Hello from Brussels, Belgium! I’m here for United XR Europe after a brief stop in Rotterdam. I can’t wait to try some amazing XR devices and meet the people of the XR community in the next three days! Of course, I’ll write my usual reports from the showfloor for you… But now, before getting into the new week, it’s time to check out the news of the past week in XR!
Top news of the week
Meta slows down its present plans to bet on the future of XR
This week, we had three major news items regarding Meta, which, in my opinion, paint a picture of Meta disinvesting in the short-term future of XR to bet on the long-term future.
The first big news has been that Meta has been able to steal Alan Dye, the design lead who at Apple invented the Liquid Glass UI, and put him to work in Reality Labs. We always criticized the UX of the Quest and the Quest App, so Meta decided to hire the person who has been able these years to create beautiful and useful interfaces on Apple Products, from iPhone to Apple Vision Pro. This has been an amazing move, I’m not gonna lie. Hopefully, we’ll see the effects of Mr.Dye’s talent in the next months, or maybe when Meta launches its next headset. This move is a clear commitment to make all future Meta’s products (headsets, smartglasses, etc…) more usable.
When we were all rejoicing for this news, a leak published by various magazines unveiled that Meta plans to cut 30% of the budget dedicated to “metaverse” and move this money to the teams working on smartglasses and AI. Probed by Upload VR, Meta more or less confirmed the news, but without citing any percentage and downplaying it as a simple reallocation of budgets. This “simple reallocation”, though, is for sure going to have ripple effects: first of all, people will be fired. And then, according to the rumor, Meta is going to save some money by reducing the budgets given to 3rd parties studios to create content for its platforms, in particular Horizon Worlds. This means that various indie studios that are now managing to stay in XR thanks to Meta’s money may find themselves without funding and go bankrupt. This is not good news for content creators.
Someone sees this move as a natural tendency of Meta to go out of the messy and expensive prototyping stage and enter a more stable and financially sustainable production phase. For sure, Meta has to start to streamline its processes in XR, so part of the cuts is for sure needed. But -30% from one year to the other is a lot, and it seems to me an abrupt budget cutting because the technology didn’t reach the expected KPIs (i.e. results). Mixed Reality has never found a killer application, and Horizon Worlds has never become as popular as VRChat, notwithstanding huge investments on this front. So it makes sense to double down on the investments in what is instead working at this time, that is, smartglasses.
After this rumor, we had another one, this time not confirmed by Meta, and it is about Meta’s roadmap for the next XR devices. It may be a controlled leak to show that, notwithstanding the cuts, Meta is still into XR/metaverse. The rumor states that:
- The Meta Vision Pro Competitor (Loma/Puffin/Phoenix), which was expected for 2026, has now been delayed to 2027
- Meta is still working on a gaming-focused Quest 4, this time expected for 2028
- The Quest 4 may not be heavily subsidized, so its cost may be a bit higher than expected
The picture that I see here is that Meta is still committed to XR/metaverse and not abandoning the ship. You have to remember that even if you remove 30% of the budget, the allotted budget is still many billions a year, which is more than what most companies out there put on immersive technologies. Anyway, the deadlines have become longer: next year, we may have no headset, just a new set of smartglasses.
Most probably, Meta realized that there is no need to rush and release another headset that has no substantial changes and so has a negligible effect on the market. It is better to wait until there is a technology that is interesting enough to attract more users into XR. This longer time can also be used to improve the overall user experience of the headset, maybe also thanks to the help of Mr.Dye.
Meta seems to have a bit disinvested in the present of XR to focus on the future: today XR is in the quicksands, but in 2–3 years it may start getting momentum again. The big question is: how are we XR professionals going to survive in the next years? Meta has a budget to go on, but we have not…
More info (Alan Dye leaves Apple to join Meta Reality Labs — Road To VR)
More info (Alan Dye leaves Apple to join Meta Reality Labs — Upload VR)
More info (Meta cutting -30% of the metaverse budget — Business Insider)
More info (Meta cutting -30% of the metaverse budget — Upload VR)
More info (Meta confirms the cuts)
More info (Meta delays its future headsets to 2027 and 2028)
Other relevant news
Meta has released its “SDK for glasses”
After teasing it at Meta Connect, Meta has finally released to developers its “SDK for glasses”. Thanks to it, developers and creatives will be able to build applications for the Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses.
I put “SDK for glasses” between quotes because it is not a real SDK for glasses: it is called “Wearables Device Access Toolkit” and lets you build apps for your phone that can communicate via Bluetooth with the glasses. The features of this SDK are also limited: for instance, it is not possible for developers to access the display of the Meta Ray-Ban Display yet. The developed applications can not be published, either: there is currently no store offered by Meta for its smartglasses. All the infrastructure has still to be built.
Nonetheless, it is very interesting for creators to be able to experiment with these devices, and especially with the completely open market of smartglasses. So if you have a Ray-Ban Meta device, I suggest you tinker with this SDK.
Google is hosting an event about Android XR
On December, 8th at 10 am PT, Google is hosting an event called “The Android Show — XR Edition”. It promises a 30-minute presentation where we’ll “learn about all things XR across glasses, headsets, and everything in between.” I guess there will be updates about Galaxy XR, maybe about its realistic avatars, and some improvements that take into account the feedback of the community. I also guess Google may share something about its smartglasses, and probably open up its SDK to developers in preview. At AWE US, Google teased that its Glasses SDK should have come in preview before the end of the year, and this is the last occasion in which this may happen. This announcement would also explain why Meta rushed its glasses SDK out so fast this week.
GravityXR is showing us the future of MR glasses
Chinese startup GravityXR has produced a chip that allows mixed reality headsets to become really small and lightweight. The chip is able to handle everything that concerns cameras, from low passthrough to hand tracking, while the rest of the processing may happen in a separate computational unit that also holds the battery. This all-in-two design allows for headsets that are so small that they really look like glasses and weigh less than 100g.
This is only a reference design, and as usual, we have to be very careful when we talk about a product of a startup that no one has tried yet. But I think it is interesting becauseit shows us what the future of MR headsets will be in a few years: if the battery is separated from the visor like on the Vision Pro, they could become as lightweight as glasses, and starthaving a form factor that makes them interesting. A prototype like this could not have happened 10 years ago, and the fact that we are seeing it means that in the medium-term future, this technology can actually hit the shelves.
Upload had its Winter Showcase
Upload VR just had its Winter showcase, where, as usual, many small interesting pieces of news about XR games have been announced. In this year’s edition, there have been more than 50 announcements! And in addition to that, to celebrate the event, a Humble Bundle has also been created.
If you want to discover all the announcements, follow the first link shared below, which contains the video of the event and a roundup of all that was said there. I’ve also added a few more links with the pieces of news that I’ve personally appreciated the most.
More info (Everything announced at the Upload Showcase Winter 2025)
More info (Stellar Café releases on December, 11)
More info (Street Gods releases on December, 18 on Quest)
More info (Automa is bringing amazing graphics with Half-Life Alyx vibes on Quest next year)
More info (Skytail is a new adorable adventure game by Coatsink)
More info (Puzzles Of The World lets you make 3D puzzles in VR. It is releasing in EA on January 8)
More info (The new UploadVR Showcase Humble Bundle lets you buy nine VR games for $17)
News worth a mention
Alibaba launches its Quark smartglasses
Alibaba just launched the Quark smartglasses, meant to replicate in China the same success that Meta had with the Ray-Ban glasses in the West. The glasses run Alibaba’s Qwen AI model and are fully integrated with Alibaba’s ecosystem of services (which are super popular in China). On the technical side, Quark AI Glasses S1 is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 chipset and a low-power co-processor that drive dual monochrome green micro-OLED displays, boasting a brightness of up to 4,000 nits.
The price is the equivalent of $270 for the version without displays and $540 for the version with displays.
More info (Alibaba Quark S1 glasses — Road To VR)
More info (Alibaba Quark S1 glasses — Forklog)
Valve headset is made for gaming, but not for stereoscopic games yet
This week, an article on Road To VR shed some light on Valve’s internal processes when building the Steam Frame. There is one paragraph that I and the whole XR community appreciated:
In speaking to the Frame team, I got the sense that most of them were serious VR users themselves, and the features and design of Frame were driven heavily by what they themselves — not some abstract ‘addressable audience’ — wanted in a headset. They wanted the headset to be able to play their entire Steam library, they wanted it to be portable and comfortable, and they wanted it to be moddable.
You may like or not the choices the Valve engineers made for the Frame, but still, it is a headset built by people who are passionate about gaming and VR and made a device they themselves wanted to have. And this is noticeable in the resulting quality product. This is in stark comparison with the reports about people at Meta being forced to use Horizon Worlds because they didn’t care about it all.
There is a thing the XR community was not happy about, though: the Steam Frame does not support stereoscopic rendering of flatscreen games. This means you can only see your non-VR games on a big monocular virtual flat screen. Valve said stereoscopic rendering is on its to-do list, so hopefully at a certain point it will come.
More info (Valve people being passionate about VR)
More info (Steam Frame not supporting stereoscopic rendering of flat games)
2 more weeks of PSVR 2 Black Friday
Sony offered PlayStation VR2 at the discounted price of $300 during Black Friday. Well, this deal is going to last longer than that: you can still grab the PSVR 2 headset at that low price until December 19th!
Some news about content
- Upcoming dungeon-crawler extraction game REAVE is getting into the open playtesting stage
- Neolithic Dawn, a VR survival game set in the New Stone Age, will receive its full release on Quest on December 11
- I Am Bird is the new game from the studio behind I Am Cat, I Am Security, I Am… Whatever
- Hello Kitty Skyland, a free-to-play social VR experience based on the famous cat, enters early access on December 22 on Quest
- Quest headsets now have a second exclusive 3D clip from Avatar: Fire and Ash.
More info (Reave)
More info (Neolithic Dawn)
More info (I Am Bird)
More info (Hello Kitty Skyland)
More info (Avatar: Fire And Ash)
Some reviews about content
- Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow is a great porting of the famous game into VR, but with noticeable bugs and a rushed ending
- Syberia VR is a beautiful and atmospheric recreation of the original game, but it has too many bugs and flaws that hurt its experience
- How to God is a solid addition to the god game genre, but it still needs some improvements in this early access stage
- Deadly Delivery is a game that can mix spookiness and humour. It is best played in multiplayer.
More info (Thief VR: Legacy Of Shadow)
More info (Syberia VR)
More info (How To God)
More info (Deadly Delivery)
Other news
Are we back to “glassholes”? A woman broke the Ray-Ban Meta glasses of a guy in the NYC Metro
Japanese company STYLY has developed and released an open-source framework to let everyone easily create location-based VR experiences
A visit to the new Meta Store in Los Angeles
News from partners (and friends)
BEATABLE partnered with Warner Music!
Innovative rhythm game BEATABLE has just struck a partnership with Warner Music to license its music inside the game! Thanks to this collaboration, you will now be able to enjoy famous songs like Azizam by Ed Sheeran or The Business from Tiësto inside the game!
Learn more
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.
Some XR fun
Alan Dye’s first Meta selfie
Funny link
Here someone is not in love with Meta…
Funny link
I like single player games, too!
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
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And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
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