THIS IS MY 400TH ROUNDUP OF XR NEWS. I can’t believe I’m writing these words. When I started writing these weekly summaries of AR/VR news I couldn’t imagine I would have continued for such a long time. Thank you to all of you, my readers, for having kept reading these posts of mine and giving me the strength to keep writing them by telling them they are useful for you. A special thank you to Rob and Ivan for providing me each week interesting links to read and eventually include in these roundups and Mati for being a reader from the first editions of this column. I’m amazed by how amazing you are as a community and I virtually hug all of you.
Such a special edition needs some news, too… so keep reading for my personal selection of the most important XR news of the week!
Top news of the week
Samsung XR headset may launch in Q3 2025
Two new reports gave us potential updates on the Samsung Project Moohan headset. Of course, they are rumors, so take them with a grain of salt.
The first report comes from Business Post and hints at a release date in Q3 2025. There is no mention of the price, but the report states that Samsung aims at an annual production target of 100,000 headsets, which is not exactly what we expect from a product with mainstream adoption. These low production volumes suggest that the headset will be a prosumer one and hence will have a high price which will deter many people from buying one. This is coherent with previous reports that envisioned the price of the device to be around $2000.
South Korean news outlet The Elec instead reports that Samsung will use Sony’s new 1.35-inch 3552×3840 micro-OLED display, the same used in Sony’s own SRH-S1 standalone headset. Sony also provides the screens for the Apple Vision Pro, but these ones for the Samsung headset would be from a new generation. The fact that the Project Moohan headset uses micro-OLED screens, which are notoriously difficult to source, may be another reason why the expected production volumes are relatively small.
More info (Samsung Project Moohan may launch in Q3 2025)
More info (Samsung headset may use displays from Sony)
Other relevant news
Animal Company has been the most grossing game on the Meta Store
If you think that Gorilla Tag is the game that is earning the most money on the Horizon Store, you are wrong. If we consider lifetime earnings, for sure Gorilla Tag and Beat Saber have made a lot, but if we consider just last week, the game making the most revenue on Quest has been Animal Company.
Animal Company is a game from the same team behind the Spatial.io platform, which operated under the name Wooster Games. The game uses the same locomotion of Gorilla Tag and it aims at the same young audience, but it has a different gameplay. The game is inspired by Lethal Company (hence its name) and it lets players explore weird and creepy places being careful of the monsters and traps that are there.
The game has surpassed one million monthly active users (MAU), which is huge, even if still not as big as the amount of players of Gorilla Tag. Animal Company saw a big influx of players from the release of Quest 3S, something that many other studios releasing premium content did not experience. The success of this game confirms the recent trends about the Horizon Store that Meta has highlighted: the most successful content is aimed at young people and it is free to play. It is also interesting that, exactly like Gorilla Tag or I Am Cat, this game has become very popular thanks to clips shared on social media like TikTok. The shareability of funny clips of a game has been the driver of many indie games recently, and not only in VR: think about what happened to Among Us, for instance.
We may be in a transition moment for the Horizon Store. I’m not sure this is a transition I like, but for sure it is a transition.
Camera access on Meta Quest may arrive soon
Many developers in the XR community are waiting for Meta to offer camera access on Quest. This would offer us developers the opportunity to apply AI algorithms on the images that the user is seeing to create a mixed reality that is more immersive and more useful (as I’ve explained in this post). Many new applications would become possible: I’ve made for instance a prototype of an AI interior designer or of an AI Pictionary game to show some of the possibilities enabled by this technology.
During Meta Connect, Meta promised to release Passthrough APIs with camera access in Q1 2025 and it seems it is going to keep this promise. The Meta Support page for Passthrough APIs now talks about permission to access the frames of the camera and also about some possible use cases of this technology (like object recognition). If the documentation has been updated, it means that the release is imminent. I can’t wait for this feature to be released so that I can start experimenting with it…
News worth a mention
Meta gives more insights about Orion
Last week Meta published a few deep dive articles on its Orion glasses. They are all very interesting to read, even if they do not provide any practical information about Meta’s plans for AR glasses. One article talks about the compute puck of Orion, which in the beginning was an omega-shaped device to be worn around the neck. The company also studied how to use the puck to interact with the AR experiences: they have used it as a controller, but also as a device to make a person you are having a call with appear as a hologram, like in Star Wars.
Meta in these posts also addressed the elephant in the room, which is the silicon carbide lenses, which guarantee a high FOV, but for an insanely high price that makes the glasses impossible to sell. It seems that lately, silicon carbide got the attention also from the electric vehicles industry, so now there are more factories of silicon carbide chips, that would be happy to expand their product portfolio in the optics field. And if there are more producers of this component, the price is going to go down.
A third article mentions the custom chips that Meta had to build for Orion and how even the manufacturing of the microLED displays becomes difficult for such an innovative device. Remember that Orion glasses try to pack a lot of technology in a device that is as small as a bulky pair of glasses.
All of this was a very interesting read for me, but it still didn’t ask my main question: will Orion be actually commercialized in the future, or does it represent a lab prototype that will never see the light? In my opinion, not even Meta knows the answer, yet…
More info (Meta’s article about Orion compute puck)
More info (Meta’s article about silicon carbide)
More info (Meta’s technical article about Silicon Carbide)
More info (Meta’s article about Orion’s custom chips)
More info (Road To VR’s report on Orion compute puck)
More info (Road To VR’s report on Orion lenses)
More info (Upload VR’s report on Orion lenses)
TCL RayNeo X3 Pro got a lot of attention at MWC
At MWC, one of the devices getting the most attention was the TCL RayNeo X3 Pro. These smartglasses have a wonderful color display that has only 25° FOV but with its 2500 nits, it is clearly visible also outdoors. They are sleek, feature a 12MP camera, and have AI features like translation from multiple languages. It seems we are getting closer to smartglasses that people can comfortably wear in the streets and that can provide some value to the users.
More info (TCL RayNeo X3 Pro hands-on — Tom’s Guide)
More info (TCL RayNeo X3 Pro hands-on — PC Magazine)
More info (TCL RayNeo X3 Pro hands-on — CNET)
VisionOS 3 will be a “feature packed release”
According to Mark Gurman, VisionOS 3 will be a “feature packed release”. It will probably be announced at WWDC, but we have no clue what there will be inside, yet. So, this is just random hype about Apple, as usual.
Dreampark is like LBVR without the LB
The same creators of Two-Bit Circus are now trying a new venture called Dreampark. Dreampark is like location-based VR, but without a location venue. You are given some mixed reality headsets and you can use them to walk in a specific street of Santa Monica with your friends and have some adventures there. For the cost of $10, you can so enjoy “an invisible mixed reality theme park overlaid over tens of thousands of square feet of public space”. Basically, you can have fun while all the people walking there will look at you like an idiot.
This seems a fun and innovative idea and I’m curious to see if it will succeed.
Meta delists Richie’s Plank Experience and Max Mustard
Toast Interactive announced their VR games Max Mustard and Richie’s Plank Experience have been removed from the Horizon Store. Meta claims that the reason is that the apps are “out of compliance with Meta’s Platform Abuse Policy”.
The situation is very unclear. Meta is currently not the friendliest partner for VR developers and it’s in my opinion not a good idea to delist an amazing game like Max Mustard and a super popular title like Richie’s Plank Experience. I’m totally surprised and sad because of this, also because Toast Interactive had just to lay off almost all its employees… also because of the poor discoverability of Meta Store. But on the other side, Meta usually does not delist titles totally out of nowhere, so there should be a reason, but Toast Interactive claims it can not disclose it. And until I know the reason, I do not want to express any judgment about this situation.
Apple releases Spatial Gallery
visionOS 2.4 beta 2 is now available for Apple Vision Pro, and it brings Apple’s new Spatial Gallery platform. Spatial Gallery is a curated set of amazing spatial photos, spatial videos, and panoramas that are able to make people understand the potentialities of mixed reality.
You may play golf in VR with your real putter
GOLF+ is experimenting with tracking your real putter by attaching Logitech’s MX Ink tracked stylus to the top of it. This is another great example of the use of the Logitech pen as an object tracker. We have seen many of them lately. Maybe this is a hint that Meta should think about an actual object-tracking device…
Robots are now wearing Aria glasses
A new research aims at training robots using Aria glasses. Robots need to learn tasks emulating humans and currently, one method to make them learn is to put a VR headset on the head of a person and to make that person pretend to do that action. This is very cumbersome, though. So why can’t we just make the person wear Aria transparent glasses, make the glasses collect the data while the person actually does his/her task, and then make the robot learn from it? This is what a team is exactly doing and the fun thing is that to make the process even more efficient, the team is also making the robot wear Aria glasses…
Enjoy the latest Steam Sale
There is a sale undergoing on Steam, with many VR games currently discounted. VR magazine MIXED has selected the 5 best options for you, but there are actually more than 200 titles to choose from!
Some news about content
- Tender Claws is presenting at SXSW another very original experience called “Face Jumping” in which you jump inside the body of every person you look into the eyes.
- Virtuix announced it’s releasing TREKS, an immersive tourism app for its Omni One VR treadmill system that lets you walk through some of the world’s most iconic destinations
- Astrea has released The Passengers, a 40-minute interactive experience that allows you to become one of four passengers on a train, experiencing their internal monologues and interacting with the environment. It is priced at $5
- Electrician Simulator VR, which is a VR version of the popular flatscreen game, is going to release on March, 21st on all major VR stores
- Train Sim World VR: New York arrives on March 27 for the Meta Quest platform
- The New Salsa Academy, a VR experience that teaches you how to dance Salsa, is available now on Quest. Its price is $20
- Into the Aether, the DLC expansion for Vertigo 2 has been delayed by a month and it is now expected for April 2025
- “Pavel’s Gulag Getout: Climb Penguin!” promises to mix dark humor with physics-based precision platforming, all for €8
- VR fantasy RPG Sword Reverie has been launched on Quest in early access
- Niantic’s Scaniverse is now available as an app for Quest 3 and Quest 3S on the Horizon Store, not just WebXR anymore
- Synth Riders just launched the “Current Waves” music pack, bringing hits from artists such as SIA, Charli xcx, and David Guetta
More info (Face Jumping)
More info (TREKS)
More info (The Passengers)
More info (Electrician Simulator)
More info (Train Sim World VR: New York)
More info (The New Salsa Academy)
More info (Vertigo 2: Into the Aether)
More info (Pavel’s Gulag Getout: Climb Penguin!)
More info (Sword Reverie)
More info (Scaniverse)
More info (Synth Riders)
Some reviews about content
- According to a preview by Upload VR, GORN 2 is a good sequel, that keeps the good things of the original game while also adding some new features. It is not perfect, though
- All On Board! is a promising game that lets you play board games with your friends. Currently, it still looks like a work-in-progress, with many features still to be polished
- Farming Simulator VR is a nice simulator that lets you enjoy the peace of being a farmer, but it still lacks features if compared to the flatscreen version
- Stratogun feels like a mix of Super Stardust Ultra and Geometry Wars and it can appeal to people who want to have a taste of retrogaming again
- Symphoni is a nice VR rhythm game. It is like Maestro, but more stripped down, and only focused on classical music
- Rogue Piñatas: VRmageddon delivers a thrilling, family-friendly rogue-lite that blends over-the-top action with a polished gameplay loop. It is very fun to be played
More info (GORN 2)
More info (All On Board!)
More info (Farming Simulator VR)
More info (Stratogun)
More info (Symphoni)
More info (Rogue Pinatas: VRmageddon)
Other news
Rec Room lays off 16% of its staff
A new limited edition of Ray-Ban Meta has been released
The company behind Dating.com has announced a $20M fund for virtual intimacy startups
Pimax has shared updates on Dream Air and Crystal Super headsets
OpenXR implementation in Meta’s SDK has been criticized for blocking the other headsets, violating the principles behind OpenXR. So Meta now recommends using Unity and Unreal built-in OpenXR support
Learn more (The issue)
Learn more (Meta’s answer)
Inseye has “paused” Lumi, the Quest 2 & 3 eye tracking addon it planned to sell, to focus on AR glasses
Most of Insomniac’s games have returned to the Rift Store
XREAL and Hisense (one of the biggest TV manufacturers) have started a partnership to release AR glasses
Meta seems to be updating the UI of the Quest and it seems to be bad (again)
News from partners (and friends)
Fill a questionnaire about music in the metaverse
I know some researchers that are doing some work about the musical metaverse and they would be happy if you could fill their survey form. This is the message that they have left for you:
We are Sophia and Luca and we are researchers from CYENS Centre of Excellence, Cyprus and the University of Trento, Italy. We are currently doing a research study around audience attendance in VR music events. We are looking for people who attend VR music events on platforms such as VR Chat, Somnium Space, AmazeVR and similar to tell us about their experiences.
We thought this would be a good place to see if any of you would be interested :)) It would be great if you could spend 10–15 minutes helping us by filling in this survey.
Learn more
Read the XR Developer News
Pieter Siekerman (who is also a Patron of this blog) has released a new episode of his very interesting newsletter dedicated to XR developers. If you are interested in reading a roundup of news dedicated to XR development, have a read of his post.
Learn more
Discover Sideload Games Center
Nathanael Anderson has created a website that allows VR gamers to discover and sideload over a dozen Team Beef games directly from the browser. If you don’t own the game the porting is about, the website also gives you a direct link to buy the game. It’s very early stages, but it can be an interesting service for the community.
Learn more
Some XR fun
I’m not sure I would like to see this game suggestion
Funny link
Ehm… maybe in 5-to-10-years?
Funny link
I would insta-buy this VR experience!
Funny link
Meta, the devs, and Horizon Worlds
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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- Immersive.international
- Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
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And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by Meta)