The XR Week Peek (2023.07.18): Roblox is coming to Quest, Google has an unclear XR vision, and more!
It is summer and usually nothing relevant in tech happens in this period, but actually, there have been quite a few relevant pieces of XR news this week. So, while I’m melting like Terminator in the hot lava (sorry for the spoiler of Terminator 2, but if you haven’t watched the movie yet, you deserve it), here I am summarizing these topics for you, so you are sure to not lose the most important things that have happened in XR!
Top news of the week
Roblox is coming to Meta Quest
We already heard a few rumors about Roblox possibly coming to Meta Quest, but now it is official: Meta itself has stated that the popular gaming universe is coming as a beta to Meta Quest App Lab in the coming weeks, before being released to the official Meta Quest Store when it will be ready.
Roblox features around 15M experiences on its platform, and some of them are already VR-compatible because Roblox already supports VR on PC (and the support is also improving with the recent adoption of OpenXR). But for Quest, Roblox plans to do even more and make some of the flat experiences compatible out of the box for VR. As stated in the official announcement post, “We have found that experiences that use default player scripts typically run well in VR without modifications”. This means that Roblox users on Quest may find from day 1 an insane amount of experiences they can try.
I find this news simply fantastic. Roblox has 66M users, and the fact that some of them may buy a VR headset to try their worlds in an immersive way can only be positive for the sales of Quest and VR in general. I’m pretty sure that Meta knows it and the fact that they recently lowered the consented age to use a Quest from 13 to 10 years old is surely due to the fact that many Roblox users are preteens. Meta is preparing itself for a great holiday season, with a new device, and some compelling experiences for young people like Roblox.
For the existing applications on the stores, including Meta’s Horizon Worlds, Roblox arriving in the ecosystem is a double-edged sword, though. On one side, Roblox is going to bring fresh new users to the platform, and everyone will benefit from it. On the other side, Roblox will attract many young users to use it, and if these users have all their friends on Roblox, they won’t be much interested in trying the other platforms. Not to mention that many adults find young users annoying, so having many new preteen users on the Quest platform may make some older people angry. And may also increase the scrutiny level on the Quest platform by the American authorities, because Meta/Facebook has not a reliable history of management of users’ data, you know… and when kids are involved, people become very sensitive.
At the end of the day, I’m very happy to hear that Roblox is coming to Quest, and I can’t wait to see how this will affect the sales of Quest headsets and also their customer retention.
More info (Roblox is coming to Quest — Road To VR)
More info (Roblox is coming to Quest — Upload VR)
More info (Roblox on Quest may increase scrutiny on the platform)
Other relevant news
Mark Lucovsky has left Google
Mark Lucovsky has just left Google. Before you can say “Who the hell is even that” let me tell you that he was tasked to develop Google’s new XR operating system. Lucovsky was before working on a similar effort at Meta, where he was developing an operating system for AR glasses, but he left after one of the many scandals of that company.
Lucovsky, who is a veteran in operating systems development (he’s one of the developers of Windows NT!) left Google because of “the recent changes in AR leadership and Google’s unstable commitment and vision”. I think this statement is very telling about the problems that Google is having with XR. After Google killed its internal XR glasses project, we all thought that now the company was focused on building an Android XR operating system for MR headsets and a “Micro XR” OS for AR glasses. But if Mr. Lucovsky is abandoning the ship saying that Google has an unstable commitment and vision, it means that at Google the situation about what to do with XR is very confusing. So I wouldn’t consider as certain anything that the company is working on. Regarding the “recent changes in AR leadership”, Mr. Lucovsky is clearly hinting at the departure of Clay Bavor, which was a very esteemed person in the XR community.
It’s not clear if and how Google will continue developing its own Android operating system for XR also without Mark Lucovsky, but for sure this news doesn’t shed a positive light on the Google XR ecosystem.
iVRy makes the PSVR2 work with SteamVR!
In the end, he did it. iVRy has managed to find a way to connect a PSVR 2 to a PC (using a special mini-PC as an adapter between the two) and have the headset working inside SteamVR with full rotational and positional tracking! The positional tracking uses the IMU of the device, so it is fast and reliable, like on PS5. Now the next step is making also the controllers work with a PC.
This is an astonishing result. Just a few months ago, the same guy was saying that probably we would have needed years before seeing a PSVR 2 working with a PC, and instead here we are, seeing this happening just after a few weeks! Kudos to him.
More info (iVRy makes PSVR tracking work on PC)
More info (IMU is now supported by the tracking)
The European Union announces a strategy to lead on virtual worlds and Web 4.0
The European Union has issued a press release to state that it is going to focus on the next technological transition that will lead to the creation of Web 4.0 and the metaverse (even if this word is not mentioned in the document). The EU stated that it wants to be a leader in this transition and “ensure an open, secure, trustworthy, fair and inclusive digital environment for EU citizens, businesses and public administrations.”
This strategy is focused on four pillars:
- Empowering people and reinforcing skills to foster awareness, access to trustworthy information and build a talent pool of virtual world specialists.
- Business: supporting a European Web 4.0 industrial ecosystem to scale up excellence and address fragmentation.
- Government: supporting societal progress and virtual public services to leverage the opportunities virtual worlds can offer.
- Shaping global standards for open and interoperable virtual worlds and Web 4.0, ensuring that they will not be dominated by a few big players.
This strategy will be carried on by providing funds and facilities, fostering collaborations, and issuing policies.
I’ve found this statement interesting for a few reasons:
- Europe wants to be a leader in this transition, and so fight the usual tech domination by US and China. While as a European I would love that, I honestly think we still lack a proper infrastructure to be worldwide leaders in technology. But it is good to see that we are doing steps forward in this sense
- The EU will provide funds and support to European companies, which is going to have a positive effect on all the XR startups located here.
- The EU wants to focus on interoperability, which is one of the main topics that can enable the metaverse
- The EU wants to foster collaborations between European companies, which is of course necessary to create a healthy European XR ecosystem
- The EU wants to avoid a few players to dominate the market. An EU spokesperson said that for now there is not an immediate danger for monopolies, but some policies are needed to prevent it from happening
I’m quite happy about this news because I’m sure that as an Italian I will be able to see the positive effects of this decision in the coming years. But at the same time, I’m also starting to get a bit pissed off by all the parts of the world that compete with each other 😐
Plus I’m still wondering… if we still don’t know what is Web 3.0… how can Europe dominate Web 4.0???
More info (EU announces strategy for Virtual Worlds and 4.0)
More info (EU antitrust chief doesn’t see immediate risks in XR yet)
OpenAI’s GPT 4 is finally available
OpenAI has finally made GPT 4 generally available for everyone. This is not strictly an XR-related news, but OpenAI services are so widely used that I’m sure that many XR developers will be happy that they can finally use this new AI model, which is much better than the previous one. I made an experiment with AI and MR myself, too, and I could see the potential of the intersection between these two technologies. I hope this release can bring some new interesting XR+AI projects come to life.
News worth a mention
Meta CTO talks about the Quest 3 launch
Andrew Bosworth has spoken about the launch of the Quest 3, stating that actually, Meta has not changed its plans for the launch because of the upcoming announcement of the Apple Vision Pro. He said that Meta already planned to announce the device in June because they noticed that launching in September is too late because “people have already made buying decisions in the summertime”. I honestly can’t believe that totally by chance this announcement came a few days before Vision Pro’s one… maybe they already decided to announce something during the summer, but then they tweaked the dates when they saw when WWDC was going to happen.
In the same session, Boz confirmed that the battery of the Quest 3 will have more or less the same duration as the Quest 2 one.
More info (Boz on the Quest 3 announcement)
More info (Quest 3 battery life)
Meta introduces “Super Resolution” for Quest
Meta has just introduced a new feature for Quest applications, called “Super Resolution”. “Super Resolution” is an upscaling technique useful to bring the app visuals to the same resolution as the device, built upon Snapdragon Game Super Resolution. This algorithm is much better than the standard one because it makes the upscaled image sharper, but may have a bigger toll on the GPU, so it must be explicitly activated by the developer.
XPANCEO is a new company working on AR lenses
Mojo Vision has been one of the companies that I loved the most because it was working on such cyberpunk technology as AR contact lenses. Now the company has pivoted to microdisplays, but there are still other companies working on smart contact lenses. This week I discovered XPANCEO, which seems to have a similar mission of building smart lenses, but unluckily not the same advanced status of the project. Let’s see how this company will evolve…
More info (XPANCEO official website)
More info (XPANCEO on VRARA website)
The Vision Pro experiments on Quest Pro continue
Last week we saw people trying to recreate the Vision Pro interface on Quest Pro. This week the experiments on Quest Pro continue… I think we never saw people talking so much about the Quest Pro before the announcement of the Vision Pro…
The first experiment has been about someone making the Apple Vision Pro emulator work on Quest Pro. This allows for watching the Vision Pro emulator in stereoscopic VR, giving people the closest simulation possible of the Apple device.
But there’s more: a developer has re-created the EyeSight display of the Vision Pro putting an iPhone in front of the Quest Pro, and showing on the iPhone the eyes as tracked by the Quest Pro. The result is so cool that I invite you all to watch this video.
(Thanks Arun Prasath S for sharing this video)
More info (VisionOS emulator on Quest Pro)
More info (iPhone + Quest Pro = EyeSight)
Revenues of the Valve Index decline
According to Valve’s sale statistics, the revenues given by the sales of Valve Index headsets have plummeted this year. This is probably the mix of two factors. The first is that the headset starts being old after 4 years on the market: the community is now more interested in new devices like Bigscreen Beyond. The second is that now Valve is investing more in Steamdeck, which has proven to be a real goldmine for the company. I hope that this won’t lead to less commitment to VR by Valve…
Pico launches Pico Lab
Pico has just announced Pico Lab, which is like Quest App Lab, but offered by Pico. I love how they are shamelessly copying everything from Meta, without even trying to hide it.
This news is good and bad at the same time. It’s good because it means that Pico users will find more curated apps on the Pico store. It’s bad because Pico Lab risks being for indies as frustrating as App Lab, a place from where it is almost impossible to be promoted. Many indies preferred Pico because it was a more open platform where it was easier to publish their titles… and I hope this is not going to change.
OMA3 is working on portals to connect metaverse platforms
The Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3 announced a project to build standards to enable people to travel through the metaverse. The standard is called Inter-World Portaling System (IWPS) and its plan is to make it possible for people to travel from a Web3 platform to another one in a seamless way. This is great, but lurking on its GitHub repository, I’ve found that this project is still in the early stages and no standard has been built yet. But I hope this is going to happen relatively soon.
Praydog’s UEVR mod adds roomscale tracking
Praydog’s UEVR mod is an incredible project to let gamers automatically mod all games based on Unreal Engine to make them VR-compatible. The latest result obtained by the Praydog’s team is that now also room-scale is supported: you can so enter a flatscreen FPS game in VR, move your body, and see your character moving together with you. That is impressive. Thanks to this mod, PCVR people will automatically have a lot of games to play with.
(Thanks Alexander for the share!)
Vertigo 2 is coming to PSVR
Perp Games, a publisher specializing in games having physical copies, has just had its Showcase event where it announced a few interesting VR pieces of news. The most interesting of them by far is the upcoming porting of Vertigo 2 to PSVR 2, to be released this year. Vertigo 2 is one of the best PCVR games ever released, so this piece of news is great for all PSVR 2 users.
More info (All the announcements from the Perp Games Showcase event)
More info (Vertigo 2 is coming to PSVR 2)
Davigo has been one of the most played games on Steam Next Fest
The asymmetric VR game Davigo is one of the most awaited VR indie games. The game features David vs. Goliath-inspired combat gameplay, where a VR user is Goliath and one or more PC users are the Davids. Davigo ranked 25th across all games (not only VR ones) that participated with a free demo to the Steam Next Fest, and has been the only VR game in the top 50 list. It’s good to see a bit of hype around an indie VR game, and I can’t wait for it to be released.
Some news on content
- Meta has written a roundup post with all the Meta Quest releases of the week
- Eolia: Quena’s Requiem expands Eolia to become an 8-hour adventure
- Home is an African VR game mixing African culture and stealth mechanics. It is expected to be released on Steam in 2023
- AmazeVR has launched the AmazeVR Concerts application and a new performance by Zara Larsson
- “Operation Wolf Returns: First Mission VR” is the first foray of the classic arcade game Operation Wolf into VR
More info (Meta’s games roundup)
More info (Eolia: Quena’s Requiem)
More info (Home)
More info (AmazeVR Concerts)
More info (Operation Wolf)
Some reviews on content
- Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate provides an interesting finale to the saga
- PowerWash Simulator VR has almost feature parity with its non-VR counterpart, including the length, with 40 levels available at launch
- AmazeVR’s Zara Larsson concert is well-made and entertaining, but also shows some compromises the company had to take
More info (Dyschronia)
More info (PowerWash Simulator VR)
More info (AmazeVR)
Other news
Beat Saber is strongly the most sold title on PSVR 2
The Germany U17 soccer team has won the European Championship also thanks to VR training
Nofio is working on a wireless adapter for the Bigscreen Beyond
News from partners (and friends)
Synth Riders Celebrates 5th Anniversary
Happy Birthday Synth Riders! The very successful rhythm game is celebrating its 5th anniversary with Synthwave Essentials 3, a new pack with ten free songs for all its fans!
Learn more
Pop Quest Adventure
My Australian friend Jake D is working on a VR game whose summary is “Pop Quest Adventure is a Nintendo-inspired shooting adventure in VR. The world is made of balloons so you can pop everything!”. He announced the game on Reddit and opened a Discord server about it. If the summary intrigued you, feel free to follow its development!
Learn more
Some XR fun
I’ve made lots of errors in my career, but these guys releasing a video about sound design that is muted beats them all.
Funny link
Opening my email. Sumimasen what the f…
Funny link
Donate for good
Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate for my blog, but to the poor people that in Ukraine are facing the consequences of the war and the ones that in Italy have been victims of the flood. I will leave you the link to donate for these two causes 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
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- Paolo Leoncini
- Immersive.international
- Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
- Jake Rubin
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- Jan Schroeder
- Kai Curtis
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- Sikaar Keita
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- Horacio Torrendell
- Andrew Deutsch
- Fabien Benetou
- Tatiana Kartashova
- Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
- Eloi Gerard
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- Jeremy Dalton
- Joel Ward
- Alex P
- Lynn Eades
- Donald P
- Casie Lane
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- Qcreator
- Ristband (Anne McKinnon & Roman Rappak)
- Stephen Robnett
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- Sb
- Enrico Poli
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- Caroline
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- Brian Peiris
- Francesco Salizzoni
- Dimo Pepelyashev
- Alan Smithson
- Steve R
- Brentwahn
- Pieter Siekerman
- Matt Cool
- Simplex
- Gregory F Gorsuch
- Matias Nassi
And now here you are the links to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
Support the populations affected by the flood in Italy
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