Happy Lunar New Year everyone! May the year of the snake bring you joy, happiness, money, success, love, and a lot of XR headsets! And if you are someone that celebrates this festivity, I wish you to spend some quality time with the people you love… and eat a lot of food 🙂
I’m literally swamped with work these days, so this newsletter is coming a bit later and a bit shorter than usual… but it still contains everything you need to know about these days in XR!
Top news of the week
Google acquires HTC Vive engineers for $250M
Completely out of the blue (at least from our eyes), Google decided to acquire some XR-related engineers from HTC Vive (together with a non-exclusive license on some HTC IP) for the whopping amount of $250M. The details on the operation are very thin, and Google just commented that it plans to use these new employees to “accelerate the development of the Android XR platform across the headsets and glasses ecosystem”. Thanks to this acquisition, Google can exploit the big expertise that HTC engineers have in XR and develop its products faster. It is not clear if the engineers are to develop Android XR or to make a Google headset (a Pixel headset), but if I had to bet, I would do that on the first option.
This is not the first time Google has acquired HTC talents: around the end of 2017, it already acquired the design team for circa $1.1M. This shows that there is some sort of collaboration ongoing between the two companies.
This huge acquisition seems to show the commitment of Google to pursuing its XR efforts with Android XR. Google also stated to Road To VR that this time VR won’t go to the infamous Graveyard. The problem with big companies is that they are big and complex machines whose main goal is making money: any promise they make is worth nothing. If in the future the conditions may change, they may close the XR projects to invest more money in a more profitable sector without even being much sorry. But it’s important to notice that at least at the current moment, immersive realities are an important goal for Google and this makes me happy (but still cautious).
But while all the eyes are on Google, there is also another important question that pops into my mind: what does this mean for HTC? I mean, if Google spent $250M, it must have acquired a good chunk of senior engineers that HTC is so losing. Does this mean that HTC is pivoting to another business (e.g. building headsets for others instead of releasing its own)? Or is it going to release fewer headsets? We don’t know… I’m curious to see what will be the next steps for this company that once was the market leader for VR.
More info (Google acquires HTC engineers — Road To VR)
More info (Google acquires HTC engineers — Upload VR)
More info (Google wants to commit to XR)
Other relevant news
Meta is working on multiple smartglasses
The success of Ray-Ban Meta glasses has made Meta bet more on this type of device. And a new report by Mark Gurman hints at what can be the next steps in this direction.
Meta is allegedly working with EssilorLuxottica to release this year to release new smartglasses under the Oakley brand. The Oakley glasses would have the camera in the center and be intended for “cyclists and other athletes”. Oakley glass won’t feature a display, but only speakers.
But there is another higher-end model of smartglasses that Meta is working on, and it should include a small display for showcasing notifications. The report makes mention of touch-sensitive frames or wrist strap controls as input methods, the latter of which was shown off with Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype. These glasses are not intended for mainstream success, but more to succeed in a niche of prosumers: their expected price is around $1000.
Meta is not forgetting the original Ray-Ban Meta, though. It is already planning some cool commercials featuring famous Hollywood actors for the Superbowl.
Regarding Orion, Meta plans to give these glasses to more developers in 2026. But its commercialization is not planned: in 2027, the company should release a much cheaper model, codenamed Artemis, which is also rumored to have less impressive specifications.
It’s good to see Meta working on all possible sides of XR with product lines in VR/MR, smartglasses, and AR.
More info (Meta’s new smartglasses in the works — Road To VR)
More info (Meta’s new smartglasses in the works — Upload VR)
More info (Superbowl ad about Ray-Ban Meta)
More info (Orion glasses given to developers in 2027)
More info (Original report on Bloomberg)
Meta is still working on a successor to the Quest Pro
According to Mark Gurman, Meta is “working on Quest 4 VR goggles, as well as a new high-end model that could eventually become a successor to the Quest Pro mixed-reality headset”. This high-end model may be the “Puffin” headset that was leaked some weeks ago, which consists of lighweight MR glasses connected to an external battery.
While the Quest Pro was a big flop, it makes sense that Meta is also working on a high-end version of its headsets. With all the other brands working on expensive devices (e.g. Vision Pro, Project Moohan), Meta must be competitive in that market, too. Let’s remember that the big reason why the Quest Pro flopped was not only that it was expensive, but especially that it was a rushed product with lots of flaws. A well-made Quest Pro 2 may find its space in the enterprise sector.
Samsung and Google are showing a bit more of Moohan
Many people were expecting big XR news from the Samsung Unpacked event, like the announcement of AR glasses, but nothing like this happened. There were anyway a couple of things worth mentioning.
The first one is that Google and Samsung have shown a better integration of Gemini AI also on Samsung phones. This shows that the deep integration of AI into the headset may not be something unique to Moohan, but may happen to all Samsung devices soon.
The second one is that the headset was actually exposed for everyone to watch at the event. Demos were only behind closed doors, but people could have a better look at the device. And Marques Brownlee, the famous YouTuber, could publish a first hands-on this device. Even if he could say nothing that we already didn’t know, he let us have a better look at the headset (which is clearly inspired by the Vision Pro) and the internal operating system (which is clearly inspired by VisionOS). This means that slowly Samsung and Google are letting us know more about this headset.
More info (Project Moohan shown at Samsung Unpacked)
More info (MKBHD trying Project Moohan)
More info (Samsung phones are getting better AI integration)
News worth a mention
Meta explains what bricked Quest headsets at Christmas
Mark Rabkin, Meta Vice President of VR/MR, briefly explained why a good number of headsets got bricked during the Holiday season. And he had a good reason to explain it: because it was not Meta’s fault. The bug was in Android Open Source Project (AOSP, the version of Android upon which the various OEMs build their own OSes): a “rare race condition in AOSP R/W ext4 filesystem that corrupts files + a key security patch that prevents OS rollback”. Race conditions are a very nasty type of bug: they are hard to find, hard to replicate, hard to fix, so I feel the pain of Meta’s engineers. Meta anyway managed to find the bug and fix it, and also informed Google about it, so it could be solved in AOSP directly.
CM Games grossed $3M with Into The Radius 2
CM Games is showing impressive stats with its game Into The Radius: the original game has sold 800K units across all platforms, while the new one, currently only available in Early Access and only on Steam, has already reached $3M in revenues. The key to the success of this game is that it is being built together with the community, and in particular the Steam community, which is always willing to help developers in refining their games. CM Games CEO Vlad Rannik explained very well that while Quest is the biggest market, Steam is the place where you can have an early community that can help you shape an early access game… that after the polishes is launched on Quest.
More info (800K sales of Into The Radius)
More info ($3M grossed by Into The Radius 2)
CREAL has further miniaturized its lightfield engine
CREAL, one of the best startups out there building a lightfield display, has showed the new result of its work: its new version of the lightfield engine is so small that almost fits standard glasses. Thanks to this new technology, lightfields, which make AR objects appear more realistic, are closer than ever to fit into wearable devices. 6–7 years ago, CREAL technology was enclosed in a huge box: it’s impressive it has been miniaturized this way.
Quest 3 may get automatic room scanning
The usual Luna reported that Meta is working in reducing one big point of friction of mixed reality: room scanning. Currently, to do MR in your room with a Quest, you need to preventively scan your space, and that scan you do is static, so if you change your room layout (e.g. you move a chair), you need to re-scan it. This creates a lot of friction, so it seems that Meta is working towards making this scan procedure automatic, with also automatic updates to fit the real layout of your room at any time. This is great news!
A video about our future with AI agents
The genius that answers to the name of Keiichi Matsuda has made a short video with Niantic about how could be our future with augmented reality and AI agents always on. It’s a cute video and, as usual with Keiichi’s work, also very inspiring, so I suggest you have a look a it.
Some news about content
- Firtness Fables is an interesting mashup of fantasy action gameplay with VR fitness mechanics. It is launching on Quest on January 30th for $12
- FlatVR Studios says that FlatOut VR should take “some of the best things” from each FlatOut game out there
- Kung-Fu inspired VR fighting game “Path of Fury — Episode I: Tetsuo’s Tower” is coming to Quest on March 12
- Elsewhere Electric is a co-op puzzle game coming to Quest and PC VR, where one player explores the world in VR while the other joins in on mobile. It is coming in the spring/summer of this year
- The Smurfs — Flower Defense brings the iconic series to Quest 3 this May with a VR and mixed-reality tower defense game
- Now you can play Crysis in VR thanks to a mod. So when looking at your headset, if someone asks you “Can it run Crysis?” you can finally answer “Yes, sir”!
More info (Fitness Fables)
More info (FlatOut VR)
More info (Path of Fury — Episode I: Tetsuo’s Tower)
More info (Elsewhere Electric)
More info (The Smurfs — Flower Defense)
More info (Crysis)
Other news
According to a survey by a GDC, 35% of game developers are somehow also working with XR
Students and teachers can now get Snap Spectacles for half of the price
Vrgamerdude has gone hands-on with the neural bracelet Mudra Link
The new Apple store in Miami has a dedicated area for Vision Pro
Gabriele Romagnoli has made a very interesting analysis of all the MR apps of the Horizon Store
CaddieVision are AI-powered AR glasses that assist you when you play golf
News from partners (and friends)
SkyClimb multiplayer mode is now free
Indie game studio VRMonkey has made the multiplayer mode of SkyClimb free for everyone. Skyclimb is a platform adventure that features an arm-based locomotion a la Gorilla Tag. It has good reviews on Quest, so feel free to try it!
Learn more and try the game
Some XR fun
Being a parent of a VR son can be tricky at times…
Funny link
This is crazy: you can play DOOM inside a PDF file!
Funny link
The best upgrade to your VR experience may not even be a tech VR gadget…
Funny link
The dangers of VR sexy times…
Funny link
A good reason to clear your room
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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- 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
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