The XR Week Peek (2023.11.14): Quest Lite is coming to China, Samsung XR headset expected for 2024, and more!

Finally back to normal with these newsletters! Let’s dig into the most interesting pieces of news of this week!

Top news of the week

Meta and Tencent are bringing the Quest to China

According to the latest rumors, after one year of negotiation, finally, Meta and Tencent have found an agreement to bring the Quest to China. But it won’t be the Quest 3 to be distributed there, but a “cheaper version” of the VR headset, which may be the rumored $199 Quest 3 Lite device that many analysts are speculating will be released soon. Tencent should start selling the headset beginning in late 2024, with Meta getting most of the device revenue, while Tencent most of the content revenue.
 
 I think this can be an important moment: China is a huge market that Meta has never been able to enter properly and now, with this headset, it could finally be able to sell its units there. But let’s also remember that China is a very complicated market, and entering there means no guarantee of success: the previous partnership over the Oculus Go with Xiaomi brought no good results to the Palo Alto company…

More info (Tencent and Meta partner — Road To VR)
More info (Tencent and Meta partner — Upload VR)

Other relevant news

Samsung XR headset may come in H2 2024

There are new rumors about the headset that Samsung is building with Google and Qualcomm.
 
 According to the Korean outlet JoongAng (which we all read every day), Samsung headset is codenamed “Infinite” and will be announced at a Samsung Unpacked event happening in the second half of 2024. After that, the headset will be released in December of the same year. Samsung wants to produce initially only 30,000 units of the device, to gauge the interest of the community, and ramp up the production only if the first feedback is positive.
 
 I’m very curious to see what this will turn out to be. Samsung is one of the most important smartphone brands, and probably one of the few brands in the world that can try to compete with Apple. But this headset looks to me arriving a bit too late and already chasing the Vision Pro, so probably Apple will win the first round.

More info (Samung headset coming in 2024)
More info (Samsung may announce its device at an Unpacked event)

Pico commits to offering “top-notch services”

After the massive layoffs announced last week, the community is still wondering what will be the future of Pico. The situation doesn’t seem to get any better: Blitz Rhythm, which was Pico’s answer to Beat Saber, has just been shut down, and its developers laid off.
 
 But the company doesn’t seem to be closing any soon. Upload VR journalists asked Bytedance about Pico’s future and got back answers like “PICO will continue to operate normally and provide its users with top-notch services” and “PICO will continue to invest in hardware, core technologies, and enhance the user experience of current and new consumers”. These answers are pure fluff and mean basically nothing, but they at least clarify one thing: Pico is not shutting down, it is only restructuring. And also my sources confirm for now that the company is still up and running. It is not clear what will be the consequences of the restructuring on the consumer business, though.

More info (Bytedance’s answer about the future of Pico)
More info (Beat Saber clone on Pico just shut down)

Meta Horizon may have improved

While I was checking my social media accounts, a Reddit post claiming that Meta Horizon had become much better caught my attention, so I asked the community on X/Twitter if they agreed with this statement. My tweet sparked an interesting debate, and the common consensus seems to be that Meta Horizon has indeed improved. The latest content like Citadel and Super Rumble seems to be quite cool and people have started enjoying their time in Meta’s social world.
 
 I still don’t know if Meta Horizon will actually win the heart of the community (probably not), but it’s interesting that it is improving and that there are now people actually enjoying their time there. It looks like Meta solved most of the major issues. Let’s see how things will turn out to be… in the meanwhile, if you have the opportunity to try it again, give Horizon World a second chance, and please let me know if you liked it more this time.

More info (Reddit post claiming Horizon World is now cool)
More info (The debate that sparked from my X post)

News worth a mention

Spatial pivots toward social gaming

Spatial.io has pivoted again. In the beginning, it was a fantastic meeting application and then it pivoted to be a venue for NFT showcases, and now with the fall of NFTs, the company had to find a new purpose. The new course of Spatial is trying to become a platform for social games, a bit a la Roblox. I wish the company the best of luck, even if I think that all these hard pivots are not a good thing.

More info

Some news on the Vision Pro

A new week, a new bunch of pieces of news about the Apple Vision Pro:

• CNET’s Scott Stein has gone hands-on with the Spatial Videos on the Apple Vision Pro and found them very cool. Even if they are just 3D videos in the end, the impact they have on the user is very positive. They can become a standard to save memories of what is happening around you, and the iPhone 15 Pro is already able to save videos in this format
• Apple TV Store now features 3D titles: this has for sure been made in preparation for the Vision Pro
• Apple has enabled WebXR for the Vision Pro, but actually, it has not made any one of its other devices WebXR-compliant. This means that iPhone users can not enjoy WebXR yet. This is hugely disappointing.

More info (Spatial Videos)
More info (3D Content now available on Apple TV Store)
More info (Apple’s WebXR is only compatible with Apple Vision Pro)

Quest 2 price gets discounted to $250

Meta has started to bet aggressively on the price of its devices: in preparation for the holiday season, the company has just slashed the price of the Quest 2 headset to $250 until the end of the year. We’ve seen in the past how a low price can increase sales numbers, so I’m sure that this price reduction to $250 will increase the number of people who will buy a Quest device.

More info (Quest 2 price reduced to $250)
More info (Nathie flagging the news)

Quest 3 may still be sold at a loss

The BOM (Bill Of Materials) of Quest 3 has been released by a Chinese website. From it, it is possible to see that the cost of all the components and the manufacturing of the Quest 3 may be US$428.22 per device. This number is very close to the final price of the headset ($499), so its cost is not able to cover the price of the device and all the R&D that was needed to create it.

More info

Meta has already invested $46B on the metaverse

Putting together all the money that Meta has spent to create the “metaverse”, we obtain an incredible number of $46B. This is a huge amount of money, which is bigger than the revenues of a Fortune-500 company, and shows the level of commitment that Meta is showing in building the metaverse.

More info

Sonar-equipped glasses can perform full-body tracking

Researchers at Cornell University have developed a pair of experimental glasses that feature sonar sensors. These sonars are useful to track the upper-half body of the user in a way that is much more privacy-compliant than the usual camera-based approach. While cameras could be exploited by a malicious user to spy on the headset owner, the same can’t happen for sonar sensors, because it is almost impossible to obtain any meaningful info from them.

More info

SteamVR Fest is back

From December 4th to December 11th, Valve will host the Steam VR Fest on the Steam store. During this period it will be possible to play the demo of upcoming VR games for free!

More info

Some news on content

• “CookieRun: The Darkest Night — Chapter 1” brings the mobile game to Quest on November, 30th
• VStreamer Live is available on App Lab and lets you be a VTuber directly from your Quest
• The Wizards — Dark Times will receive the free ‘Brotherhood’ update on November, 28th
• X8, a 5v5 multiplayer hero shooter, has left early access
• Lucas Rizzotto’s Pillow has been released for Quest, and it is not the funny game I tried at SXSW anymore, but it is a mixed reality app to make the users relax

More info (CookieRun)
More info (VStreamer Live)
More info (The Wizards: Dark Times)
More info (X8)
More info (Pillow)

Some reviews on content

• ‘STRIDE: Fates’ is an entertaining action game, but with some drawbacks like a non-interesting story and enemies with bad AI
• Big Shots seems a solid mech game from the preview that Upload had with it
• The Foglands is another roguelike game for Quest which doesn’t excel because of its repetitiveness
• Demeo Battles is a very good game, exactly like Demeo, but has a not-so-great progression system.

More info (Stride: Fates)
More info (Big Shots)
More info (The Foglands)
More info (Demeo Battles)

Other news

Quest Casting 2.0 is the ideal solution to capture widescreen videos of the Quest

Learn more

Humane has launched its AI Pin device

Learn more

OpenAI announced many new features at its dev days

Learn more

Hands-on Almer Arc, a smart device for remote assistance

Learn more

News from partners (and friends)

XRSI Safety Week

On December, 10–15, XRSI is hosting its Metaverse Safety Week. It will be a good occasion to speak about safety, privacy, and inclusion in the metaverse, and I think we all should support such an initiative!

Learn more

Infomediji Is Hiring!

Who We Are
 
 Push the boundaries of the virtual reality industry with us as we create a cross-platform, VR video streaming metaverse. As the team behind the DeoVR video streaming platform, there are more than 100 talented people from all over the world waiting for you to join them.
 
 Who Are We Looking For
 
 Product Manager
 We are seeking an innovative and hands-on Product Manager to join our fast-paced team. You will be responsible for organizing, creating, and executing a strategic roadmap for our VR products. You’ll be instrumental in coordinating various teams, understanding market trends, and driving the overall vision to ensure that we stay on the cutting edge of the VR industry.
 
 Senior Unity Developer
 Join our Unity team and be at the forefront of innovation in the global VR video streaming ecosystem. If you’re passionate about fine-tuning Unity components and creating groundbreaking VR experiences, we want you to be a part of our team, shaping the future of immersive technology.

Backend PHP Developer (Core)

Be a vital part of our PHP Core team shaping the future of global VR video streaming. If you’re a backend wizard with a passion for VR and want to work on cutting-edge products that power immersive experiences, we’re eager to have you on board to make an impact in the exciting realm of virtual reality. Visit Website

Some XR fun

Chinese clones of the Apple Vision Pro have started appearing even before the Vision Pro…
Funny link

This is how typing in VR should be
Funny link

VRChat
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
• 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
• 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
• Sb
• Pieter Siekerman
• Enrico Poli
• Vooiage Technologies
• Caroline
• Liam James O’Malley
• Hillary Charnas
• Wil Stevens
• Brian Peiris
• Francesco Salizzoni
• Dimo Pepelyashev
• Alan Smithson
• Steve R
• Brentwahn
• Matt Cool
• Simplex
• Gregory F Gorsuch
• Matias Nassi

And now here you are the link to donate:

Support The Red Cross in Ukraine

(Original header image from Meta)

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