VRCoin

The XR Week Peek (2025.02.10): The Meta Quest Store is in a transition phase, Apple may integrate PSVR 2 controllers, and more!

vrcoin on February 10, 2025

These days I feel better, so this newsletter is coming on time again (yay!). It’s been a good end of the week for me: on the work side, I have broken the news about camera access on Android XR (more on this later on), while on the personal side, I managed to cook some good Italian pasta here in China for some friends (I’ve brought some ingredients from home, of course). So let’s hope the next week will be great again, not only for me but for all of you, too! Top news of the week (Image by Meta) The Meta Quest ecosystem is in a delicate phase Henry Stockdale from Upload VR has written a very well-made article highlighting the current situation of the Horizon Store. After merging the main store with App Lab and changing the UI of the Meta Horizon OS and mobile app

E McNeill: From Darknet To Ironstrike In 12 Years Of Indie Game Development

vrcoin on February 1, 2025

E McNeill released the first full VR game for Gear VR headsets back in 2014 drawing from big screen depictions of cyberspace.Featuring hackers taking on the “Darknet” to acquire virtual bitcoin, his strategy game sees you hack computing nodes to purchase stronger electronic weapons.At the time of Darknet’s original development in 2013 and 2014, a single actual bitcoin could be sold for about $1,000 in the real world. At the time of our talk on January 31, 2025, more than a decade after McNeill originally made the game, a single bitcoin could be sold for more than $100,000.This means if McNeill had acquired, say, five bitcoin at a cost of $5,000 at the time he added the concept to Darknet, the cryptocurrency would be worth $500,000 today.McNeill says he acquired no bitcoin.Instead, he spent the last 12 years as an indie game developer making the first full VR game for

Google’s HTC XR Talent Grab Raises Questions About HTC’s Next Move

vrcoin on January 23, 2025

Google has acquired a number of HTC’s XR engineers, something the company says will “accelerate the development of the Android XR platform across the headsets and glasses ecosystem.” Google’s announcement of Android XR last month represents a critical shift in the competitive landscape, as Samsung will ostensibly be the first to launch a headset running Android XR. Excitement for familiar faces offering up competition in the consumer XR space was tempered somewhat by the usual questions surrounding Google’s ability to commit to the project long-term. While Google has addressed some of those underlying concerns in a Road to VR exclusive, which you can read more about here, that doesn’t reduce the laundry list of products and services killed by the company over the years, one of which includes Google Daydream, the company’s first real attempt at entering the XR space proper back in 2016. Google Daydream View (2017) | Image courtesy Google

PS VR2 Tactical Shooter Firewall Ultra Relaxes Progression In Surprise Update

vrcoin on January 21, 2025

Firewall Ultra, Sony’s tactical multiplayer shooter for PlayStation VR2, received a surprise update despite the developer’s closure.Developed by First Contact Entertainment, Firewall Ultra has been largely inactive since the studio shut down four months after launch and after a handful of updates like two additional maps. It’s therefore surprising to learn that it’s now received a new update over the weekend, first spotted by Reddit user ‘ROBYER1’ and later shared by Gamertag VR. [embed]https://youtube.com/watch?v=laHSqoOm0Fc&feature=oembed[/embed] The new patch quadruples how much XP and currency are earned by players, therefore making progression significantly easier. This addresses a core complaint from our launch review back in August 2023, where we criticized progression and how we believed it pushes players towards in-app purchases despite the base game’s $40 pricing.We’ve contacted Sony Interactive Entertainment to query who the developer is behind the recent patch and whether any additional changes were made to the game. We’ll update

PSVR 2 Team Shooter ‘Firewall Ultra’ Gets Update to Attract Newcomers After Year-long Abandonment

vrcoin on January 20, 2025

Firewall Ultra (2023), the tactical team shooter, hasn’t seen an update since developer First Contact Entertainment shut down in late 2023, or just four months after the game’s release on PSVR 2. Now, Sony has dropped a patch out of the blue, tweaking incentives to get new players in… for who knows what reason. As spotted by Reddit user ‘ROBYER1’, over the weekend Sony tossed out an update that quadruples the amount of XP and in-game ‘Crypto’ currency, making it easier for newcomers to unlock cosmetics and everything else the game hopes you’ll grind for. But why now? We can’t put it better than ‘Gamertag VR’, who, in a new video (seen below) highlights the history, persistent issues with the game, and adds some speculation as to why Sony would be doing this now, of all times. “An update like this will surely only benefit new players,” Gamertag maintains. “So, maybe

Meta Quietly Rolls Out ‘Horizon Worlds’ Premium Digital Currency in US, UK and Canada

vrcoin on November 15, 2024

Meta has added an important puzzle piece to Horizon Worlds, as the company has quietly rolled out its premium digital currency on the social VR platform in the US, UK, and Canada. Roblox has Robux, Rec Room has Tokens, and Horizon Worlds now has Meta Credits, letting users buy in-world digital goods from creators, such as avatar outfits and access keys to premium worlds. Unlike Quest Cash, Meta Credits can’t be used to buy hardware or accessories, just stuff in Horizon Worlds. While it’s a big step, this isn’t the official start of the Horizon Worlds economy. Meta has been experimenting with monetization on Horizon Worlds since 2022, allowing users to buy digital goods directly with their local currency. The difference with Meta Credits (like all premium tokens) however is the all-too familiar obfuscation of the amount of real-world money being spent. Image captured by Road to VR As seen above, you can buy

Flappy Experience Is A Flappy Bird Clone For Apple Vision Pro

vrcoin on September 27, 2024

Flappy Experience is a clone of Flappy Bird with first-person gameplay, and it’s free on Apple Vision Pro.Developed by Tal Kol using RealityKit, Flappy Experience takes direct inspiration from 2013’s casual mobile side-scroller, Flappy Bird. All you do is move your arms up and down like a bird flapping its wings while aiming to avoid green pipes, and this experience features four levels of difficulty. As part of this release, Tal Kol also released the full source code on Github.Here’s how it looks in action:unofficial but controversial reboot. After being delisted in 2014, a new version built on a blockchain platform recently emerged after the trademark was abandoned and acquired by Gametech. It’s faced significant criticism for introducing cryptocurrency and not involving the original developer, Doug Nguyen.Flappy Experience is free to download on Apple Vision Pro.

The XR Week Peek (2024.08.27): App Lab apps migrated to Meta Store, Quest Pro 2 canceled, and more!

vrcoin on August 27, 2024

Tomorrow I’m going to fly to China for a long trip that is going to last a few weeks. It is going to be a very exciting journey and of course, I will keep you posted about the most important things that I will do there! For now, I’m preparing for the big journey and setting up some strategic meetings… don’t forget to contact me if you are in one of the cities I will go to (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Qingdao, Beijing) and you want to meet me! But today we still have a thing to do: let’s analyze the best XR news of the week! In the last few years, the summer has been mostly boring, but this year, we keep having interesting AR/VR things to talk about every week, and this is cool! Top news of the week (Image by Meta) Meta is completing the transition from App Lab to

The XR Week Peek (2024.08.06): PSVR 2 sales skyrocket after the price slash, Meta reports revenue growth, and more!

vrcoin on August 6, 2024

In the middle of the summer, let’s enjoy this week’s most interesting pieces of XR news! Top news of the week (Image by Sony Interactive Entertainment) PSVR 2 sales skyrocketed with the discount Last week I reported about Sony heavily discounting PlayStation VR 2 in the US and UK: the original price was $550, but after the discount it amounted to just $350. This week, The Shortcut reports that the sales of the headset may have skyrocketed by a 2350% factor from the day before the discount to the day after. According to the same magazine, more PSVR 2 were sold on the first day of the discount than in the whole of 2024 until that day. This is pretty insane. It’s not the first time that we see how price is critical for the success of a headset: the Oculus Rift CV1 was lagging in sales far behind the HTC Vive until