Organizers behind the VR Games Showcase last month announced they’re putting on a new livestreamed games event next week focusing on independent developers and studios “both big and small.” Just in time for what will certainly be a rush of XR news.

Called the XR Indies & Friends Showcase, the livestream is slated to kick off on September 25th at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET (local time here), coming just a few hours ahead of the 2025 Meta Connect keynote from CEO Mark Zuckerberg at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET.

The XR Indies & Friends Showcase promises new reveals and announcements, putting “fresh and tasty indie gaming into the spotlight,” organizers tease in the announcement video, linked below.

While the full docket of games is going to be revealed during the show, the livestream is confirmed to feature more info from upcoming games including Innerspace VR’s One True Path, new gameplay from Cybron’s MR adventure Wall Town Wonders, a new trailer for the VR adaptation of Ovid Works’ Kafka-esque Metamorphosis, and new gameplay from Just Add Water’s arcade digging sim DIG VR.

“As you saw last month, our focus with the VR Games Showcase is to deliver a blockbuster event for massive VR games,” said Zeena Al-Obaidi, Chief Creative Officer of The VR Showcase and host of XR Indies & Friends. “But it’s just as important to us that we provide the proper venue to also feature an incredible array of diverse, innovative, and exciting indie games. XR Indies & Friends will shine a light on a range of vibrant and creative projects coming to a headset near you soon.”

You can watch the XR Indies & Friends Showcase over on the VR Showcase YouTube channel at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET / 5 PM CET on September 25th. We’ll of course be following along, and reporting what promises to be an avalanche of news that day, so make sure to check back then.

As a reminder, Meta Connect is undoubtedly set to focus on upcoming hardware, likely seeing the official unveiling of (and now basically confirmed) Quest 3S standalone from Meta. And a lot more, we think, so stick around for what is sure to be packed day of XR announcements.

HTC today revealed its next standalone XR headset, the Vive Focus Vision. The company appears to be appealing again to enterprise and prosumers, packing in a mishmash of specs from Vive Focus 3 and Vive Elite XR—priced at $1,000.

HTC launched pre-orders today for its new MR headset, Vive Focus Vision. Pre-orders are available from today through October 17th, after which the headset will presumably launch.

You may recognize many of the specs below from Vive Focus 3, which was released primarily for enterprise in 2021. It has the same controllers, same Fresnel optics and dual 2,448 x 2,448 resolution LCDs, and works with Vive Focus 3 accessories too, like the optional Vive Focus 3 facial tracking module ($100).

Unlike Focus 3, Vive Focus Vision however boasts color passthrough for mixed reality thanks to dual color cameras and depth sensor, bringing it much closer in function to the company’s Quest Pro competitor Vive XR Elite, which was released in 2023 for $1,100 (now $900).

Additionally, it comes with four front-facing tracking cameras and infrared floodlight for illuminated hand tracking.

Packing in Vive XR Elite’s Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 chipset, Vive Focus Vision comes with built-in eye-tracking—later added an optional module on XR Elite which also tracks the user’s mouth. Hence ‘Vision’ (no relation to Vision Pro). Automatic IPD adjustment for users between 57–72mm ought to appeal to VR arcades and other enterprise use cases where multiple people use the same headset.

The company calls it a “hybrid device,” owing to its ability to play PC VR games via Steam and Viveport. To boot, pre-orders come along with a newly unveiled Vive Wired Streaming Kit for free ($150 MRSP), which includes a 5-meter streaming cable and converter, both with DisplayPort compatibility, offering what HTC says is lossless visuals from PC to the headset itself.

Ostensibly appealing to gamers, pre-orders are also set to come with seven games: Metro Awakening VR (coming to Viveport in late 2024), Arizona Sunshine 2, Bootrap Island, Breachers, The Pirate Queen, Taskmaster VR, Kayak VR: Mirage, Wanderer, and MR-compatible games Puzzling Places, Magic Keys, Toy Trains, Yuki, and Figmin XR.

Check out the spec sheet below:

This story is breaking. We’re filling in details as they arrive, so check back soon.

Today Snap Inc, the company behind Snapchat, announced the latest version of its Spectacles AR Glasses which the company is calling Spectacles ’24. The new device makes notable improvements to field-of-view, resolution, and hand-tracking, and overhauls its software stack. But it’s limited enough to remain targeted at developers. Spectacles ’24 is available starting today, and the company is selling it to developers for $100 per month on a one-year commitment (ultimately totalling $1,200).

More than three years after releasing Spectacles 4—the first in the Spectacles lineup to include displays and real AR capabilities—Snap Inc is doubling down with a new generation of AR glasses. Spectacles ’24 makes key improvements as it inches its way toward a consumer-ready version of such a device.

Spectacles ’24 Specs and Pricing

Spectacles ’24 is a pair of standalone AR glasses. That means everything that powers the device is built directly into the glasses with nothing needing to be tethered to the device. Here’s a look at the Spectacles ’24 specs side-by-side with the prior generation.

While we can see considerable improvements like a near-doubling of the field-of-view, more cameras for improved head and hand tracking, and increased battery life, this has come at the cost of the device’s overall weight. Spectacles ’24 weighs 226g while its predecessor weighs just 134g. The new Spectacles aren’t just heavier, they’re a bit bulkier too, still looking more like ‘goggles’ than ‘glasses’.

Spectacles ’24 inches closer to something that would be acceptable to consumers (in both specs and size), but isn’t there yet.

For now the company is focused on getting the device into the hands of developers to start building compelling applications. To that end, the company is offering an interesting pricing model: Spectacles ’24 is priced at $100 per month, over a one-year commitment—starting today. So while the company is ultimately asking $1,200 for the device, it hopes the monthly approach will lower the barrier to entry.

Software Overhaul & Social Focus

While the hardware is inching slowly toward consumer-readiness, Snap Inc is making larger strides on the software side. Spectacles ’24 is paired with a huge overhaul of the software layer.

The new ‘SnapOS’ effectively guts and replaces the software stack of the previous Spectacles, now with a common interface and interactions built around hand-tracking.

The company is trying to infuse SnapOS with social capabilities, including the ability for Spectacles ’24 to recognize other nearby glasses and seamlessly join their session for a co-located AR experience.

The glasses also support a ‘spectator’ mode which allows someone with a smartphone to look into your AR session to see what’s happening. Unlike spectator views on headsets like Quest and Vision Pro, the smartphone viewer actually sees the AR content from their own perspective, rather than just seeing a first-person view from the headset. However, that basic ‘see what I see’ mode of other headsets is also supported.

There’s some other interesting tie-ins for your smartphone too. Like the ability to use it as either a motion controller, virtual gamepad, or to mirror apps from your phone into Spectacles so you can have a floating (but non-interactive) view of the app inside the headset.

Of course these social and smartphone-extensible functions will only work for apps and experiences that are specifically designed with them in mind, but having these capabilities supported at the OS/SDK level opens up some interesting possibilities.

Lens Studio is the tool developers use to build AR experiences for both Snapchat and Spectacles, and today the company also just revealed the latest version.

The modern foundation of Lens Studio 5.0 supports even more complex, robust Lenses with TypeScript, JavaScript, and improved version control tools for team-based development. Additionally, SnapML makes it easy for developers to use custom ML models directly in Lenses to identify, track, and augment objects. We’re also excited to bring the power of cloud-hosted multimodal AI models to Spectacles through a new partnership with OpenAI. Soon, this will help developers bring new models to their Spectacles experiences to provide more context about what you see, say, or hear.

Snap Inc says the Spectacles software platform has “no developer tax,” meaning the company won’t take a cut of revenue from developers making money on the platform. Considering there’s currently no way to sell software on Spectacles (and no audience to speak of), that announcement might seem a little strange, but clearly the company is hoping to set developer expectations for what it eventually hopes will become a consumer product platform.

nDreams, one of the most veteran VR studios, today announced it’s tightening the belt with a layoff round due to affect 17.5% of the company.

The Farnborough, UK-based studio maintains in the LinkenIn announcement that layoffs are in response to “a challenging VR games market, situated within a tough gaming landscape more broadly.”

The studio further notes the restructure “will enable us to better serve current and future audiences in creating medium-defining titles for years to come.”

Founded in 2013, nDreams has expanded its role beyond game developer, becoming a publisher and opening a number of first-party VR studios, including nDreams Studio Orbital, nDreams Studio Elevation, and Nearlight, the latter of which was acquired by nDreams in late 2022.

In 2023, Stockholm, Sweden-based gaming group Aonic acquired nDreams for $110 million. At the time, the studio said it employed 250 people, meaning the layoff could affect up to 40 people.

Notably, nDreams is known for a host of VR games over the years, including The Assembly (2016), Phantom: Covert Ops (2020), Fracked (2021), and Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord (2023), and more.

The studio notes upcoming titles Frenzies and Vendetta Forever will be unaffected by the restructuring.

While disheartening, the news of layoffs comes as no real surprise given turmoil in the wider gaming market. Layoffs spanning 2023 and 2024 included a number of top publishers and studios, such as Embracer Group, Unity, Microsoft, EA, Sony, Epic Games, Take-Two Interactive and Riot Games.

Specifically, VR studio closures affected Meta’s Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo, Echo VR), Sony’s London Studio (PlayStation Worlds, Blood & Truth (2019), and indie developer Archiact (Doom 3 VR Edition).

Revealed back in May, the first official Warhammer VR game for out-of-home VR attractions is now set to launch next week, coming to Zero Latency locations worldwide.

Update (September 16th, 2024): Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine VR – Warriors of Avarax is officially coming to Zero Latency September 25th, with pre-bookings now available.

Based on Space Marines 2, in 30-minute Warhammer VR experience lets you and up to seven others take the fight to Tyranid forces, promising plenty of co-op exploration and combat.

The original article detailing the initial announcement follows below:

Original Article (May 23rd, 2024): We knew as of 2022 that a Warhammer 40K experience was in development for VR attraction Zero Latency. It was initially expected in 2023, but it seems we’ll have to wait until October this year to jump into our very own Power Armour.

The teaser for Warhammer 40K: Space Marine VR reveals very little, save for Space Marines, Tyranids, and an October release date (see update).

But we know that Zero Latency is a VR attraction with experiences that are typically designed to last around 30 minutes. So while this won’t be a full-blown Warhammer 40K VR game in the traditional sense, it’s likely to be a fun time (with you and up to 7 of your friends!). Here’s the text teaser for now:

In Space Marine VR: Defenders of Avarax, you will play as a Space Marine, a genetically enhanced super-soldier. Exploring the Hive City of Fervastium, players will delve deep into a vault on an important mission that could turn the tide and help beat back the Tyranids, an all-consuming alien swarm from beyond the known galaxy. Using a wide range of weapons from the Space Marine arsenal, players will fight off voracious swarms of Tyranids as they step into the shoes of these highly disciplined and indomitable warriors.

Zero Latency is one of the leading VR attractions with 93 locations across 26 countries. We’ve been impressed previously with the company’s internal development talent, and hope to see their work taken to the next level with Warhammer 40K: Space Marine VR. Designing experiences for VR attractions is a surprisingly unique challenge compared to building in-home VR applications—especially with multiple players in the same physical playspace.

“The Warhammer 40,000 universe and Space Marine in particular has such awesome lore and history, we just couldn’t wait to dive into it,” says Tim Ruse, CEO at Zero Latency. “With Space Marine VR: Defenders of Avarax, we are pushing our technology to the limits, and our talented development team is creating our most immersive and thrilling experience yet. We can’t wait for players to step into the Warhammer 40,000 setting and take on the Tyranids in this epic adventure.”

While it’s a shame this experience can’t also be enjoyed on in-home VR headsets like Quest, luckily there’s already a few ways to dive into the Warhammer universe from the comfort of your own VR headset with the likes of Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister (2020) and Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Tempestfall (2021).

Flight simulator company Dogfight Boss, and Varjo, the high-end XR headset creator, announced they’ve shipped their first mixed reality F-16 simulator to the Ukrainian Air Force to help accelerate pilot training. And there’s likely more to come, as the country inevitably looks to scale training to keep pace with the influx of the American-built fighter jets.

Last month Ukraine began receiving its first F-16s from NATO members Denmark and the Netherlands, which are meant to replace its aging Soviet-era MiG and Sukhoi jets. Belgium and Norway have also signed on to provide Ukraine with over 60 of the fighter jets.

A handful of Ukrainian pilots began training to fly F-16s in Arizona late last year, however Ukrainian officials have expressed frustration they simply can’t train enough, as F-16 training programs in the US and across Europe have limited seats.

Now Dogfight Boss and Varjo have partnered to deliver a MR headset-equipped F-16 C Viper simulator to an unspecified Ukrainian Fighter Pilot Base in Kyiv, which will allow pilots to fly virtual missions while seeing a passthrough of their instrument cluster, allowing for a more realistic training experience.

Although such a platform doesn’t address the training crunch at hand, it will allow pilots to train and maintain skills in-country, which has been an active war zone since the Russian invasion began in February 2022.

Dogfight Boss maintains in a LinkedIn post that the reception to the MR simulator has been promising thus far, noting there is an “urgent need for additional units to support cooperative training scenarios.” This could see at least eight more simulators shipped to the Ukrainian military, the company says.

“After nearly a year of detailed fine-tuning and extensive testing with the help of EU F-16 pilot instructors, we are honored to deliver Ukraine’s first fully functional F-16 simulator,” Dogfight Boss CEO and founder Lukas Homola says. “This simulator is a testament to our commitment to precision and excellence, which is being developed and produced in-house. From construction to electronics, every component, including the complete instrument panels, throttle quadrant, pedals, and force-sensing stick base, has been crafted to meet the highest standards.”

Both the Finland-based Varjo and Czechia-based Dogfight Boss have worked extensively with defense customers over the years, with Varjo’s XR headset currently used by 60 such entities, including the U.S. Army Reconfigurable Virtual Collective Trainer (RVCT) program which uses Varjo for portable training for the Apache, Chinook, and Blackhawk helicopters.

Sharp and Japan’s largest telecom NTT Docomo today announced a new pair of AR glasses called MiRZA, which is hitting the Japanese market sometime his Fall.

It would be pretty tough to mistake Mirza for a normal pair of glasses, what with its chunky struts and rims, 6DOF tracking sensors, and center-mounted camera—not to mentions its unique AR optics, which incorporate so-called ‘mirror bars’ courtesy of South Korean AR lens creator LetinAR, promising a 45-degree diagonal field of view.

Created by NTT QONOQ Devices, a joint venture between Sharp and NTT’s XR development branch NTT QONOQ, Mirza isn’t going to be cheap either. Priced at an eye-watering ¥248,000 (~$1,730 USD), the funky but functional device more than likely will be squarely targeted at enterprise.

In the press release (Japanese), the company highlights its ability to take photos and make calls, and also display multiple screens positioned anywhere around the user. Mirza promises a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, although it’s unclear if that’s referring to perceived brightness to the end user or the brightness of the 1,920 × 1,080 microOLEDs.

To boot, Mirza promises good weight distribution thanks to placing components closer to the back of the glasses’ struts. Both internal battery and processing (Qualcomm Snapdragon AR2 Gen1) is on board, however it boasts wireless connectivity to Snapdragon Spaces-compatible smartphones.

For now, the company has only certified the AQUOS R9 SH-51E, a Japan-only flagship from Sharp, however the company says more compatible phones will be announced in the future.

We’re still waiting for more clarity on launch regions, however it’s likely Mirza may be a Japan-only device. In the meantime, check out the specs below:

MiRZA Specs

• Weight:125g
• Size: Approx. 187mm (W) x 45mm (H) x 184mm (D) (when in use), Approx. 187mm (W) x 45mm (H) x 96mm (D) (stored)
• Chipset: Snapdragon® AR2 Gen1
• Display: Resolution: FHD (1,920 x 1,080), 45° FOV (diagonal), 1,000 nits brightness, MicroOLED binocular full color
• Optics: LetinAR’s unique thin mirror bar type optical module
• Battery: continuous use time: 1～1.5 hours, charged in under 2 hours using the included USB Type-C cable
• Camera: 1x front RGB camera (image quality: FHD), 2x side monochrome cameras
• Audio: 4x microphones, 2x speakers
• Other sensors: Touch sensor (for operation), Proximity sensor (for determining wearing status), Illuminance sensor (for automatic brightness adjustment), Acceleration/gyro/camera spatial recognition sensor (for 6DoF tracking)
• Connection: Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 6E

The developer of Gorilla Tag, one of VR’s most popular and commercially successful games, has revealed the first clear look at its next game. Previously codenamed ‘Project A2’, the title has been officially dubbed Orion Drift, and aims to take Gorilla Tag’s social structure to the next level.

Another Axion is the indie studio behind Gorilla Tag, the viral VR game that’s taken on a life of its own and earned more than $100 million in revenue—making it one of VR’s most successful titles.

And while most studios would be reluctant to disrupt such a massive success with their own new title, that looks like exactly what Another Axiom is up to with Orion Drift. A newly released teaser shows how it will work.

Orion Drift is built atop Gorilla Tag’s signature arm-based locomotion system, but players will inhabit robot bodies rather than gorillas. But that simple change of avatar is far from the disruptive part. The game is taking Gorilla Tag’s seamless social lobby navigation and ‘playground’ gameplay and turning it up to 11.

Orion Drift is promised to feature space stations upon which up to 200 players can roam simultaneously. The space stations consist of multiple large arena spaces where players can play a wide variety of different games, from something that looks not far from ‘Gorilla Tag’ itself to ‘Tackleball’, which looks a lot like soccer or Rocket Race, but of course using your hands for movement and controlling the ball.

We also get a glimpse of another part of the station which includes something that looks like a golf course and pickleball courts. And still another area hosting an event called ‘Scrap Run’ which looks like an obstacle race.

Although this would already be plenty of space for activities, the cylindrical space station has at least seven additional huge modules that are shown as being ‘under construction’—the implication is that these will all fill out to support more unique activities and game modes.

And it might even be players that build out the rest of the station. Another Axiom previously said about the game that “[…] players can run their own servers, control their own stations, host their own rule sets, moderate and customize the look and feel of activities, posters, game modes and more,” and also mentioned plans for a level editor which would allow players to build their own maps and activities.

And if that wasn’t enough, at the end of the trailer the camera pulls way back and reveals not just the one floating station, but nearly 20 floating through space together.

It’s an ambitious concept that’s clearly inspired by the seamless social structure of Gorilla Tag, where game lobbies are ‘places’ and changing game modes is as natural as walking between rooms.

In Orion Drift, however, the idea isn’t just to wander down the hall into a new room, but traverse a whole space station full of people—and maybe even jump from station to station to find new game modes and people.

For now Another Axiom is calling this first look a “development snapshot” comprised of “early gameplay footage.” There aren’t yet hard plans for a release, but the studio is taking sign-ups for a closed early access period on its official Discord.

According to a report by The Verge, both Snapchat and Meta will each reveal new AR glasses for the first time next month. Both companies have been working on such projects for years.

According to The Verge’s Alex Heath, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. will reveal its fifth generation of ‘Spectacles’ AR glasses on September 17th at the company’s annual Partner Summit conference in Los Angeles. Just a week later, Meta will debut its own pair of AR glasses (codenamed Orion, according to Heath) during its annual Connect conference on September 25th.

Snap has been building out its ‘Spectacles’ line of smartglasses for several years now, but it wasn’t until the device’s fourth generation in 2021 that it actually gained proper AR capabilities. Now the company is said to be poised to reveal the fifth generation of Spectacles which will further enhance the device’s AR uses.

Similarly, Meta has been building and improving upon its Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses since the first generation in 2021. A second generation of the device launched late last year, but the company has yet to add a display or sensors for any kind of AR capabilities.

While both companies are racing toward a future where they believe AR glasses will be mainstream, the devices to be shown off next month aren’t yet ready to be productized, Heath writes. At best they’ll be released to developers for experimentation before some future version of the products reach consumers.

According to Heath, Snap’s latest pair of AR glasses will be pretty similar to the previous generation, but with an improved field-of-view and battery life. That would surely be welcome considering the first pair had a mere 26.3° diagonal field-of-view (not even half of what you’d find on a modern MR headset) and a 30 minute battery life (also not half of what you’d find on a modern MR headset!).

As for Meta’s first true AR glasses, we’ve heard the company tease that “nothing prepares you for the high field-of-view immersion,” but it’s still unclear if the field-of-view will be large in comparison to other AR glasses, or actually approach the current bar set by VR headsets. It’s also unclear if Meta’s AR glasses will be presented as another partnership with Ray-Ban, or if it the device will use Meta-owned branding, similar to Quest.

While both companies ultimately aim to create AR headsets that match the incredibly immersive capabilities we see in MR devices like Vision Pro and Quest 3, fitting those capabilities into something that’s even close to a pair of glasses remains a huge challenge.

Best-in-class devices like Magic Leap 2 are still more like bulky goggles than glasses, and that’s even with much of the compute and battery being offloaded into a ‘puck’ that goes into the pocket.

Check out Alex Heath’s report for more background and insight on Snap and Meta’s plans to reveal new AR glasses next month.

PSVR 2 got its first big sale the other week which resulted in a large lift in sales volume for the headset in the US.

At $550 MSRP, PSVR 2 is actually more expensive than the PS5 console that powers it, at $500. That’s made it a tough sell for some, especially with Quest 3, its nearest  competitor, priced at $500 and not requiring a tethered console.

Demand for Sony’s VR headset may be greater than it appears however, with many seemingly willing to buy once the price is right.

Sony discovered this after its first big sale on PSVR 2 the other week, which dropped the price of the headset alone to $350 (37% discount), and the price of the Horizon bundle to $400 (a 33% discount).

In just the week or so that the sale was active, we can see that sales volume for headset more than doubled on Amazon US compared to the prior months.

PSVR 2’s short-lived Summer sale may tell us something about the forthcoming holiday period, the time of year when the most VR headsets are sold and the biggest sales are generally seen. Sony now has a clear idea of how much its headset sales could ramp up if it offers the same deal during the holiday, or perhaps an even better one.

While the discount appears to have resulted in a nice boost in unit sales for PSVR 2, to put things into perspective we can see that it’s still a far cry from the number of Quest 2 and Quest 3 units Meta has been selling.

Meta’s first-party VR studio Ready at Dawn—the developers of Lone Echo and more—is reportedly being shuttered. This comes after the studio was acquired back in 2020 and has only released one game since.

Ready at Dawn is the studio behind one of PC VR’s most immersive games: Lone Echo (2017), and its popular multiplayer spinoff, Echo VR. Following the release of those two titles, the studio was eventually acquired by Meta in 2020, and then finally launched Lone Echo II on PC in late 2021.

Ready at Dawn was well into the development of Lone Echo II when the studio was acquired by Meta. The impetus for the acquisition remains unclear to this day, but two major possibilities are: Ready at Dawn was struggling to find enough money to make it over the finish line on Lone Echo II and Meta stepped in to make sure it would happen, or things were going just swell for the studio but Meta made a seriously attractive offer the studio couldn’t refuse.

Whatever the case, Lone Echo II was the only major title released by Ready at Dawn following the Meta acquisition. Nearly three years after its late 2021 release, the studio hasn’t released any new game, let alone announced one.

In fact, the only major thing that’s happened outwardly with the studio is that it shut down Echo VR, a beloved multiplayer spin-off of the Lone Echo games, in 2022.

With little to show, many were left wondering what the studio was up to.

A port of Lone Echo and Lone Echo II for Quest was considered a possibility, but Meta quashed that hope in 2022 when it said there were no plans for Lone Echo on Quest, and instead said the studio was “in the early stages of working on new, exciting projects and can’t wait to share more information about them in the future.” Perhaps a brand new Quest game was in the works?

Whatever the studio was working on, it was unfortunately all for naught. Android Central reported today that Ready at Dawn is being closed down, effective immediately.

This is not only an unexpected shock for those outside of the studio, but seemingly for those within as well; Android Central says that Meta employees were “encouraged to apply elsewhere within Oculus Studios and that the company wants to retain as many talented developers as possible”—suggesting that little effort was made to absorb the studio’s talent into the company at large ahead of time.

The closure of the studio comes amid Meta’s efforts to curb spending in Reality Labs, its metaverse and XR division. The division has spent an average of $15.5 billion annually since its inception, with average annual revenue of only $2.1 billion.

The shuttering of Ready at Dawn closes a nearly 21 year chapter for the studio which got its start building titles for PSP, PS3, and PS4. Before its acquisition by Meta, the studio had pivoted to VR development and created Lone Echo, which became an iconic PC VR title thanks to its production quality, innovative zero-G locomotion, and the Echo VR multiplayer spin-off which took on a life of its own.

Pico Interactive today announced it’s getting ready to reveal “a new product” this month, promising to boost your “MR/VR experience to the next level.”

The device is slated to get its big reveal on August 20th. An image obtained by Antony Vitillo of Skarred Ghost maintains it will be revealed at 14:00 China Standard Time (local time here).

It seems that the new Pico Headset is coming on August, 20th at 2pm Beijing Time!#VirtualReality #VR #China #technology #metaverse pic.twitter.com/nuuv3On8zq

— TonyVT SkarredGhost (@SkarredGhost) August 7, 2024

The company also teased the new headset in a separate X post yesterday, with the hashtags ‘Pico 4’ and ‘Upgrade’:

Brace yourself for a surprise! Coming soon! #PICO4 #Teaser #Upgrade pic.twitter.com/5tQhpynZe4

— PICO XR (@PICOXR) August 6, 2024

The tease suggests it will likely be another XR headset and not an optional accessory, although the mention of ‘upgrade’ isn’t conclusive.

Provided it’s indeed a new headset, a possible candidate could be the rumored Pico 4S, which was the subject of a leaked controller design back in March.

Less likely is Pico 5 or prospective Pico 5 Pro Max, both of which have been rumored since late last year. Since then, Pico parent company Byte Dance issued wide-reaching layoffs, which may have dampened its consumer ambitions—at least outside of Asia and possibly Europe where it has launched previous headsets.

According to a report from Korean tech outlet The Elec, Microsoft has contracted Samsung to supply micro OLED display panels for what is described as “next-generation mixed reality devices.”

Citing industry sources, the report maintains the order could reach into the “hundreds of thousands” of micro OLED displays, with such a Microsoft XR device reportedly slated to arrive as early as 2026.

Unlike Meta’s current line of Quest headsets, the alleged Microsoft headset will be used for “enjoying or watching content such as games or movies rather than the metaverse,” the report maintains (machine translated from Korean), potentially putting it in competition with Apple Vision Pro.

Since Microsoft’s abandonment of its WMR platform late last year and ongoing stagnation around its HoloLens AR platform, the company has mostly concentrated on smaller XR software projects.

In January 2024, the company released support for 3D and VR meetings in Mesh, its immersive chatting platform. The company later announced at its Build developer conference in May it was bringing Windows Volumetric apps to Quest.

Since the release of Vision Pro earlier this year however, competing—or at least preparing to compete—with Apple seems to be the order of the day.

Samsung and Google confirmed in July their forthcoming “XR platform” will be announced sometime this year. The ‘platform’, which is thought to be hardware built by Samsung and an Android XR operating system built by Google, was previously reportedly delayed in effort to better compete with Vision Pro.

Meta is also apparently looking to compete with Vision Pro, with a device reported to arrive sometime in 2027.

Thanks to Brad ‘SadlyItsBradley‘ Lynch for pointing us to the news.

One of VR’s most senior studios nDreams announced they’re getting ready to announce “what’s next” at the VR Games Showcase next week.

Coming August 15th and presented by industry veteran Jamie Feltham, the inaugural VR Games Showcase will cover titles targeting Quest, PSVR 2 and PC VR—promising 15 titles and announcements from a smorgasbord of XR studios.

Among them will be nDream, which has developed a host of memorable VR games including Phantom: Covert Ops (2020), Fracked (2021), Synapse (2023), and Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord (2023).

Are you ready for what’s next from @nDreams?

Then you better tune into the VR Games Showcase in 10 days on YouTube.https://t.co/oq7etivmWy pic.twitter.com/t3uQhJIHq9

— VR Games Showcase | Aug 15 on YouTube (@vrgamesshowcase) August 5, 2024

It’s uncertain what nDreams has up its sleeve, whether it be additional content to existing titles, or a new game. Outside of its main studio, nDreams maintains a publishing arm in addition to first-party nDreams Studio Orbital, nDreams Studio Elevation, and Nearlight (Shooty Fruity, Perfect), the latter of which was acquired by nDreams in late 2022.

Whatever the case, the studio will be present at Gamescom from August 21st – 23rd at the Home of XR megabooth, also headed by Feltham, which will also feature content from Vertigo Games, Fast Travel Games, Soul Assembly, Combat Waffle Studios, Beyond Frames Entertainment, Flat2VR Studios, and Patient 8 Games.

The VR Games Showcase is slated to air on Thursday, August 15th at 12:00 PM ET (local time here). We’ll of course be following along via the showcase’s official YouTube channel.

MixRift, a mixed reality game studio, today announced it’s secured a $1.6 million pre-seed investment round, something the team says will be used to develop more MR games.

The funding round was led by Outsized Ventures, Underline Ventures, and SOSV. According to CrunchBase data, MixRift received an undisclosed round from SOSV in May 2024.

Founded in 2023, the team is led by Bobby Voicu, David Pripas and Andrei Vaduva. Voicu, who is CEO, previously launched mobile games studio Mavenhut; Pripas is an official Meta AR Partner and the company’s CPO, and Vaduva is the company’s CTO.

Known for its indie XR titles Hell Horde (2024) on Quest and Fractured (2024) on both Quest and Apple Vision Pro, MixRift says it’s working to create the Angry Birds of mixed reality—something that’s easy to pick up but hard to put down.

“We’re at the very beginning of what mixed reality could do for gamers,” Voicu says. “We know there is a huge untapped market, and our founding team knows what it takes to create the games that hook those players in. This puts us in a unique position to capitalise on the opportunity.”

MixRift says it will use the investment to continue its development and plans to release further titles later in 2024, noting that it’s focusing on sticky game mechanics over “specific titles” to best identify what resonates with audiences.

“We are committed to rapidly prototyping games, getting them into the market, and gathering real user feedback as quickly as possible,” Voicu says. “We use those insights to improve titles that connect with audiences and replace those that don’t. This investment gives us the support we need to take that approach and demonstrates experienced, knowledgeable backers’ buy-in to our philosophy.”

HTC has reduced the price of Vive XR Elite, its flagship standalone headset, cutting it from $1,100 to $900.

Update (August 12th, 2024): In addition to permanently cutting the price of Vive XR Elite in the US, HTC has announced the same deal is coming to the UK where the headset will drop to £900.

The original article, covering the initial price drop, continues below.

Released in February 2023, Vive XR Elite was initially positioned as a Quest Pro competitor, offering up a compact and lightweight standalone design and mixed reality capabilities.

Shortly after its release, Meta closed the price gap, dropping Quest Pro from $1,500 to $1,000, essentially removing one of Vive XR Elite’s headlining features.

Now, at $900, it appears HTC is hoping to move Vive XR Elite stock in the US, or what has been the XR segment’s most performant market for consumer devices.

Additionally, the company is also holding two promotions for Vive XR Elite and Vive Ultimate Tracker bundles in the US, which end on August 31st. You’ll find both available on Vive.com.

• VIVE XR Elite + Ultimate Tracker 3 trackers + 1 dongle for $1,398
•  VIVE XR Elite + Ultimate Tracker 5 trackers + 1 dongle for $1,696

Meanwhile, HTC released a video late last month promising something “coming soon,” teasing what promises to be the next XR headset from the company.

While the company hasn’t revealed anything beyond that video, seen above, a supposed leak reported by tech analyst Brad Lynch suggests the headset may be more of an iterative design on Vive Focus 3—delivering what may be Vive Focus 4.

The reported leak maintains the next HTC headset will contain the same displays and optics as Vive Focus 3, however integrate the same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 chipset used in Vive XR Elite, and also include built-in eye-tracking, USB-C DisplayPort Alt Mode, and work with Vive Focus 3’s accessories—all of which is unconfirmed.

Provided that leak is true, the company may be in danger of undercutting Vive XR Elite’s functionality, becoming a veritable Quest Pro to Meta’s Quest 3, which has a majority of the former’s functionality at  nearly half the price.

Flat2VR Studios has been accepted into the SPEEDRUN accelerator, not only giving the studio a financial boost on its mission to bring VR support to non-VR games, but a good measure of validation too.

Hosted by A16Z Games, a games-focused investment arm of Andreessen Horowitz, Speedrun is early-stage accelerator for startups that includes $750,000 as well as “a highly curated set of industry coaches, mentors, and a community of ambitious founders,” the VC firm says.

In a post on X, Flat2VR says the accelerator “should help open some doors to porting more of those absolute dream titles officially into VR!”

We’re so honored to have been accepted into the @a16z speed run program which should help open some doors to porting more of those absolute dream titles officially into VR! https://t.co/s5NPJQfy88

Can’t wait to give you a little sneak peek at what we’ve been up to in the… pic.twitter.com/U8i3RwI2sK

— Flat2VR Studios Gamescom (@Flat2VRStudios) August 1, 2024

Flat2VR Studios co-founder Elliot Tate reveals that only 30 of around 4.000 applicants were chosen for the accelerator, putting the studio in the company of Speedrun veterans such as Oculus, Gym Class VR, and Sandbox VR.

Earlier this year, VR publishing and marketing firm Impact Reality founded Flat2VR Studios with the aim of engaging leading developers from the VR modding scene to create officially licensed VR adaptations of popular flatscreen games.

While traditionally the work of hobbyists and distributed modding groups, Flat2VR Studios works directly with developers to create official VR versions of their titles. Among their ranks the studio counts VR porting veterans ‘Cabalistic’ and ‘Raicuparta’, renowned for their VR adaptations of games like Half-Life 2 and Outer Wilds respectively.

The studio is currently working on an official VR port of a still undisclosed game, which is slated to release in late 2024 or early 2025 on major VR platforms. We’re looking forward to learning more at the VR Games Showcase on August 15th to learn more.

Virtuix’s latest VR treadmill, Omni One, is finally set to launch next month. The company has updated its launch roster of VR games that will natively support the treadmill, now including Sniper Elite VR.

Virtuix is pitching Omni One as an all-in-one system for immersing yourself in VR with full body locomotion. Rather than being merely an accessory to a headset, the treadmill is actually packaged with a headset of its own (Pico 4), customized to make the experience of using the VR treadmill seamless.

That includes fostering a store of VR games that natively support the treadmill. Virtuix says there’s now than 51 titles for the treadmill’s launch that’s planned for next month: see the full lineup here.

Most recently the company added the following:

• Alvo VR
• Amid Evil
• Drop Dead: The Cabin
• Flock of the Low God
• Genotype
• Ilysia
• Neolithic Dawn
• Propagation: Paradise Hotel
• Sail
• Sugar Mess – Let’s Play Jolly Battle
• Survival Nation
• The Atlas Mystery
• Tunnels VR
• Undead Citadel
• and perhaps the treadmill’s biggest catch to date, Sniper Elite VR

“We’re thrilled to bring Sniper Elite to the Omni One platform,” said Jason Kingsley CBE, CEO of Rebellion, developer of Sniper Elite VR. “With Virtuix’s innovative technology, players can now physically step into the intense missions of Sniper Elite, experiencing the thrill of precision shooting in a whole new dimension.”

Virtuix says it “collaborates closely with each game studio to optimize gameplay for the Omni One platform, ensuring seamless movement and full-body immersion.”

Though the company has purportedly shipped hundreds of Omni One units to early “beta customers” which backed the Omni One’s crowd-investment program, a general launch is expected next month, priced at $2,600 for the headset and treadmill.

Last year, Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA announced the Alliance for OpenUSD, an organization to advance and proliferate the USD file format as the future standard for creating and distributing 3D content. The standard, which is a framework for constructing and packaging complex 3D scenes, was called the “HTML of the metaverse” by NVIDIA, and expected to “help accelerate the next generation of AR experiences,” by Apple.

Now two more heavyweights, Microsoft and Sony, have joined the Alliance for OpenUSD in support of Universal Scene Description (USD) as the future of authoring and packaging complex 3D content. The idea is to have a single file format that contains geometry, lighting, animations and more—which can be portably used between 3D authoring tools like Maya, 3ds Max, Houdini, Substance Painter, and collaborative workflows.

In addition to Apple, Microsoft and Sony join other members of the group with significant ties to the XR industry, like Meta and Epic Games.

For Apple’s part, the company sees USD as an important building stone for the XR space.

“OpenUSD will help accelerate the next generation of AR experiences, from artistic creation to content delivery, and produce an ever-widening array of spatial computing applications,” said Apple’s VP of the Vision Products Group at the time the Alliance for OpenUSD was announced. “Apple has been an active contributor to the development of USD, and it is an essential technology for the groundbreaking visionOS platform, as well as the new Reality Composer Pro developer tool. We look forward to fostering its growth into a broadly adopted standard.”