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

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

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

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

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

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!

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!

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

Every World In Meta Horizon Worlds Can Now Be Joined On Web & Mobile

All worlds in Meta’s Horizon Worlds “metaverse” platform now work in web browsers and on smartphones.Meta Launches Horizon Mobile & Web Beta, See Footage HereMeta has opened a beta of Horizon Worlds on smartphones, and the first footage has emerged. The mobile avatars have legs.Meta first launched Horizon Worlds on web and mobile in beta almost a year ago in August 2023. It was limited to only a single world at first, the Super Rumble FPS developed with professional tools by Meta’s first-party studio Ouro Interactive, and over time Meta added web and mobile support to more worlds developed by Ouro and contracted external studios.Now all worlds, whether developed by users inside VR or professionals with desktop tools, are available on web and mobile. Worlds that are specifically optimized for web and mobile will show an ‘Optimized’ tag, but you can still join worlds that aren’t.Rather than locally rendering the

WebXR Game Of The Year Adds Support For Apple Vision Pro

Editor’s Note: The Escape Artist is a WebXR game available now from Paradowski Creative featuring robust support for Quest 3 controller tracking with button input for interaction and teleportation. While working to support eye and hand tracking on Vision Pro from the same URL, technical director James C. Kane explores issues around design, tech and privacy.There are pros and cons to Vision Pro’s total reliance on gesture and eye-tracking, but when it works in context, gaze-based input feels like the future we’ve been promised —  like a computer is reading your mind in real-time to give you what you want. This first iteration is imperfect given the many valid privacy concerns in play, but Apple has clearly set a new standard for immersive user experience going forward.They’ve even brought this innovation to the web in the form of Safari’s transient-pointer input. The modern browser is a full-featured spatial computing platform

New VR Games & Releases March 2024: Quest, SteamVR, PSVR 2 & More

Looking for new VR games in March 2024? Here are our latest monthly highlights.Spring is almost here and already, 2024’s seen plenty of VR games. Following a handful of Apple Vision Pro games and a hefty January lineup, we reviewed numerous titles across February like Border Bots VR, Under Cover, Legendary Tales, Stranger Things VR, and Beat the Beats. They were joined by Project Demigod, Rogue Stargun, Ghosts of Tabor, Bootstrap Island and more.While March is looking slightly quieter right now, there’s still a good selection of new VR games on the way. You can find our more comprehensive upcoming VR games list here and, as always, be sure to bookmark this page. We’ll update this list as more VR games get confirmed release dates across each major platform, also removing entries if they get delayed.Right now, here are the biggest new VR games coming to Quest, PC VR and PSVR 2 this March.Rainbow Reactor:

The XR Week Peek (2024.02.27): Meta reported to release Quest Pro 2 in 2025, Apple Vision Pro affected by the crackgate, and more!

The hype for the Apple Pro is starting to deflate and it is possible to see that from some cues: for instance, there are more critics of the headset and fewer articles are talking about it. It’s still the gadget of the moment, but a bit less shiny than before. Honestly, I’m glad about that, I was getting bored from reading only articles about it.  Before getting into the interesting XR news of the week, I invite you all to attend the new Awe Nite that Cecilia Lascialfari and I are organizing for this Thursday (29th) at 6 pm CET that will be about XR and AI with very interesting speakers like Rafael Brown. It’s free, so you have no excuses not to attend! You can find all the most important information about it at this link: https://area6dof.com/awe-nite-florence-ai-xr-a-match-made-in-heaven/ Top news of the week (Image by Meta)Meta and Samsung prepare their answers to