The XR Week Peek (2024.10.29): Batman Arkham Shadow had a stellar launch, Apple is halting production of Vision Pro, and more!
I’m writing this newsletter across Italy and Austria because I’m going to AWE Europe! I will be a speaker there and I will talk about how to make a mixed reality that truly blends the real and virtual worlds together. But I mostly can’t wait to meet the other amazing people from the XR community and hug them all! If you will be at AWE, let me know, so hopefully we can meet and have a chat.
Before delving into the news of the week, I just want to add that today I’m happy because I’m back writing long and detailed reviews for headsets: I have written a long wall-of-text about the Quest 3S and I invite you all to read it!
Top news of the week
“Batman: Arkham Shadow” is the game standalone VR was looking for
Camouflaj has finally released Batman: Arkham Shadow and the game has literally been a stellar success. Everyone was talking about this game in the communities, and all the reviews have been very positive. It even re-ignited the interest in VR games in some general tech magazines.
I published my review as well and I think the game is amazing. It is also very strategic for Meta: people will buy a Quest 3S and the first game they will try is Batman: Arkham Shadow because they got it for free with the headset. They will play this amazing game, they will feel like Batman, and they will start loving VR. I think this is a game that is going to benefit the whole VR ecosystem. And it is just getting always better: it just got a patch to fix many of the bugs of the game.
Meta is betting a lot on Batman and it even asked Elijah Wood to make a cameo in it. And now Meta is also conducting a tour around the US and Canada to make people try Batman in different installations so as to convince people that VR is cool and it is the ideal gift for these upcoming holidays.
The positive launch of Batman is being positive for the whole ecosystem. I’m sure there will be ripple effects of it.
More info (Batman: Arkham Shadow review — Road To VR)
More info (Batman: Arkham Shadow review — Upload VR)
More info (Batman: Arkham Shadow review — Skarredghost)
More info (Elijah Wood being part of the cast)
More info (Batman: Arkham Shadow city tour)
More info (Batman: Arkham Shadow hotfix)
Other relevant news
Apple may stop the production of Vision Pro
According to a report in The Information, Apple has asked the suppliers of the Apple Vision Pro to reduce production this summer, with a possibility that the production will fully stop by the end of the year. The company may have built around 5–600,000 units up to now, for sales that are around 370,000 units to date. If they keep building the device, when Apple halts production, there may be enough units in the warehouses to keep the sales happening until the next version of the headset is released.
This next version may be the cheaper Vision headset that rumors put for the second half of 2025. This headset may be priced around $2000, and according to this last report from The Information, Apple plans to sell around 4 million units of them. 4 million is a small number if compared to the 20M units sold by Quest 2, but it is a good number if you consider that this headset would cost 7 times a Quest 2. Plus it would represent a 10x sales of the current Vision Pro.
Apple is reducing/halting the production of the Vision Pro because of low sales. But Tim Cook actually defended the device. In a recent interview, he commented on the low volumes of Vision Pro this way: “At $3,500, it’s not a mass-market product. Right now, it’s an early-adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow’s technology today — that’s who it’s for. Fortunately, there’s enough people who are in that camp that it’s exciting.”. He also added, commenting on the success of iconic products like the iPhone and iPad “It doesn’t occur overnight. None of these did.”
I totally agree with him: no one that was trying to objectively analyze the situation thought that Vision Pro could become mainstream: it is just too expensive for that. But at the same time, I think that Apple was expecting a bit more success…
More info (Apple halting production of Vision Pro — Road To VR)
More info (Apple halting production of Vision Pro — Upload VR)
More info (Tim Cook comments sales of Vision Pro)
Spatial content is on the rise
One of the reasons for which we rejoiced when Apple joined the XR space is that Apple has the power to really bring technology to the masses. And it is exactly doing that with its spatial video format.
After spatial videos were announced, the Quest was quickly made compatible with them. And now this week we had the news that Vimeo, one of the two most popular video services (with the top one still being YouTube), has just added support for Spatial Videos to its set of features. Vimeo even funded a spatial video short film called Currents, which Vision Pro owners can watch when it releases on November 11.
Beyond that, we had another very interesting leak this week. Safari, Apple’s browser, is now going to add support for spatial photos and videos inside webpages on VisionOS. If a webpage integrates spatial videos, Safari will play them back, while other browsers will just see a static image. If Safari starts integrating spatial video content, most probably in the next months other browsers will follow suit, enabling support for this new type of content.
If all the most popular services are going to add support for spatial photos and videos, it becomes more possible that this kind of content will become widespread. And when the content is widespread, people will want a headset to be able to see it. This can be one of the factors facilitating the success of XR headsets.
More info (Vimeo supporting spatial content)
More info (Safari to support spatial videos on VisionOS)
News worth a mention
Will Meta Quest 4 feature eye tracking?
A company working with Meta is organizing a focus group about Project Pismo, in which people have to wear a wearable device that is able to track eyes, facial expressions, and voice. Project Pismo is the leaked nickname of the Quest 4, so this test seems to be a test about the possible integration of eye and facial tracking in the next-gen of the most popular VR headset. This is not a guarantee that eye tracking will actually be a feature of Quest 4, but it proves that Meta is exploring this possibility. I honestly hope this is going to happen.
FOV is not a priority for Meta
If you are wondering why Meta headsets have all more or less the same FOV, the reason is that Meta does not consider it a good feature to work on. In a recent Q&A on Instagram, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth commented on the latest shown wide-FOV Quest prototype saying literally “I know how much ya’ll love field-of-view and want more. I’m with you. I like it. I get it, I do. The tradeoffs are so bad. The tradeoffs on weight, form factor, compute, thermals… it’s all bad”. The meaning is clear: a wide FOV is cool, but it ruins all the rest in a standalone headset, so it is not worth it.
A headset for blind people
The OG Jeremy Dalton has reported on Linkedin that during a trip to Estonia, he tried a wearable haptic device from 7Sense that you wear on the head and that is able to give you different haptic sensations on different parts of the head depending on what you have in your surroundings. This is a smart and unique way to make blind people “see” the reality around them using another of their senses (haptics).
Emteq Labs unveils emotion-sensing eyewear
Emteq Labs, one of the most renowned companies for what concerns emotion understanding and brain interfaces, has just announced the forthcoming introduction of Sense, the world’s first emotion-sensing eyewear. What they promise is very intriguing: The glasses offer a “comprehensive measurement and analysis of the wearer’s facial expressions, dietary habits, mood, posture, attention levels, physical activity, and additional health-related metrics”.
This is possible because “Emteq’s Sense glasses are equipped with contactless OCO sensors that detect high-resolution facial activations at key muscle locations, as well as a downward-facing camera for instantly logging food consumption. Data collected is analyzed using proprietary AI/ML algorithms, and securely transferred to the Sense app and cloud platform. The user has full control over the data and can choose to share it with researchers, trainers, coaches, or clinicians upon consent.”
I think they can be very interesting in the healthcare sector.
Jesse Schell talks about the future of XR
In an interview on the Meta blog, Jesse Schell talked about the past, present, and future of XR. Jesse Schell is a very intelligent guy with a lot of experience, so of course the whole interview is very interesting to read. But there is one specific answer that fascinated me and I’ll copy-paste it here to inspire you too:
One of the genres I’ve been predicting is something I’ve been calling adaptive in-home story games. Imagine a mixed reality game. You put on your headset, and you’re just looking inside of your house, and the doorbell rings. So you get up, and you go to your physical door. You open the physical door, and standing outside is a virtual character, who says, “Hey, I need to come inside.” They’ve got a bag of groceries. And you follow them into your kitchen because the headset knows how your whole house is laid out. So the character starts putting these items down on the counter and says, “I need you to help me.” And you start helping them. You cut the virtual bread loaf and slice vegetables and get everything ready. And they’re talking to you about this problem and how you need to kind of bake these things to make an item to use as bait. So you’re helping them do all this, and then they put the virtual items in your physical oven to cook.
While that’s happening, the character explains to you what’s going on. “The problem is up in your attic. There are these creatures, and you and I, we’re going to go up there and we’re going to get them, but first we need to finish getting the bait ready.”
We’ll be able to build these stories that use your own home as the basis, where we know what the story is going to be but the characters are now improvising based on the way your house works. We’re going to make this story work where you live, and it’s going to seem very real, and the characters are going to seem very real. Those are the sorts of experiences I think are going to be possible within the next few years. I think that’s going to be the biggest change: sort of living characters that are going to be in your own home.
Enjoy Viveport Halloween discount
Viveport is proposing a Halloween sale: if you subscribe to Infinity Annual you can get and keep 3 “terrifying” titles for free:
- Arizona Sunshine
- Phasmophobia
- Flock of the Low God
Apart from this, there are many games at -40% on the Viveport store, so if you are into Viveport, go giving them a look!
Some news about content
- The campaign for Blade and Sorcery Nomad has finally been released also on Quest
- Minecraft is also dropping support for PCVR in 2025, after it has already announced the end of support for PSVR. This is not good news for our space
- Meta has again partnered with the NBA to bring 52 matches in a 180-degree immersive format to Quest
- PlaySide Studios announced that in December it’s releasing Shattered, a psychological thriller that turns your physical space into a mixed-reality escape room
- VitruviusVR announced the release date for its upcoming single-player sci-fi shooter, Arken Age: the game is coming to SteamVR and PSVR 2 on January 16th, 2025
- Walkabout Mini Golf created a retro 8-bit version of it and it is now playable on the web and in a virtual cabinet in Arcade Legend. I think it’s a very funny initiative
- Whitewater VR — Extreme Kayaking Adventure, a game about racing against time while on a kayak, has been released on PlayStation VR2
- Trombone Champ: Unflattened can be pre-ordered on the Meta Quest platform now, with the full release coming on November 26
- We have new gameplay footage of Human Fall Flat VR before this week’s launch. From the video, the game looks fun.
More info (Blade & Sorcery: Nomad)
More info (Minecraft)
More info (NBA on Quest)
More info (Shattered)
More info (Arken Age)
More info (Walkabout Mini Golf)
More info (Whitewater VR — Extreme Kayaking Adventure)
More info (Trombone Champ: Unflattened)
More info (Human Fall Flat VR)
Some reviews about content
- Vendetta Forever is a satisfactory Superhot-like action game featuring the innovative mechanics that you have to grab an enemy’s weapon to move. It is a bit short and some levels are a bit frustrating, but in general, it delivers very well.
Other news
Bigscreen added a paid feature to let you share your browser navigation (hence video streaming websites) also on Quest
Meta Interaction SDK is now available for Unreal Engine and also for non-Meta headsets
Emirates is going to train 23000 cabin crew professionals using VR
SteamVR 2.8 introduces hand tracking in Steam Link
News from partners (and friends)
Brick Smash VR got a big update
Here you are a message from the developers of the breakout game Brick Smash VR, which just got a big update:
“Brick Smash VR” has evolved significantly and is now even better! I’d love to invite you all to give it a try!
In Brick Smash VR, players experience:
— Choose between a flat or 45-degree camera angle during gameplay to match your preferred playstyle.
— Intuitive pistol-based shooting system
— Innovative gameplay blending brick-breaker and pinball mechanics
— High-quality graphics with automatic resolution optimization
— 100 handcrafted levels with increasing challenges
— Dynamic visual effects synchronized to music
— Enhanced immersion through passthrough mode
Check out its Horizon Store page
Sponsored Area
Discover Phygtl!
Phygtl is a startup that is on a mission to use XR to redefine socialization through co-creation. There are not many details that have been shared publicly about it, but I know the team well, and I know they are looking for talented cloud, XR, and AI professionals to collaborate with them. In case you may be interested in joining an innovative and vibrant startup, reach out to them!
Visit Phygtl Website
Visit Phygtl LinkedIn Page
Some XR fun
Interviews by humans are always more interesting than interviews done with ChatGPT
Funny link
With the great success that Batman: Arkham Shadow is having, were you thinking that people weren’t making memes about it? Of course, they are!
Funny link / 1
Funny link / 2
Funny link / 3
SteamVR collected them all
Funny link
Japanese commercials of the Quest are always the best
Funny link
Donate for good
Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate to my blog, but to the poor people who are facing the consequences of the war. Please donate to the Red Cross to handle the current humanitarian situation in Ukraine. I will leave you the link to do that 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
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And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by Camouflaj)
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