The XR Week Peek (2023.12.11): Upload VR Showcase, Metaverse Safety Week, and much more!
Christmas is getting closer, but I have still to buy a lot of gifts, to be honest. Is there a gift you VR people would like to have from me? If it is so, please let me know this by answering this post! For now, the best gift that I can give to you is telling you what have been the best pieces of news of the week in XR…
Top news of the week
Upload had its usual cool gaming showcase
Upload, with the sponsorship of Perp Games, has just had its usual Winter Gaming Showcase. It has been the occasion to promote XR games, both big and small, and to show the world that many things are happening in the XR space. This Showcase was composed of more than 70 videos, so it has been packed with many interesting pieces of news.
I have to warn you that no announcement has been mindblowing, so if you were expecting a new Half-Life: Alyx to be shown there, you would probably be disappointed. But usually, the Upload VR Showcase is never the place where such kinds of games are announced. Anyway, there has been some cool news, like a new trailer for Wallace & Gromit, the announcement of the open beta of Final Fury, the launch trailer of the hyper-cute kitten games Neko Atsume, or even the announcement of Zero Caliber 2. I’ve selected some pieces of news I’ve personally found interesting and put the links here below, but I suggest you skim through the article with all the announcements because maybe we have different gaming tastes.
It’s also cool that Humble Bundle has partnered with Upload to release a VR-specific bundle of games on the occasion of the showcase. This way, you can enjoy together VR news and VR games. Great job, Upload friends!
More info (Everything announced at the Upload Winter Showcase)
More info (Humble Bundle + Upload VR bundle)
More info (Wallace and Gromit trailer)
More info (Final Fury goes open beta)
More info (Release date for The Pirate Queen)
More info (Gameplay Trailer of LEGO Bricktales)
More info (New trailer for Brazen Blaze)
More info (Vestiges: Fallen Tribes is the new game by Wanadev)
More info (Neko Atsume trailer and release date)
More info (Zero Caliber 2 announcement)
Other relevant news
The (industrial) metaverse is still the future
The positive piece of news of the week is that I started seeing some positive articles about the “metaverse” again. Yes, for many it is still dead, but actually, some people are still insisting on its value, and that’s good news because these articles crack the common bad consensus about the M-word.
The first good sign was when in Helsinki I saw that Finland has now a long-term metaverse strategy, which means that it is going to pour money into its XR ecosystem for the next 10 years at least. Its interest is especially in the industrial, healthcare, and remote gatherings fields.
Then I found a post in which car manufacturer Renault claimed that “In 2023, the Metaverse has generated savings of €270 million”. Digging more into details, I discovered that “metaverse” here is used kinda improperly because, with that word, it is meant “deployment of predictive maintenance on installations”, which is actually a mix of AI and digital twin for predictions and AR for visualization of maintenance information. But still, according to Renault, metaverse technologies brought it an advantage.
The third piece is a long article about Jensen Huang and how he led NVIDIA to be one of the leading tech companies in the world. A few years ago, Mr. Huang made a bet on artificial intelligence, and now that choice is paying off, because NVIDIA is the provider of the supercomputers of all the major AI companies out there. When asked what is the next bet that will pay off in the long term, he answered without any doubt “Omniverse”, which is NVIDIA’s foundation for its “industrial metaverse”.
So it seems that the metaverse, at least the industrial one, is still an active field of work, and could be the next big thing to bet on according to one of the most powerful CEOs out there. Not bad for a dead technology.
More info (Finnish metaverse strategy)
More info (Renault saved money because of the metaverse)
More info (The story of NVIDIA and Jensen Huang)
Metaverse Safety Week has started
XRSI has kicked off Metaverse Safety Week, its annual event in which it tries to foster meaningful discussions about privacy and safety in the metaverse. It is not the event where the latest game is announced, but it is one in which we can hope that policymakers and XR companies can meet and start working together for a healthier immersive future. I know it’s hard, but I still hope it happens.
The event is hosted online and it is open for everyone to join for free.
More info (Official website)
More info (My interview with the founder of XRSI)
News worth a mention
VRChat paid subscriptions are now officially available
VRChat paid subscriptions are now out of beta and are officially available in the application. All users will now be able to buy paid subscriptions, but still, only a subset of creators will be able to offer them. VRChat will roll out the feature to more creators in the next weeks. This is a very important piece of news because it will enable many creators to make a living out of VRChat, which is definitely a good thing.
Meta has shown the render of Mirror Lake
Meta Reality Labs shared a few months a glimpse of the research work that Meta is doing, and among all this info, there was the mention of Mirror Lake, a pair of XR glasses that incorporate all the latest advancements in optics. Now Meta has shared a 3D render of it and everyone got excited about it. Now, not to be the usual balloon popper, but it is like if I shared a render of Scarlett Johansson with my friends and they would get excited as if she was already my girlfriend. It makes no sense. I can make a render also of the time machine, but this doesn’t mean it is getting real soon…
Happy Anniversary, Pimax!
Pimax is celebrating 8 years since the launch of its first headset. Happy anniversary to the company and to all its employees! Pimax has for sure the merit of having brought wide FOV to the consumer VR market and we should praise it for that. Then there have been issues of various kinds, but it is its anniversary, so let’s not talk about it today 😛
Some reviews about XR devices
Two interesting reviews of XR devices have come out this week and you can read them when you need to fall asleep.
The first one is a long and detailed review of the new Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses by XR analyst Anshel Sag. He praises the new device, underlining how it is great both for shooting photos and having phone calls. It seems that Meta came out with a quite polished product this time.
The second one is my personal hands-on preview of the Varjo XR-4. I think this is a solid device for enterprise users, and the 4Kx4K display resolution, especially when paired with ray-traced applications, can offer astonishing visuals.
More info (Ray-Ban Meta review)
More info (Varjo XR-4 preview)
Discover fashion in the digital worlds
An interesting article in Vogue speaks about the new fashion trends in virtual worlds. There are people whose job is to curate the creation of clothes in the metaverse and they make also pretty decent money out of it. The interesting characteristic of designing a dress for the metaverse is that you can do whatever you want because you do not have to follow the rules of the physical world, so you can use your full imagination.
You can do full body tracking in VR using your phone
A guy published on YouTube a guide on how to use a body-tracking algorithm (based on Google MediaPipe) running on the phone to trigger full body movements in VRChat. This way every user can have decent full body tracking without having to buy external hardware and without having to wear anything. Of course, it is not as accurate as using Vive Trackers, but it still looks like an interesting solution.
Quest outperformed AirPods on Amazon
It seems that on Black Friday, Quest sales were superior to AirPods ones on Amazon in certain countries. It is a just very small win because it is about a specific day in a specific store, and of course, the total number of sold AirPods is incredibly superior to the number of Quests, but it is still a positive sign.
Quest v60 runtime brings a bunch of updates
The new version of the Quest runtime, version 60, is bringing to the platform a few interesting updates, like for instance:
- Improved capability of remembering the Guardian boundaries of different rooms
- Improved performances of Mixed Reality apps on Quest Pro
- Three new Home environments
- Built-in measuring app (called Layout) to measure the size of objects around you in mixed reality
- Ability to see which apps you have in common with other users when browsing for potential friends
This and other features will improve the experience for all of us Quest users! It is impressive the pace at which Quest has its updates…
Reject humanity. Return to Cheetah
If returning to monke for you is not enough anymore, you can now also return to Cheetah. Icaros, the company producing a system that can make you feel as if you were flying, has now created another system through which you can simulate that you are running like a cheetah. It’s for sure effective as training, but from the outside it looks a bit… weird 😛
More info (Official website)
More info (Video of the system in use)
Mice have a better headset than me
Some studies about the effects of virtual reality are done on mice, for which little simulation rooms are created. Now a group of researchers has created a new improved VR system for mice, featuring two big lenses that offer stereoscopy and a compound FOV of 180°. This system emulates better the VR devices used by us humans, so makes sure that the results of the experiments on mice are more similar to the expected ones on humans.
So, from now on, mice can have a VR system with better visuals than mine…
Some news on content
- Jonathan Blow, the creator of the indie hit Braid, has started working on a roomscale VR game where the user is constantly requested to move
- Arashi: Castles of Sin — Final Cut has been released on the main VR platforms
- Beat Saber has got an update implementing 120Hz and OST 6
- The creators behind Thumper are building a VR game called Thrasher, that features pretty unique visuals
More info (Jonathan Blow’s new game)
More info (Arashi)
More info (Beat Saber)
More info (Thrasher)
Some reviews of content
- Lego Bricktales is an enjoyable experience for both children and grown-ups. It presents well-designed puzzles and plenty of light adventuring opportunities
- Arizona Sunshine 2 is a very well-crafted sequel to a VR hit. It doubles down on what was good in the previous game and it adds also some novelty, like the doggo companion Buddy that is with you all the time and with whom you develop a bond
- A preview of the game Asgard’s Wrath 2 shows how it is huge and well crafted, but it also still has some bugs here and there (e.g. in the locomotion vignette management)
More info (Lego bricktales)
More info (Arizona Sunshine 2)
More info (Asgard’s Wrath 2)
Other news
The Looking Glass has unveiled a new portable affordable holographic device, Looking Glass Go, for $199
Steampunk-looking headset Shiftall MeganeX is not coming to the US before 2024
Horizon Worlds introduces member-only worlds
Resident Evil Village wins best AR/VR at the The Game Awards 2023
Project Mule is a gunstock prototype to deliver realistic recoil in VR
Fortnite had its finale event featuring a concert by Eminem, which was not that special and also kinda short. But it’s relevant that Fortnite is releasing a survival game made together with Lego
Learn more (Fortnite Lego)
Learn more (Catherine Henry’s comment on the Eminem concert)
Learn more (Full video of the Eminem concert)
News from partners (and friends)
Wisor is a new opensource headset
Wisor is a new headset that is totally open source. The idea of the creator is to offer a headset whose components cost less than $250 and that people can build autonomously if needed. The headset is fully standalone, but currently, it supports only 3DOF tracking. A very interesting project that can be appealing for universities, or to introduce XR in emerging countries.
Learn more (Announcement LinkedIn post)
Learn more (Official website)
Just Hoops has now a mixed reality mode
One of my favorite VR sport games, Just Hoops, has now a mixed reality mode! With Just Hoops you can play basketball-inspired games using only your bare hands, and with this new mixed reality mode you bring the basketball court into your home!
Learn more (Watch the trailer)
Get Gibby’s Guide!
Every year, Gibby’s Guide provides introductory books for people who have just bought a headset and want to discover how to exploit it at its maximum. Now a new guide related to Quest 2 and Quest 3 has just been released, so check it out!
Learn more
Some XR fun
This should be a serious prediction, but it such a nonsense that it is a joke…
Funny link
I’ve heard you like big hands…
Funny link
10 years, or even less…
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 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
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And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
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