The XR Week Peek (2025.03.31): Samsung may launch XR glasses this year, Vivo announces Vision headset, and more!
It’s the last day of March, it’s a beautiful day, I just delivered a project… so it’s a wonderful moment to talk about the most interesting pieces of news of the week in AR and VR! And yes, also to make a little mention of all the “Studio Ghibli” AI hype…
Top news of the week
Samsung may unveil XR glasses later this year
According to the Korean magazine ETNews, Samsung is preparing to launch XR glasses later this year. It is not clear from the article if they are AR glasses or smartglasses, but they are said to be comfortable to wear and feature cameras and sensors to track the user or the environment. The codename is Haen, which means “coast” in Korea.
It is not the first time we have heard about XR glasses in the works at Samsung, so for sure, the company is cooking something. It’s now to be seen what will be announced and when. If Samsung is going to announce this year both Project Moohan (MR headset) and Haen (XR glasses), 2025 would be the year Samsung comes back to XR with great style.
More info (Samsung XR glasses — Road To VR)
More info (Samsung XR glasses — Android Authority)
Other relevant news
Vivo announces Vision headset
Smartphone giant Vivo has announced its upcoming mixed reality headset. We don’t know much about this device, and Vivo has only unveiled its exterior design. The headset looks like a copy of the Vision Pro… from which it has even copied the name! Vivo Vision will be officially unveiled in mid-2025, but for now, it is good to see that another important company has joined the XR race.
Meta expects many Quest users to be media consumers
Last week I already shared with you my considerations about Chris Pruett’s talk at GDC, which once more remarked that the Quest ecosystem is going toward free-to-play because it has been flooded by kids. This week, I’ve found an article on the Meta blog that summarizes the same talk, and I’ve found an interesting tidbit in it that I had lost last week. Let me copy-paste it for you:
We also see a rising group of mainstream adults who use their headset for media and entertainment growing on the platform. These folks are distinct from our previous VR Elite cohort in that they’re not necessarily VR true believers, they don’t self-identify as core gamers, and they see their headset as an extension of their TV — a device primarily for media consumption.
These are largely 30-something men who enjoy spending money on high-fidelity ways to watch their favorite movies and shows. They like sports, action movies, concerts — all kinds of stuff. They also play games on their phones or consoles, but it’s a secondary pastime.
These people see Quest as a high-end way to watch TV and movies, and they’re growing quickly. By the beginning of 2027, we predict that they’ll be a major player in the ecosystem. And my suspicion is that their content preferences aren’t going to be meme games.
If this prediction is true, in a couple of years, Meta Quest will be used a lot by people who want to watch movies on it. This would be another category of people who have interests in contrast with the premium gamers. And this is also the same category of people that Apple is targeting with the Apple Vision Pro. If Meta is making this prediction, in my opinion, the Quest 4 will have a lot of optimizations dedicated to movie consumption and will enter into a more direct competition with Apple. Probably Meta will also fund content in this sense, exactly like Apple is funding short movies for its platform.
As a developer, I’m also starting to wonder what I should focus my efforts on. It’s hard to operate in an ecosystem if every couple of years the market dynamics are going to change. How can I invest in a type of content if this may not be the most successful one later on? And how do I know what the platform holder (Meta) will support in the coming times? Will it still be games, or will it go more towards movies? It’s very hard to have a solid basis in this continuously changing landscape…
News worth a mention
WWDC is happening on June, 9
Apple announced that its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is kicking off on June 9th. The rumors say that on this occasion, the company will also unveil visionOS 3, which should carry a lot of interesting new features to Vision Pro.
It’s a pity that this event is going to happen on the same days as AWE… it will so be impossible for me to follow them both.
Pimax Crystal Super is shipping on April 7
Chinese manufacturer Pimax has announced that its wide-FOV high-resolution headset Pimax Crystal Super will start shipping on April 7. It’s good to see that Pimax managed to deliver this headset in a reasonable time.
More info (Pimax Crystal Super shipping update)
More info (VooDoo’s hands-on the device)
Enjoy the PlayStation Spring Sale
Sony is holding the PlayStation Spring Sale until April 23. There are thousands of PlayStation games featured, with over 60 PlayStation VR2 titles including Alien: Rogue Incursion and Metro Awakening.
It’s time to buy some games…
The Polys has awarded the best in WebXR
The Polys has arrived at its 5th edition, and this year it has also awarded the best in WebXR. I think this event is very important because it shines a light on a very important technology that is still a bit unripe but has huge potential. Big kudos to the team organizing it.
Discover all the winners of this year’s edition by clicking on the link below.
Where are Valve’s games?
An interesting editorial by David Heaney criticizes Valve’s attitude within the XR ecosystem, especially for what concerns content. Valve made its last big game for XR 5 years ago (Alyx), and then nothing more happened. We all criticize Meta for everything it does wrong, but it seems no one dares to criticize Valve because of the good reputation it has in the gaming community. Valve has the budget to make VR games, and it directly benefits from selling games on Steam, so it is puzzling why it doesn’t keep making VR content (at least for PC) to keep pushing the VR ecosystem. And is even more puzzling why no one says anything about it.
Some cool stuff with camera access
People keep doing cool experiments with the just-released camera access on Quest, and I’m happy to showcase to you some of their work. A developer made some sort of copy-paste of elements from the real world using your Quest. Another one estimates the lighting of your environment from the camera images and lights your virtual elements accordingly. And another developer, who is actually me, made a system to apply whatever filter to your vision, while preserving your depth perception. Enjoy these by clicking the links below!
More info (Copy-paste from the world)
More info (Dynamic lighting on virtual elements)
More info (3D image filters on Quest)
Some important news about content
- ILM and Lucasfilm announced they are developing another immersive Star Wars game called Star Wars: Beyond Victory — A Mixed Reality Playset. The details on it are scarce; we just know that it will be exclusive to Quest and Quest 3S, that it will be in mixed reality, have some podracing involved, and that it is slated to take place around the same timeframe as the Han Solo prequel “Solo: A Star Wars Story”
- Hitman World of Assassination has been released for PlayStation VR2 as a DLC for the base game, priced at $10. The first feedback about the game is pretty positive, so it seems that, finally, IO Interactive managed to deliver a good VR Hitman game
- Meta has canceled System Shock 2 VR. A 25th anniversary remaster of the cult classic 1999 PC action role-playing survival game is set to launch in June on Steam, and initially, a VR version was planned, but then it seems that Meta canceled its funding for it. The developer that unveiled the news confirmed that Meta canceled also “a ton of other projects”, meaning that the rumor about Meta disinvesting in some types of VR games was true
- RoboCop: Streets of Anarchy, the Robocop VR game we were promised a few weeks ago, is actually not going to happen because it seems that the studio that promised it has not the rights to develop a game with that IP. What an epic fail…
More info (Star Wars: Beyond Victory)
More info (Hitman World Of Assassination)
More info (Hitman World Of Assassination — A positive review about it)
More info (System Shock 2 VR)
More info (Robocop: Streets Of Anarchy)
Some news about content
- Shooter sandbox HARD BULLET is coming to Quest 3 this spring. You can wishlist it now
- Orion Drift got its first big update since early access launch last month. It added a new mini-game called ‘Capture the Beacon’
- Avatar: The Last Airbender-inspired action Elements Divided is coming to Quest and PC VR on April 23rd
- The big 2.0 update for Onward has been released
- No Man’s Sky: RELICS is an update that adds paleontology related to alien species
- F1 25 — Standard Edition is coming to Steam on May 30 for $60 with optional PC VR support
- Out of Sight VR is coming to Steam on May 22
- Vertigo 2: Into the Aether has been delayed to April 25
- Dystopian VR action RPG Resist is heading to PlayStation VR2 on April 10
- Zombie Army VR is being released on May 22. It has been developed by a team called Xtended Realities
- Into Black’s developer showed that its upcoming PlayStation VR2 port will bring a “full visual overhaul” compared to Quest
- TimeLab VR is going to feature a DLC that lets you relive the tragedy of the Hindenburg
- Death Game Hotel goes free-to-play from April, 10
- Rezzil, the team behind Premier League Player and Rezzil Player, is releasing Hexball, a fast-paced competitive game inspired by football
- Upload VR has published its usual XR News Round-Up post with some minor XR news
More info (Hard Bullet)
More info (Orion Drift)
More info (Elements Divided)
More info (Onward)
More info (No Man’s Sky: Relics)
More info (F1 25)
More info (Out Of Sight VR)
More info (Vertigo 2: Into The Aether)
More info (Resist)
More info (Zombie Army VR)
More info (Into Black)
More info (TimeLab VR)
More info (Death Game Hotel)
More info (Hexball)
More info (XR News Round-Up)
Some reviews about content
- Pinball FX VR is a good recreation of pinball in MR/VR and is also compatible with dedicated arcade controls
- Boxed Out is a puzzle game inspired by Tetris that has the right balance between approachability and complexity. The reviewer loved spending time with it
- Final Fury feels like an intriguing fighting game that is able to provide a sense of embodiment
- Roboquest VR is still a work-in-progress, but from a preview, it seems they are making a good adaptation of the flatscreen game
More info (Pinball FX VR)
More info (Boxed Out)
More info (Final Fury)
More info (Roboquest VR)
Other news
Infinite Reality acquires Napster for $200M to create a social music platform with virtual concerts
(I wonder where all this money was when I was working on Virtual Concerts myself…)
Quest’s Horizon OS could soon let you share 2D windows with others
The runtime of Pico 4 Ultra just got a big update bringing cool features like 3D conversion of photos
Upload VR went to a large warehouse where a Holodeck-inspired VR system lets you preview premium houses
Cyan, the maker of Myst and Obduction, had to lay off half of its team
Sony introduces Ocellus camera tracking for virtual productions
A woman asked on Reddit if there are any adult XR content dedicated to women. An interesting thread that shows that most content of this type is still male-oriented
Meta Reality Labs announced an AI model that can convert any image into a mini volumetric world
Jamie Feltham describes his ideal XR ecosystem, giving interesting insights on how future XR stores may be
(Thanks Ivan Aguilar for the tip)
Discover the games with the craziest control schemes at GDC!
(Thanks Ivan Aguilar for the tip)
News from partners (and friends)
Discover Chrono Craft
Chrono Craft is a physical bus that takes you around a specific place and tells you a story. It does that in a very innovative way: it lets you see some cool augmentations that enrich the surroundings around you through the bus windows. It is currently operating in Beijing, China, at Yuanmingyuan Park.
Some XR fun
Maybe it’s better not giving humanity to robots…
Funny link
All the Studio Ghibli hype in a nutshell
Funny link
The first comment is… well, played, sir
Funny link
For sure this is a plus of VR
Funny link
Donate for good
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(Header image by Vivo)
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