preordered it and deserve to have their device, but on the PR side, it will be very difficult to recover from this disaster.

More info (Immersed’s troublesome launch event — Road To VR)
More info (Immersed’s troublesome launch event — Upload VR)
More info (The reaction of the community to Immersed’s launch)

Snap announced the latest generation of Spectacles

Snap has announced its latest generation of Spectacles glasses. This version enhances the previous one on many features:

The field of view is now 46 degrees diagonal (similar to other AR glasses out there)
Display Density is 37 PPD, similar to Apple Vision Pro
It features 2 chipsets from Qualcomm, probably referencing the Snapdragon AR2 reference design or a new Qualcomm product still to be announced
Battery life is now 45 minutes, up to the previous 30
The headset supports hands tracking and speech recognition
There is a SnapOS operating system
There will be some connection with OpenAI APIs
Creators can make lenses for it with Lens Studio. More complex lenses may even employ JavaScript or TypeScript

All of this looks cool, it is a good evolution from the previous model. There are also some drawbacks, like that the headset is bulkier and heavier than the previous one, but this is the price to pay to have so many good features. To me, this is a good device to experiment with creativity in AR. Ian Hamilton tried these glasses and said they gave him the best see-through experience up to now. This is enough to hype me about them.

What leaves me a bit confused is the pricing: the headset comes as a rented service and it costs $100/month, with a minimum commitment of 1 year. And it is basically sold only as a devkit to developers and creators, who have so to spend at least $1200 to play with a devkit, creating content that no one can buy because almost no one will have this device. I am a bit puzzled by this pricing and distribution decision.

More info (Snap announces new Spectacles glasses — Road To VR)
More info (Snap announces new Spectacles glasses — Upload VR)
More info (Ian Hamilton reviewing the device)
More info (A comment on the launch video of the device)

HTC announces Vive Focus Vision

HTC has announced its latest standalone headset: the Vive Focus Vision. The Vive Focus Vision is basically a refresh of the Vive Focus 3 that updates some of its characteristics to make it compelling for some market verticals.

Some of the innovations it adds over the previous Focus 3 are:

High-quality RGB passthrough vision
4 tracking cameras, plus infrared floodlight for better hands-tracking
Built-in eye tracking with automatic IPD adjustment, which is great in settings like LBE where people have to wear the headset and feel comfortable with it
Displayport lossless cabled streaming from PC, thanks to an adapter costing $150 but that is free with preorders. Thanks to this, the PCVR use of this headset should be amazing

What puzzled me is that instead the chipset is the same as the Vive Focus 3, that is the aged Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1. Because of this, this device has no way to compete with the Quest 3 on the consumer side, but the above features may still make it compelling for some categories: for instance, the better support of hands tracking, eye tracking, and lossless connection to PC may make it very interesting for people that spend their time on VRChat on PC. It is a headset targeted to some specific niches (LBVR, VRChat people, enterprise settings, etc…) and that doesn’t look very compelling for the broader VR market.

Vive Focus Vision will be priced at $1000. Pre-orders are already open (with some games offered as a bundle) and the headset should launch on October, 17th.

More info (Vive Focus Vision — Road To VR)
More info (Vive Focus Vision — Upload VR)

Samsung’s XR headset may have been delayed

According to the latest rumors, the headset that Samsung, Google, and Qualcomm are working on should have been released in March, 2025. But a new report in Korean magazine “Daily Korea” states that Samsung may not be in a hurry to release its headset anymore, because Meta canceled its Quest Pro 2 plans with LG, and Apple is postponing its Vision Pro 2. So the headset by Samsung may be released later than March. I wonder if it will still be announced this year as promised, though.

More info

News worth a mention

Godot Game Engine has been released on Quest

Godot, the open-source game engine, has just been released for Meta Quest. I mean that the editor of the game engine has been released on the Horizon Store as a VR app! If you connect a keyboard and a mouse to your Quest, you can so develop for Godot directly on your Quest, which is amazing, because it means that you can do the development and testing all without ever removing your headset. This is great news and it shows how Godot is evolving fast, also thanks to the grants that Meta provided it.

More info (Official Quest launch news)
More info (Godot on Quest — Upload VR)

Meta may be launching new avatars

According to the usual Luna, Meta may launch a new design of its avatars at its Connect event. The people from the VR community seem to like them, but honestly, I’m not a big fan…

More info

Anduril ready to collaborate with Microsoft on the IVAS project

Anduril, the defense company founded by Palmer Luckey, is going to provide its Lattice system, which shows data about a battlefield by merging together data from multiple sources to Microsoft to use in its IVAS headsets. IVAS is the modified HoloLens that Microsoft is experimenting with the US Army and thanks to this partnership it could show better and more useful data to its soldiers.

More info

An association is showing the metaverse to African communities

Kenya-based Africa VR Campus and Center is on a mission to give members of remote communities a first glimpse into the wonders of the metaverse. They are going to VR villages in Kenya making seminars and training sessions to show youngsters the potentialities of VR and how they could express themselves through it. This is a very interesting initiative for me.

More info

Hands-on TCL RayNeo X2

Upload VR’s David Heaney has gone hands-on with the RayNeo X2 AR glasses, the first fully standalone AR glasses, and also the first featuring microLED displays. From his review, the glasses seem okay, but they also feature some noticeable drawbacks like clunky controls and a very limited field of view.

More info

XR Indies & Friends showcase is coming before Meta Connect

Organizers behind the VR Games Showcase last month announced they’re livestreaming a new event called the XR Indies & Friends Showcase, only dedicated to indie XR games. This sounds like a great initiative, but it is a bit weird that they decided to put the event on September 25th at 8 AM PT, just before the Meta Connect… at that time, everyone will be focused on the upcoming announcements by Meta.

More info

Tokyo Game Show is in VR again

Also this year the Tokyo Game Show, one of the most important events about gaming, is going to have its own virtual world. Called TGS Digital World it is going to be available on Quest and PCVR and will let you explore the main exhibitors of the Japanese event.

More info

Some important news about content

Microsoft Flight Simulator will support VR and it has been demoed with Pimax headsets
Thrill of the Fight 2, the sequel of the most popular VR boxing sim, will be released on Quest in early access on November 21st. The studio behind it has also released its first gameplay trailer
Starship Home, one of the most awaited mixed reality games, is headed to Quest 3 on September 26th
Minecraft drops PSVR support
Do you remember the fans who tried to give new life to Marvel Powers United VR? Well, Meta just killed the project…

More info (Microsoft Flight Simulator)
More info (Thrill Of The Fight 2)
More info (Starship Home)
More info (Minecraft)
More info (Marvel Powers United)

Some news about content

Exploding Kittens VR, the VR game based on the popular card game, launches on October 3rd and is available to pre-order now on the Horizon Store, priced at a 10% discount for $18/£13.50/€18
Dumb Ways: Free for All, the VR adaptation of the popular indie game Dumb Ways To Die, is coming exclusively to Quest 3 on November 7th, priced at $20
Ember Souls, which offers Prince of Persia-inspired hack-and-slash action, that blends melee combat, parkour, climbing, and environmental puzzles, can now be preordered Quest and SteamVR at a 16% discount on its $25 launch price
The Wordle app is now available on the Horizon Quest Store, but it is just a progressive web app
The fun indie game Hide The Corpse is now out of Early Access on Quest
EXOcars will offer a buggy racing experience next month on PC VR via Steam, Meta Quest, and PSVR 2

More info (Exploding Kittens VR)
More info (Dumb Ways: Free For All)
More info (Ember Souls)
More info (Wordle)
More info (Hide The Corpse)
More info (EXOCars)

Some reviews about content

Airspace Defender is a modern mixed reality take on the Missile Command arcade game and seems an interesting game that may grab the attention of retrogamers
Subside brings you on a sub-diving tour where you can admire the deep marvels of the sea with stunning graphics

More info (Airspace Defender)
More info (Subside)

Other news

nDreams lays off 17.5% of the employees because of the “challenging VR games market”

Learn more

Meta discounts Touch Pro controllers to $250

Learn more

Journey Lens are very lightweight smartglasses connected to AI

Learn more

Unity 6 will officially launch on October, 17th

Learn more

News from partners (and friends)

Discover Footprints Through Time

Unknown Project has announced “Footprints Through Time,” an innovative augmented reality (AR) and hologram experience developed in collaboration with Collimation and MindWise (and so my friend Caitlin Krause). This is its plot:

As a young person, Isaac grapples with the narrative of racism in modern-day America, and embarks on a walk with his best friend Sam (played by you). To his astonishment, they are approached by Isaac’s great-great-grandmother Lula, sent to share powerful stories of enslavement and resilience.
As the environment magically transforms, you, Isaac, and Lula are immersed in history to learn profound truths and dispel the myths surrounding the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The stories come to life, vividly illustrated in the environment around you.
Isaac is shocked by the realization that America’s history is far deeper and more complex than he ever learned in school.
Learn more

Maith is a new newsletter about AR

My friend Steven Black has just started Maith, his newsletter about AR. This is how he described it:

Maith provides information on AR and other technologies. We are the center of a global community of curious people, artists, educators, business owners and innovators.
Maith aims to be a leader in demonstrating how technologies like AR can add value to public and private spaces, especially those for art, education, sports, music, tourism and entertainment.

He also spent very kind words about me in the first e-mail and I am very grateful to him for his.

Subscribe to Maith

Some XR fun

PCVR fitness in 2024 (Read the original post and then my answer)
Funny link

Donate for good

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And now here you are the link to donate:

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(Header image by Meta)

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