Yesterday it was Easter here in Italy, and I had a good time with my family eating delicious food. You can read my greetings to the community and see some pictures of the cake I’ve eaten on Twitter/X if you want.
Today is also a Holiday in Italy (I guess to leave people the time to digest before getting to work, lol), but the XR business never rests, so I’m writing anyway for you this roundup of the best news of the week! And be sure to read it until the end, because today I have a giveaway of keys for BEATABLE, the innovative rhythm game by XR Games!
Ah, and before I forget: in the next couple of days, I’m going to publish a very interesting interview on this blog! Stay tuned!
Top news of the week
Apple Vision Pro 2 battery cable leaked online
Leaker Kosutami shared on X what looks like the new battery cable of the next Apple Vision Pro headset. The connector is slightly larger than a Lightning one, and the cable has a dark blue color that they referred to as “graphite dark blue”.
The headset is allegedly dark so as to clearly distinguish it from the current Apple Vision Pro. Apple wants it to appear different because it wants to highlight that it is a different model that features various improvements to its internal structures: Kosutami claims that the upcoming headset features titanium in “a few” of the internal structures, and they say it’s noticeably thinner and lighter. They also say that the headset may not be called Apple Vision Pro 2 but something like Apple Vision Pro Air, but it is just a speculation.
We have to take all the leaks with a grain of salt, but the existence of a battery cable would confirm what other rumors are already saying, that is, that Apple is close to releasing a refresh of the Vision Pro, probably already this year. And if the headset is lighter and thinner, it means that Apple is addressing some of the concerns many users complained about. Various rumors also talk about an improved processor, the upcoming M5, which would give the Vision Pro impressive computational power that no other standalone headset can compete with. If Apple manages to make it also slightly cheaper, that would be bingo.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting a Vision Pro headset until next year, but Apple is probably launching a new device to take measures against the upcoming release of Google’s Project Moohan. Competition is proving again to be very good for us XR users.
Other relevant news
NVIDIA RTX 5060 gives you a VR-ready PC for a small budget
NVIDIA is close to launching its RTX 5060 graphics cards, the low-end tier of the RTX 50 series. These graphics cards can make your PC VR-ready for a very small budget.
RTX 5060 will be $300, and has 8GB of VRAM. RTX 5060 Ti is offered in two variants: $380 with 8GB of VRAM or $430 with 16GB of VRAM. Both of these models are based on NVIDIA’s new Blackwell architecture, and both of them feature GDDR7 VRAM. They are more performant than the low tier of the RTX 40 series, but of course, they can’t compete at all with the RTX 5080 or RTX 5090. According to Upload VR, the performances of the RTX 5060 are comparable with the RTX 2080, which was a top-tier graphics card 7 years ago. This may not seem much, but the RTX 2080 was able to run Half-Life: Alyx, which is a PC VR game with very solid graphics. This means that for a very small budget, you can upgrade your computer to run pretty cool VR games.
If you are interested in these graphics cards, which will surely help the democratization of PCVR, you can already grab the RTX 5060 Ti now, while for the RTX 5060, you have to wait until May.
News worth a mention
Meta Horizon Desktop Editor now has AI features
The desktop editor for Meta Horizon Worlds now features AI generation of meshes and textures. The application already featured AI generation of code and audio, and this means that now there is a full pipeline for world creation that is powered by AI. Meta claims these generative AI tools can “dramatically” reduce the time needed to build virtual worlds “from weeks to as little as hours”. But especially, these tools let people that have no technical skills build the worlds of their dreams.
I am not gonna lie, this is great for the current target of people that appreciate Horizon Worlds, which are mostly kids. I’m not a big fan of “vibe coding” for professional products, but it can be great to let kids unleash their creativity and create worlds where to hang out with friends.
PresenZ generates volumetric videos from CGI content
PresenZ is a professional-grade tool for converting cinema-quality CGI content for 6DOF viewing in VR. It takes a very detailed CGI content, something that could never be run in VR, not even on a powerful PC, and converts it into a sort of spatial video you can move in. This way, you can have the original content, with the same astonishing quality, but played back as a special video, so with no need for runtime rendering. You can so watch it in VR. You can demo this technology with a PCVR headset through the Immersix application.
A developer made some steps toward PSVR 2’s HDR usage on PC
The VR community continues to look for workarounds to unlock all the cool features of PSVR 2 that Sony is not allowing on PC. This week, a developer codenamed Hekky managed to enable “wider color gamut”, a fundamental feature for HDR, on the headset while connected to SteamVR. This is great, but to fully unlock HDR, there is another feature needed, PQ (perceptual quantizer), which is unluckily not supported by SteamVR at all.
REK wants to make real robots to fight
Cix Liv, the serial entrepreneur behind LIV and YUR, has launched a new business called REK (probably he likes startups with 3-letter names). The project is pretty cool: the VR game is about humanoid robots fighting between them, and the idea is to take the best players and make them fight using real robots they are controlling from within the VR headset. The game should work in the same way both if you are just playing as a virtual robot and if you are controlling a physical robot, so if you are good in the first scenario, you are also good in the second one. It is just that the second one, with the physical robots actually fighting, is incredibly cooler!
Sliding in the real and the virtual world
A Redditor used Vive Trackers to track his full body while going down a slide, so that you can see him sliding at the same time, both in the real and the virtual world. Is it useful? Probably not. Is it cool? Surely yes.
You can now track both your hands and the Logitech MX Ink pen
Always more people are using the Logitech MX Ink pen as a sort of “Vive tracker” for the Meta Quest. This week, I’ve discovered that the Quest can now track simultaneously both your bare hands and this pen. For sure, some interesting experiments are possible with it…
An experiment investigates the user perceptions in passive experiences
A very interesting experiment from the University of Glasgow discovers new ways users can be “tricked” inside VR passive experiences. The study proved that when playing passive virtual reality experiences, you can alter the physical rotation a lot when compared to the virtual one without the users noticing.
For instance, if the users rotate 90 degrees inside the virtual game, they can be rotated 360 degrees with the physical chair they are on, or 90 degrees in the opposite direction, and they wouldn’t notice that the physical rotation doesn’t match the virtual one. Most of the time, they will feel a coherent physical and virtual movement.
I underline that we are talking about passive experiences and not active ones (so it is not the user triggering the movement). But this trick can be very useful inside arcades or other out-of-home experiences to increase the sense of realism perceived by the user.
A new study reveals the importance of VR for education
A new study by the Students at Arizona State University and Dreamscape highlights once more how Virtual Reality can make learning more interesting and more effective. I’ve found it interesting that not only were the grades of the students using VR higher, but their retention in the course was also higher, showing that VR fostered in them the passion for the subject of study.
The article contains various interesting numbers that you can use in your PowerPoint presentations about XR, so I’m linking it for you below.
XRCC is back
XRCC (XR Creator Con), the best-organized hackathon I’ve ever been to, is back. It will be held again in Berlin from the 25th to the 29th of June. I will be there as a mentor: if you are looking for a cool hackathon to be part of, and hopefully win some nice prizes, I suggest you have a look at it!
There is a new trailer for “Star Wars: Beyond Victory”
We could finally discover more about “Star Wars: Beyond Victory”, the new upcoming Star Wars game developed by ILM. The game should feature a VR/MR combination story mode following podracer ‘Volo’, an arcade mode that brings mini-podracing to a mixed reality holotable, and a ‘playset’ that lets you decorate a physical environment in mixed reality with a collection of unlockable virtual action figures and vehicles.
It seems cool, but there is a thing I’m not a huge fan of. From the trailer, it seems that the podracing is happening in mixed reality, which makes little sense, because a race like that is ideal in virtual reality, so you really feel inside the game. I have the suspicion that MR has been abused because Meta paid ILM to have a game that gives value to the mixed reality of the Quest 3 series, and so MR has been used also where it is not a fit.
More info (Star Wars: Beyond Victory — Road To VR)
More info (Star Wars: Beyond Victory — Upload VR)
A new sale is live on the Meta Horizon Store
Meta is running a new sale on the Meta Horizon Store, with -50% discounts on cool games like the latest one on Alien! It is a good time to buy VR games…
Some news about content
- Tunnels, the underground horror exploration game, will arrive on Quest on May 15
- The developers behind Real VR Fishing created an early access Fishing Haven on Apple Vision Pro, which makes extensive use of hand tracking
- The flatscreen version of Among US will launch next month. It will feature cross-play with the VR version
- Wonder is a new exploration app that aims to “bring magic and tranquility into your everyday spaces” through mixed reality. It is expected to launch this spring for $3.99
- Synth Riders introduces ‘Challenges+’, where alien invaders try to ruin your high scores
- XR indie Flip Axis Studios announced “Virtual Skate”, a multiplayer VR skateboarding game that promises to bring actual skating action to Quest 3 and SteamVR
- A free mod brings “GTA: San Andreas — The Definitive Edition” to PC VR headsets
- Lost and Found is a short interactive VR experience that reflects on loss and our mental health
- The Titanic VR experience, made by the team behind Engage XR, is now available in Early Access on Quest 3 & Quest 3S standalone
- Peak Rhythm aims to mix climbing with a VR music game. Created by Zeitlos Interactive, it lets you ascend across vertical routes “on the backs of [your] mechs in sync with the music”
- Atari and Jeff Minter’s remake of classic arcade shooter I, Robot is now available on PlayStation VR2 for $14.99
- Mixed reality city builder Wall Town Wonders is being adapted for VR. It basically features a virtual room where you can play the game as in the MR edition
- Eggy, a new dragon-raising mixed reality pet simulator, is now available on Quest 3 and 3S for €5
- Those from Below is an interactive VR documentary-style game that explores the tragic Marcinelle mining disaster, where many miners lost their lives (the majority of them were Italian)
- Ito Meikyū takes you through a VR digital labyrinth inspired by Japanese art history and literature
- Starship Drift is a simple game on Apple Vision Pro that lets you dodge asteroids with your spaceship by just using simple movements of your hands
More info (Tunnels)
More info (Fishing Haven)
More info (Among Us)
More info (Wonder)
More info (Synth Riders)
More info (Virtual Skate)
More info (GTA mod)
More info (Lost And Found)
More info (Titanic VR Experience)
More info (Peak Rhythm)
More info (I, Robot)
More info (Wall Town Wonders)
More info (Eggy)
More info (Those From Below)
More info (Ito Meikyu)
More info (Starship Drift)
Some reviews about content
- Civilization VII VR keeps getting negative reviews. Upload VR defined it as just a “good enough proof of concept” and gave it 2 stars out of 5. Apart from the performance issues, it seems the game is not well designed to be meaningful in XR
- Gorn 2 is not a revolutionary sequel, but it brings a nice refresh over the very successful gameplay of the previous edition
- Rival Stars Horse Racing: VR Edition is a nice game that lets you manage horses and run with them, but some critical flaws prevent you from enjoying it
More info (Civilization VII VR)
More info (Gorn 2)
More info (Rival Stars Horse Racing)
Other news
Sony has increased the price of the PS5 console in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand
Resident Evil 4 Remake has nearly reached 200K VR players on PlayStation VR2
Niantic laid off 68 employees after the recent acquisition
It is now available the video of Google showcasing its smartglasses with HUD at a TED conference
Pimax invested in the game Le Mans Ultimate, saving it. This confirms its strategic positioning in sim and racing games
(Thanks Rob Cole for the tip)
Avi Bar-Zeev talked about the Apple Vision Pro in a recent interview with Gabriele Romagnoli
You can now stream Xbox games from your console directly to your Quest through Remote Play
News from partners (and friends)
BEATABLE giveaway!
BEATABLE is a new rhythm game by XR Games that makes genius use of hand tracking. You have to use your hands to follow the notes of the songs (a la Guitar Hero), and to do that, you have to tap your hands on the table. The table acts as haptic feedback for the hands, making the game more immersive. I tried a preview of it and found it pretty cool.
You can get the game from the Quest store using the link below, but if you are fast enough, you can use one of the two below keys and get the game for free! (Other keys will be shared through my Patreon account):
EK7CT-G33JK-YFAPF-R6FE4-CTGNA
RGWX6-F7ENK-FJE4Q-3R9TQ-KQNPJ
Have fun with Beatable!
Get the game on the Quest Store
Sponsored Area
Phygtl Is Hiring!
Who We Are
A Silicon Valley-Based Startup on a mission to transform digital engagement from the ground-up by merging the physical and the digital world. A Creator Platform for next-gen to ‘Socialize.’ With former leaders from Amazon, Riot, Ubisoft, Samsung, and a strong Advisory Board from Nike, Lego, Coca-Cola, and Mastercard, led by a serial-entrepreneur with 2 exits, UC Berkeley Faculty, 2x Author, we are handpicking brilliant minds and devoted souls like you to join the team.
Who Are We Looking For
Unity Developers (both Junior and Senior levels)
Join our Unity team and be at the forefront of innovation in the global mobile-AR industry. If you’re passionate about fine-tuning Unity components and creating groundbreaking AR experiences, we want you to be a part of our team, shaping the future of engagement.
Contact me and I’ll forward your CV to the team!
Some XR fun
Modern problems require modern solutions
Funny link
I tried to understand OpenAI namings and I got a huge headache…
Funny link
When Deckard will be revealed we will be so used to the “Deckard” codenamed that we will have a little shock…
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
- Terry xR. Schussler
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Paolo Leoncini
- Immersive.international
- Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
- Jake Rubin
- Alexis Huille
- Raghu Bathina
- Chris Koomen
- Cognitive3D
- Wisear (Yacine Achiakh)
- Masterpiece X
- Dimo Pepelyashev
- Carol Dalrymple
- Keith Bradner
- Jennifer Granger
- Jason Moore
- Steve Biggs
- 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
- Christopher Boyd
- Anonymous Supporter
- Giuseppe Pippi
- Mark Frederiksen
- Sb
- Boule Petanque
- Pieter Siekerman
- Enrico Poli
- Vooiage Technologies
- Caroline
- Liam James O’Malley
- Hillary Charnas
- Wil Stevens
- Francesco Salizzoni
- Alan Smithson
- Steve R
- Brentwahn
- Michael Gaebler
- Tiago Silva
- Matt Cool
- Mark G
- Simplex
- Gregory F Gorsuch
- Paul Shay
- Matias Nassi
And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by Kosutami)