I’m back from China, and while I’m still dizzy from the jet lag, I’m preparing my trip to the US for the next week. I guess I’ll spend the next couple of weeks without realizing what time of day it is…
But I know what time is now: it is the time for some amazing XR news! Keep reading to be informed about the most relevant AR/VR news of the past week…
Top news of the week
Apple Vision Air may launch in 2027, with modest sales
This week, we had another rumor about the next Apple Vision Pro. What I found most interesting about it are not the technical specifications, but the estimated sales numbers.
According to Ming-Chi Kuo, who is considered a “reliable Apple analyst” (in the sense that he made a lot of wrong predictions on the launch of the Vision Pro, but then the last ones were correct), Apple is going to launch a 50% cheaper and 40% lighter version of Vision Pro in 2027. It is expected to be called ‘Vision Air’. This would be great news because this device would solve two of the biggest pain points of the current Vision Pro, which feels uncomfortable and is too expensive to buy.
But if you think this is going to make the Vision Pro sales skyrocket, you may be disappointed. Regarding the sales numbers, Kuo maintains that “Apple is internally targeting anticipated shipments of Vision Air to reach one million units in 2027”. 1M units in the launch year is something in the Quest 3 territory, not even on the Quest 2 one, and for sure does not scream mainstream adoption. It would be a step forward for mixed reality, but not THE step forward. This is predictable, considering that the headset is still going to cost $1750, which is a lot of money. It won’t be the next generation of Vision Pro, but maybe the 3rd or the 4th that will be able to make a significant jump forward.
This confirms what we XR veterans have all learned over the years: everything in XR always takes more time than we would like. That’s why many people talk about mainstream adoption for MR beyond 2030. It’s going to be a long journey.
Other relevant news
Valve’s next headset may be called “Frame”
The launch of the next-gen Valve headset is getting closer, so the rumors about it are intensifying. And the big news of the week is that we may now know the name of the headset, which is codenamed “Deckard”.
Valve has recently the trademarked the name “Steam Frame”, as something associated with “Computer hardware; computer networking hardware; computer peripherals; computer hardware and computer software for the reproduction, processing, and streaming of audio, video, data, text, and multimedia content”. This means that the name is associated to a hardware peripheral, and the only peripheral we know Valve is working on is indeed a new VR headset, the one currently known as “Deckard”.
Adding another cue to this speculation, the usual Brad Lynch and his team of dataminers noted that in the latest SteamVR Beta, “Valve is definitely rebranding SteamVR ‘Overlays’ to ‘Frames’”. So it may definitely be possible that Steam Frame is the name of the headset.
We don’t know any details about this device. The speculations talked about something based on SteamOS that is able to stream games from a nearby PC, but there is no official confirmation on this. As usual, being Valve, it will secretly work on it for a very long time, until it will suddenly drop it online. Maybe during some Meta Connect…
More info (Valve trademarks “Steam Frame”)
More info (Steam Frame and some other speculations about Deckard)
Meta Connect schedule has been released
The full agenda for the upcoming Meta Connect has been made public. Looking at it, it is possible to clearly see that smartglasses will be the stars of the show. The keynote from Zuckerberg will be about “latest on AI glasses”, Abrash is expected to talk about them too, and then there are some sessions about some non-specified upcoming development tools, which most likely will be an SDK to develop for smart glasses.
It’s also interesting that the first day of the event, there is only the keynote by Zuck, and all other talks are the day after. And the main keynote is happening at 5 pm PT, which is night in Europe. This is another weird choice: usually, it was at 10 am PT to allow for us Europeans to watch it, too. Maybe this is a new tariff imposed by the US on us EU people: the timezone tariff.
As I’ve recently said in a post, I’ll be at Meta Connect this year! So if you are there, let’s meet! And if you’re not there, expect from me a report that will make you feel as if you were there, too!
More info (Meta Connect agenda being about smartglasses)
More info (I will be at Meta Connect!)
News worth a mention
Quest 3 and 3S usage on Steam surged
According to Valve’s Steam Hardware & Software Survey, the family of Quest 3 headsets had a +7% jump forward compared to the previous month. Such a jump is very uncommon, and it means that Quest 3 and 3S had very good sales in the last weeks. There may be two reasons for that: one is the release of the Quest 3S XBOX Edition, which went sold out almost immediately; the other is the recent discount applied to Quest devices, which attracted people to buy a new headset.
Whatever the cause, it is good to see that Quest headsets had good sales. It is a bit less good that the PCVR market numbers are pretty stagnant instead. On the good side, the PCVR community still remains very committed to XR and very welcoming to support developers.
Rivet and Anduril will compete for the XR contract with the US Army
For sure, you remember the US Army IVAS program, which was meant to create the next generation of soldiers using modified Microsoft HoloLens headsets. The results of that program have been pretty disappointing, so now the US Army has initiated a new contest called Soldier Borne Mission Command (SBMC), which is basically “same same but different, but still the same” as IVAS.
In the SBMC contest, two companies have now reached the final stage: one is Palmer Luckey’s Anduril, which should collaborate with Meta to build the headsets. And the other one is Rivet, an AR startup partly funded by Palantir. Rivet has just announced that it has secured a $195 million, 18-month contract to prototype and produce 470 “production representative” devices for the SBMC program.
It will be interesting to see which company will get the contract in the end, and especially if they will be able to do a good job, or if they’ll replicate the mess made by Microsoft. In any case, this contract shows that the trend of an increased use of XR in the military is continuing.
More info (Anduril and Rivet to work with the US Army)
More info (Rivet and the SBMC program)
Pimax promises an update on the Dream Air headset
Do you remember the Pimax Dream Air headset, the super small, high-resolution headset that Pimax promised some months ago? Well, that headset had a forecasted May 2025 release date, but then it was delayed to Q3 this year. Since now we are at the end of Q3 and no headset is in sight, Pimax has at least released an update about it: it says that it has reached “several exciting milestones” for the headset, and promises a substantial update before the end of September. My guess is that the company will show some progress, but it will also announce that the headset will be delayed again. Let’s see. It’s probably going to be another complicated day for the poor Jaap…
SteamVR Beta restores support for WMR headsets
In its latest beta version, SteamVR has restored support for the Windows Mixed Reality headsets, after a Windows update last month had removed all support for these devices from the operating system. All of this has been possible thanks to the huge work by Mbucchia, who created himself a driver that allows these headsets to work with SteamVR. Valve has just added the final step to make things user-friendly: if you have connected a WMR headset and you have an NVIDIA graphics card (AMD is not supported), Steam will automatically download this “Oasis” driver and make the headset work out of the box, even if you have never heard of Mbucchia and his driver. This is great news for anyone still stuck with these pretty old headsets.
More info (SteamVR and the Oasis Driver — Road To VR)
More info (SteamVR and the Oasis Driver — Upload VR)
Wist allows you to record your spatial memories
A small app called Wist allows you to do something pretty cool: you can use an iPhone to record a special moment for you, and then watch it back spatially as stabilized volumetric memories on Apple Vision Pro or Quest 3. Wist performs a lot of work to clean up the capture, so the resulting volumetric video is pretty good to watch. The company is also retaining all the past captures of users, so as soon as there is an algorithm improvement, all the captures are automatically improved. Minority Report memories have never been so close.
Some news about content
- Scared By Squares is a horror game where you become scared by… cubes! As the creator of the Unity Cube, I’m pretty intrigued by it. A free demo is available on the Horizon Store
- A sequel to the great game Batman: Arkham Shadow is in the works
- Falcon Fall is an upcoming co-op tactical shooter that aims to deliver “AAA quality in VR — with a focus on visuals, immersion, authenticity, and next-generation presence.” It is coming to PCVR in 2026
- Thirdverse is partnering with Hello Kitty creator Sanrio to release Skyland, a social VR game dedicated to the iconic cartoon cat and equally kawaii cast of characters. It is expected to be released this year
- Pixelity officially revealed the name of its XR game based on the popular ’90s anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. The game is called “EVANGELION: DELTA CROSS REFLECTIONS” and it is expected to be released next year
- Titan Isles, the new co-op VR action adventure from the Windlands studio, launches on September 25 on Steam and Quest
- Co-op horde survival shooter A Long Survive is now available to wishlist. Its release is expected for Q4 2025
- DrakkenRidge, a semi-open world VR adventure with a retro aesthetic, has been launched on Quest 3 and 3S for €18
- Surviving Mars: Pioneer has been fully released on Quest and Steam, and will be followed by PlayStation VR2 next week
- VEX MAGE, a game combining spellcasting and Co-op arena action, is launching on the Horizon Store on October 16th for $10. The release on Steam is expected slightly later: October 21st
- CYBRID, a rhythm-action game heavily inspired by Pistol Whip, is out now on Quest in early access
More info (Scared By Squares)
More info (Batman: Arkham Shadow)
More info (Falcon Fall)
More info (Skyland — Road To VR)
More info (Skyland — Upload VR)
More info (EVANGELION: Δ CROSS REFLECTIONS)
More info (Titan Isles)
More info (A Long Survive)
More info (DrakkenRidge)
More info (Surviving Mars: Pioneer)
More info (VEX MAGE — Upload VR)
More info (VEX MAGE — Road To VR)
More info (CYBRID)
Some news and reviews about the Venice Immersive selection
- Black Cats & Chequered Flags is an enjoyable experience celebrating Formula 1 champion Alberto Ascari
- Alien Perspective explores the legacy of Italian special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi, turning one of his paintings into an immersive world. There is not much interactivity in this experience
- Face Jumping is a surrealist VR adventure by Tender Claws that lets you teleport into the body of the people you look in the eyes. It is very original, but also quite short.
- Out of Nowhere explores the threat of climate change through a short, immersive experience that talks about the severe flooding across Europe in July 2021
- Reflections of Little Red Dot explores how Singapore’s rapid urban development has affected its communities. It is very original that it uses a (fake) physical project to let you choose the movie sequence to play in your headset
- Blur is an experience that talks about life, death, and mourning. Charlie Fink reported that it “is unlike anything I have ever seen. It combines live performance and mixed reality in a way that is fresh, surprising”. It seems it was the most discussed experience at Venice
- The winner of the Venice Immersive Grand Prize has been The Clouds Are 2000 Meters Up, directed by Singing Chen. It is a free-roaming VR experience that adapts a short story by Wu Ming-Yi, guiding users through dreamlike forests and symbolic inner landscapes as a grief-stricken widower seeks a connection to his late wife’s spirit.
More info (Black Cats & Chequered Flags)
More info (Alien Perspective)
More info (Face Jumping)
More info (Out Of Nowhere)
More info (Reflections Of Little Red Dot)
More info (Blur)
More info (The Clouds Are 2000 Meters Up)
Some reviews about content
- UnLoop is a game that lets you cooperate with past copies of yourself to solve puzzles. It is fun, but it also has some drawbacks, like that it feels a bit repetitive sometimes
- Iron Guard: Salvation is a tower defense game that leans a bit too much into the RTS field. Probably it should make the full transition and become an RTS game
- Fantasy adventure game DrakkenRidge offers a new VR fantasy adventure that feels like old-school RuneScape on Quest 3 and 3S. The core of the game is well-made, and so is physics-based combat
- Echoes of Mora sees you solve a mythical missing persons case in this dreamy underwater puzzler. The puzzles provided by the game are quite easy, though
More info (UnLoop)
More info (Iron Guard: Salvation)
More info (DrakkenRidge)
More info (Echoes Of Mora)
Other news
Tetsuya Mizuguchi talks about his career in making creative games, blending gameplay and music
Bonelab has sold at least 2M copies on Quest alone
Project Beyondex mixes the great audio speakers of Valve Index with the amazing visuals of BigScreen Beyond. It’s the dream Frankenstein headset for PCVR people!
News from partners (and friends)
No news in this section for this week. So I just send you all a big hug!
Discover FM DUO camera!
Meet the FM DUO, a VR camera that is capable of filming up to 12K @30fps, and 8K @60fps. With built-in RTMP live streaming and 5G connectivity, the FM·DUO will immerse your viewers in real time! The FM·DUO features 2 full-frame CMOS sensors, with 6000 x 6000 pixels each. This allows for high-resolution zooming capabilities. Not only can you narrow in on one subject, but you can also focus on singular details of the subject’s facial expressions, clothing textures, and a multitude of other small details, enabling a much more immersive experience of VR video.
Visit Website
Some XR fun
I’m not kidding: a startup to convert salad into French Fries would be pretty cool…
Funny link
A healthcare worker telling some weird stories about her job on a stand-up night in VR
Funny link
Facebook has banned Mark Zuckerberg for having the same name as Mark Zuckerberg
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
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And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
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