It has come to that time of the year when I look back at what happened in the past months, and then I wish you the best for the Winter Holidays…
XR in 2025 and beyond
This year has been pretty weird for all of us in the XR field. There has been positive news, like the rise of smartglasses, which now have also displays like in the Meta Ray-Ban Display, or the Rayneo X3 Pro. We had very cool games like Deadpool VR, or Ghost Town, being released, with the hint of new ones, like the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, incoming. Google and Samsung launched a VR/MR headset together. We had Snap announcing the first consumer-oriented AR glasses coming next year. And Gaussian Splats have proven to be a game-changer in bringing objects, people, and environments in XR.
But we are also in a very confusing situation. Smartglasses are in hype, but they still have to prove their value, beyond being glasses with which you take photos. All of them show more or less the same demos and the same use cases (yeah, I got it, you can make translations…) and nothing more. VR is in the quicksands, and companies like Apple and Meta are refusing to release a new device soon, thinking that it wouldn’t change much the current landscape, so they are both postponing their devices to beyond 2027. Meta has just made its n-th pivot, and after having bet billions on VR and the “metaverse” Horizon Worlds, it is now cutting the funds to it, and going to double bet on smartglasses… at least until the next strategy change. The Quest Store is now just oriented to free games for kids, even if the market is not big enough to sustain many free-to-play games. I’ve spoken to many developers, and apart from a few lucky studios, many VR studios are struggling. Long story short: everyone is looking for money, even very talented people that I know. But finding money is becoming very hard.
This doesn’t mean that XR is not going to succeed, and we all need to find a new job (maybe in AI). But it means that we are going to be in harsh times for at least the next 18 months, at least for what concerns MR/VR. Smartglasses are a bet, and I guess we’ll see next year if this bet is going to pay off, or if it was just a temporary fluke. I still think the future is bright because all the big companies are now committed to XR, and because we all know the added value of these technologies. But we need to arrive at that future… which is always going to be in “5 to 10 years”, every year (This is one of the laws of the metaverse, after all…). It’s time to be in survival mode and exploit every opportunity that appears in front of our eyes.
Tony in 2025 and beyond
Talking about my life this year, it had its ups and downs. My working life has been taunted by the confusing moment of the XR field. I had some months where I managed to make great consultancies and have a good income, followed by other months where I would have earned more money asking coins at the traffic lights instead of developing XR applications. It’s been quite an emotional rollercoaster.
One of the highlights of this year has been all the trips I took around the world. I decided to invest part of my earnings to travel to events and increase my network. It has been a wonderful experience, that made me meet a lot of interesting new people; discover new places; discuss working opportunities; and also meet after so many years, some good virtual friends I had never met in real life. And yes, also eat a lot of food from around the world. It’s been tiring as hell, but it left me pretty happy about it. It let me see that there are amazingly talented people in all countries, and that even if we have different cultures, we all more or less share the same passion, the same dreams, and the same fears.
I will close this “world tour” similar to that of rockstars at the CES 2026 in Las Vegas. If you’ll be there, let me know, I can’t wait to have fun with you! After CES 26, I don’t know which events I’ll attend next year, but most probably I’ll travel less. Going to XR events is not financially sustainable: as I’ve already told you in the past, they are good for community, they are good for blogging, but it’s hard to find customers there. Customers are in non-XR-related events… at XR events, you can find partners or maybe some opportunities for grants (e.g., at United XR, there were some talks about European Grants for XR).
One of the special things about 2025 for me is that I’ve won some awards that made me pretty proud. Pico gave me the XR Spotlight Award, then at the Next Reality festival, I got an XRIAA award… both of them for my work in informing the community through my blog. It has been good to see 9 years of work on my website finally get some recognition. The XRIAA award is also the first physical award I’ve ever gotten, so something that I could finally put in my house! And then I’ve also managed to get an award (Best Use of Custom UI) with my team at VRROOM Studio for the crazy Million Pigeons Minion game we made in Horizon Worlds: it was a while I wasn’t participating at some hackathons, so participating and winning was special, also because it was about a platform we all had no experience before. On this side, it has been a year that left a smile on my face.
Talking about 2026, well, I expect it to be a bit tough on the working side for the reasons I told you above. But in all my years in this field, there have never been an “easy year”, so I’m not afraid to just work hard and fight another battle. And I don’t know why, but I have this feeling that next year something is going to change for me. Let’s see…
… ah, and 2026 will be the 10th year of my blog, and I would love to do something special for that occasion! Let’s prepare to celebrate!
Happy Holidays
I want to thank you all my readers for the usual support you give me. And a special thank to all of you that have done something for me this year, like sending me some interesting piece of news, or introducing me a person, or proposing me a collaboration, or writing an article for this blog (yeah Rob, you are in this category).
I want to wish you all happy holidays. If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you will spend it with the people you love. Here in Italy, it is the most important holiday of the year, so I’ll spend some time with my family, eating like if there is no tomorrow. And then happy new year everyone! I wish you 2026 will be a positive year in all the sectors of your life. I hope you will all be able to have at least one dream fulfilled. I wish you the best, Happy Holidays!
(Image modified with ChatGPT)