ARVORE, the studio behind the Pixel Ripped game series, announced it’s releasing a sequel this summer called Pixel Ripped 1978, which aims to take us back for another immersive trip down memory lane.
To bring the latest entry in the Pixel Ripped franchise to life, the Sao Paolo, Brazil-based Arvore has struck a major branding partnership with iconic gaming house ATARI.
In the trailer, you’ll see an Atari 2600 and a number of games, such as Crystal Castles (1983), Fast Freddie (1982), and Yars Revenge (1982).
While not the most influential titles to grace the console over its 15-year lifespan (1977-1992), the partnership is essentially allowing the studio to dispense with the ‘Pretendo’ and ‘GearKid’ soundalike consoles and near-beer versions of classic games, offering up a more direct homage to late ’70s and early ’80s gaming.
Here’s how Arvore and ATARI describe Pixel Ripped 1978:
Dot must join forces with “Bug,” the quirky visionary who developed the original Pixel Ripped series. Help Dot maneuver through multidimensional challenges to protect Bug’s childhood memories from the evil Cyblin Lord, a villain able to break through the screen and invade the real world. In the game. The setting? The intense burst of creativity that vibrated through the San Jose suburbs in the late 70s and early 80s. Feel the mighty effects of how the Pixel Stone alters reality itself!
The franchise’s titles are standalone experiences, which also includes Pixel Ripped 1989 (2018) and Pixel Ripped 1995 (2020).
Atari CEO Wade Rosen says Pixel Ripped 1978 is also aimed at “fans of Pixel Ripped and […] the broader Atari community.”
Pixel Ripped 1978 is slated to launch on PC, PSVR 2, Meta Quest 2, and PlayStation 5 at some point this summer.
Polyarc, the studio behind the Moss franchise, announced a new competitive multiplayer VR game currently in development.
Polyarc isn’t saying much beyond that—we still don’t even know it’s name—however a look at the game’s concept art shows a definite influence from Moss‘ style and characters, including the Reader and a number of plucky mice heroes.
Although we can’t read too much into it, retrofitting Moss’ third-person platforming view into a multiplayer battle game may mean the studio is pursuing something very similar in feel to Moss, albeit with multiple classes and weapons. In the concept art we see a gilded Reader and a number of different mousey classes: a tank, archer, knight, wizard, and even some evil leafy dudes.
“It’s apparent observing the community of players out there and receiving some of our own feedback that there are a lot of gamers in VR who are looking for and want to play more competitive multiplayer games,” said Tam Armstrong, co-founder and CEO, Polyarc. “We are excited about this opportunity, as VR offers interesting considerations for multiplayer games. The ability to read the other player’s focus and intention as they move their head and hands are some of the elements that make playing games in person so compelling. We are looking forward to sharing what we’ve been working on and the fun we’ve been having playing it.”
Coming off the success of Moss and Moss: Book II, Polyarc says a competitive multiplayer is “something the team has been excited to develop since the studio’s inception in 2015, but first the player base needed to grow large enough to support multiplayer games of this nature.”
The game, which is still unnamed at the time of this writing, is set to run closed playtesting on the weekend of April 14th-16th. Here’s how Polyarc describes the first round of closed beta testing:
We’re working on lots of cool, new stuff and want to see what happens when we get it in the hands of real players. Each playtest will focus on a different aspect of an in-development game and your feedback will be important to help us make the best final product(s) possible. And we’re here to test the game; we’re not testing you as the playtesters. So please don’t feel like you have to do anything besides play the game. If you are having fun, we want to know! If you aren’t having fun, then we also want to know. And we will ask you all about every juicy detail in a survey at the end.
The studio hasn’t announced target platforms yet, however playtesters will require a Quest 2 to participate. If you’re interested in joining, signups are available starting today.
Virtuix, the company behind the Omni VR treadmill, launched a crowd-based investment campaign in 2020 to fund Virtuix Omni One, an at-home VR locomotion device targeted at consumers. Now the studio has revealed the final version, pricing, and the news that it’s now shipping out to early investors.
Omni One units are now headed out to early investors (re: not backers) prior to the device’s planned consumer launch, which is said to arrive at some point later this year.
The company says its currently has a waitlist for Omni One of “more than 35,000 subscribers.”
Here’s a look at what Virtuix says is the final version of the hardware:
Image courtesy Virtuix
Virtuix says 900 of its equity crowdfunding investors have applied to buy Omni One beta units, which will be extended to late 2023, however unit quantities will “start small and gradually increase as the program proceeds.”
Similar to other parabolic VR ‘treadmills’, Omni One requires you to wear special low-friction shoes and strap into a harness system which keeps you in the center of the base’s parabola.
And although marketed as a consumer-targeted device, Omni One’s introductory price will be $2,595 plus shipping, which also includes the Pico Neo 3 Pro standalone headset. The company is however also offering a financing plan that could bring it to as low as $65 per month.
Over its lifetime, Virtuix has raised $35 million. The company says it’s now shipped over $16 million worth of products, which includes over 4,000 Omni Pro systems across 45 countries, and than 70 Omni Arena systems to US venues such as Dave & Buster’s.
HTC today announced a new Vive Tracker accessory which is the first in the industry to use inside-out tracking, meaning it doesn’t require any external beacons. The device can be attached to props to bring them into VR or to the user’s body for enhanced body tracking.
HTC’s existing Vive Trackers are a popular accessory for anyone interested in VR full-body tracking, but they use SteamVR Tracking technology which requires external beacons for use.
Now the company has announced a new Vive Tracker, and while it doesn’t yet have a name, HTC confirms it is their first standalone tracker based on inside-out tracking which uses on-board cameras to track its own position in space. That means no external beacons or cameras need to be set up for use.
HTC says that up to five of the new standalone Vive Trackers can be used at once, which could be used for body tracking in VR by attaching two trackers to the elbows, two to the feet, and one to the hips. Combined with the user’s head and hands (which are already tracked by the headset and controllers), the trackers can be used to represent the user’s movements more fully—which allows people to do some pretty incredible things in VR.
Details are slim right now; HTC hasn’t announced the price or battery life, and the release date is far off in Q3 2023. Though the company says the device will support standalone Vive headsets, PC VR, and a fully self-contained mode for those wanting to use the trackers for non-VR uses such as object tracking. The tracker is also based on OpenXR, and HTC says this will make it possible to use the tracker with other headsets from other vendors.
The base of the tracker has a quick-release system for removing it from its mount, as well as a standard camera tripod thread for connecting various standardized mounts and holders. The units are small too, with HTC saying they come in at just half the height of the latest Vive Tracker 3.0.
Developers interested in experimenting with the new tracker can contact HTC here to register their interest.
Although the device will support PC VR, HTC says it recommends that anyone already using SteamVR Tracking should stick with the existing Vive Tracker 3.0 for its precision and compatibility.
– – — – –
While this is the first dedicated inside-out tracker to be release by a major VR vendor, the device is fundamentally similar to the Quest Pro and Magic Leap 2 controllers which also use on-board cameras to track their position.
Assuming HTC’s new inside-out tracker works well, the company may not be far off from releasing its own inside-out tracked controller.
Not For Broadcast VR isn’t just about live-mixing camera feeds and making sure the National Nightly News airs without a hitch—that’s the gamey bit you’ll have to contend with if you want to keep ratings up and make sure the audience isn’t switching channels. It’s also a dark and brilliantly satirical take on modern politics and how broadcast media has become intertwined with entertainment. And it’s no surprise the propaganda simulator’s big buttons and full motion video (FMV) action translate pretty well to VR too.
Not For Broadcast VR Details:
Available On: SteamVR, Quest 2 Release Date: March 23rd, 2023 Price: $TBD Developer: NotGames, Babaroga Publisher: tinyBuild Reviewed On: Quest 2 via PC Link
Gameplay
Not For Broadcast VR is exactly what is says on the tin: it’s basically the VR-ified (re: separate) version of Not For Broadcast, which indie studio NotGames released in 1.0 early last year on PC.
Here’s the basic setup: you’ve stepped up from your janitorial duties to run the production control room of a national TV station in an alternate timeline in 1980s Britain. The far-left Advance party has won the big election by a landslide and is bent on making sweeping changes with an authoritarian flair.
In your live-mixing booth you expertly sync in commercial breaks, cut between four camera feeds, and keep the ratings high by combatting frequency disturbances. Although outwardly you’re nothing but a cog in the propaganda machine, you can intentionally affect outcomes in the game which lead to multiple endings. With your ability to sway public perception, you can either shame or exalt celebrities and politicians, and even decide who lives and dies in some of the more gripping chapters by focusing or omitting certain shots. Please or anger your Advance party overlords, and find out how life changes.
Image courtesy NotGames
And as you’d imagine, the game is intentionally overwhelming, offering up a series of contemporaneous stuff that will drive you to mechanically execute tasks as you struggle to actively listen to some of the most asinine things to come on screen.
Things to keep the ratings up include interesting editing, getting reaction shots and people talking right, censoring foul language properly, and making sure the signal is clear of interference. Alternatively, you lose ratings by messing all of those things up.
You’ll probably want to pay attention and watch the bizzarro world in disbelief, but really you can’t. The show must go on and the eternal plate-spinning is the only way to make it continue, lest you lose watchers and eventually draw the ire of your employer and the channel’s large and influential sponsors. The conflict of interest is writ large at the end of each broadcast session too. You are directly funded by the ruling party.
Image courtesy NotGames
Mess up too much and you’ll make less money, which makes replacing key bits of kit and buying luxury gadgets, like automatic censor buttons, much more difficult.
It’s not all about ratings though. Non-broadcast days are interspersed with text-based interludes that test your decision-making skills—essentially morality vibe checks. Do you help a family member flee the country, which may put your job at risk? How do you deal with mounting bills and family tragedy when your day job is to act as a party mouthpiece? You are a team player, aren’t you?
Confession: I’ve already played the flatscreen version, and my love for the underlying game is undeniable. Thankfully there is very little material change between the two, and despite a frequency toggle that doesn’t work terribly well in VR, most everything is well translated thanks to the game’s user-friendly interface which make for good physical interaction models, including stuff like VHS tapes, switches, nobs and big red buttons. More about that in Immersion.
Having the ability to keep an eye on everything more naturally is also a big help, as the flatscreen version forces you to switch views manually to keep an eye on all three main terminal areas.
Image courtesy NotGames
That said, the game is best taken in bitesize pieces since the main story can take anywhere from 8 to 10 hours, with broadcasts typically lasting 20-30 minutes a piece. Considering the game packs in nearly 43 hours of FMV though, you may find yourself replaying broadcasts just to see where you went wrong, and how outcomes might change as difficult situations come your way.
Variable difficulty is available, but only on the start of a new game. Thankfully the difficulty levels are spelled out plainly before you start, letting you pick between five levels. The lowest level is for more narrative enjoyment, while the highest level is super unforgiving when it comes to editing efficiency and signal clarity.
Immersion
Whenever I play a flatscreen-to-VR port, I always ask myself this question: does it need to be in VR? And to be honest, Not For Broadcast feels only marginally more at home in VR than on flatscreen, kind of like how Friday Night at Freddy’s is amped up in-headset versus on a flatscreen thanks to impending doom.
Still, like FNaF, all game UI is a direct translation from the original flatscreen game, which isn’t bad, but not nearly as ‘VR-native’ as it could be were it designed specifically for VR headsets and motion controllers first. Hitting a button or manipulating toggle are plain binary actions which don’t really engage you to the fullest potential like you might see in games built for VR headsets from the ground-up, like I Expect You to Die. Still, there’s no denying the underlying game is provocative, fun, and more disturbing in VR than flatscreen.
Not For Broadcast’s full motion video (the star of the show) works particularly well in drawing you deeper into the game’s lore too.
Image courtesy NotGames
Acting is surprisingly good for such a bootstrapped project; it’s suitably hammy, but tight and witty enough to peel your attention away from your mounting list of tasks.
Granted, if you do miss something, you can review your finished product after each broadcast, including the raw signals for candid dialogue and full adverts so you don’t have to worry about missing any narrative flavor after the fact.
Comfort
The game can be played standing or seated, although either way you should make sure you have at least a meter of space in your periphery, so you don’t smash your coffee table, monitor, small child, whatever. Otherwise, there is no artificial locomotion to speak of, making it perfect for first-timers or sensitive users. You should note the game features strong language and violent themes, so plan accordingly.
Not For Broadcast VR’ Comfort Settings – March 20th, 2023
Turning
Artificial turning
✖
Snap-turn
✖
Quick-turn
✖
Smooth-turn
✖
Movement
Artificial movement
✖
Teleport-move
✖
Dash-move
✖
Smooth-move
✖
Blinders
✖
Head-based
✖
Controller-based
✖
Swappable movement hand
✖
Posture
Standing mode
✔
Seated mode
✔
Artificial crouch
✖
Real crouch
✔
Accessibility
Subtitles
✔
Languages
English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified), Russian
AR smart glasses company Rokid has just launched its next consumer product, “Rokid Max.” Shipping isn’t scheduled to start until the end of April, but here’s everything that we know about the glasses so far from a shared press release and user manual.
The Specs
Like most consumer AR glasses on the market today, Rokid Max is presented exclusively as a virtual screen for mirroring a smartphone. That can mean online content, downloaded movies, games, or any productivity apps. Users can also switch to a “3D mode” for viewing 3D content in an app or WebXR experience.
As viewers, they have some solid specs. The lenses themselves offer a 1080p micro-OLED display for content running at a 120Hz refresh rate. They clock in at a 50-degree field of view (which lands solidly between the two main competitors – Nreal’s Air and Light models). The resulting virtual screen is comparable to a “215-inch boundaryless display from [19 feet] away.”
The glasses also offer manual diopter adjustment via a dial over each lens. According to the release, this can be used by non-glasses-wearing users to sharpen the image, or by those users who normally need prescription lenses. Users will also be able to adjust audio settings which include noise cancellation for maintaining privacy and sound quality, though this option will be available within a couple of months post-delivery.
The total hardware itself is no wider than a pair of glasses and just under three-quarters of an inch thick, though it’s unclear whether that includes an optional nose pad and a “blackout cover” for over the lenses. They weigh in at less than a fifth of a pound. The glasses do fold, and come with a carrying case.
As the glasses do not have their own onboard battery, they do require a hard connection to the streaming device, similar to other consumer AR glasses. Rokid Max will be available for preorder from the manufacturer starting today, for $439. During the presales period, which runs until April 30, there’s a $20 discount with the code “ROKIDPRESS20OFF”.
How Does Rokid Max Square Up?
Rokid Max is an interesting product. The glasses have their biggest competitor in Nreal Air, so we can hold them up to each other to understand Rokid’s position in the market.
Nreal Light has a few things going for it. First, it’s slightly cheaper. Second, it can connect to gaming consoles and laptops as well as mobile phones. Nreal Air also has a limited but promising 3DoF AR input system. Something like that might be true of Rokid as well, but none of the materials shared with ARPost mention it.
Rokid Max hits back in a couple of key areas. It has a slightly larger field of view, which is a pretty big deal when comparing what are essentially media viewers. Further, Rokid has a lot of cool modular components.
Manual diopter controls are a big deal, particularly for people that need glasses. Nreal offers corrective lenses for their glasses, but it’s a paid accessory so if you need glasses, Nreal’s lead in the price category disappears immediately. The removable nose pad is also a cool option.
Finally, the blackout cover is a really cool play, particularly for productivity. AR glasses tend to be “sunnies” because blocking light from the outside improves immersion and viewing comfort and quality. In entertainment applications, there aren’t really any drawbacks to that, but in productivity settings, it can make it harder for you to see your environment as well as the display.
There’s one potential concern I have about this. Darkening the environment also means that the display doesn’t have to run as bright, which saves battery and reduces heat. If the light blocker is optional, that may mean that the display is working harder than it has to, which could have negative effects on the battery life and some other elements.
We’ve Got Our Eyes On You
We wish Rokid Max the best. We have to. We’re still so early on in the field of consumer AR glasses that every new entry is a winner. But, more than that, while there are some things that we could ask of Rokid, the glasses introduce a lot of killer innovations that certainly set it apart.
While Oculus doesn’t offer much publicly in the way of understanding how well individual games & apps are performing across its Quest 2 storefront, it’s possible to glean some insight by looking at apps relative to each other. Here’s a snapshot of the 20 best rated Oculus Quest games and apps as of March 2023.
Some quick qualifications before we get to the data:
Paid and free apps are separated
Only apps with more than 100 reviews are represented
Triangle Factory, the studio behind Hyper Dash (2021), announced its squad-based shooter Breachers is set to launch next month on Quest 2 and SteamVR headsets.
The Rainbow Six Siege-inspired shooter has seen over 60,000 players play since the studio launched the open alpha late last year. Now the studio says Breachers will officially launch on April 13th.
Like Rainbow Six Siege, one team (Enforcers) is tasked with wiping out the enemy squad and disarm their bombs with an EMP. You’ll be able to rappel and breach through walls, swing through windows and catch your opponents by surprise with gadgetry like drones, cloaking devices, flashbangs and breaching foam.
As the opposing team (Revolter), your squad has to protect your bombs with force and gadgets such as door-blockers, trip mines, static field emitters and proximity sensors.
If you’re curious to try your hand at the Breachers, the studio is actually still running the open alpha until March 24th. You can join the open alpha over at SideQuest for Quest 2 and Quest Pro, and over at Github for PC VR headsets. If you need any help through the install process, make sure to jump over to the game’s Discord (invite link).
While a VR-only game, Triangle Factory is also packaging in a spectator mode that can be viewed without VR hardware, promising some ready access for streamers looking to commentate on the game’s 5v5 competitive matches.
Priced at $30, players who pre-order on Quest can also get an Elite gun skin for ‘The Jesper’, the standard sidearm players spawn with at the start of each round. You can also wishlist on Steam. The studio hasn’t mentioned PSVR 2 support yet.
Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2, the company’s work-focused version of its iconic but once maligned smartglasses, is being discontinued.
Google says in a device support FAQ that, starting March 15th, it will no longer sell Glass Enterprise 2, adding that it will only support the device until September 15th, 2023.
While the company says it’s not pushing out any more software for Glass Enterprise Edition after that date, however its most recent system images will remain publicly available until at least April 1st, 2024.
Launched in 2017, Google Glass for enterprise was a revival of sorts, as the company had ceased production of the storied device in 2015.
Google Glass Explorer Edition | Image courtesy Alphabet
Starting in 2012, the company was hoping to seed the device among prosumers with its Glass Explorer Editions, although public backlash spawned the term “glasshole,” putting a severe dent in Google’s ambitions to launch a more consumer-focused version of the device.
Google hasn’t explained why it’s killing off Glass for enterprise. In response to PC Mag, a Google spokesperson left this comment:
“For years, we’ve been building AR into many Google products and we’ll continue to look at ways to bring new, innovative AR experiences across our product portfolio.”
To be fair, Google probably has bigger fish to fry, and the aging smartglasses platform may well be replaced sooner rather than later. Google said last summer it would be conducting real world tests of its early AR prototypes, emphasizing things like real-time translation and AR turn-by-turn navigation.
There’s also the issue of emerging competition. Apple’s upcoming mixed reality (MR) headset is rumored to arrive sometime in mid-2023, while Meta is prepping multiple generations of its MR Quest headsets.
Granted, these MR headsets probably won’t be the model workhorses, although many companies see MR headsets as a steppingstone in preparation for the sort of all-day AR glasses industry is hoping to commercialize in the near future.
– – — – –
To be clear, Google Glass is a style of smartglass(es) and not an AR device as such; Glass provides a single heads-up display (HUD) that doesn’t place digital imagery naturally in the user’s perceived environment, like with HoloLens 2 or Magic Leap 2, but rather flatly projects the sort of useful information you might also see on a smartwatch. You can learn more about the differences between AR headsets and smartglasses here.
Meta is transitioning its support from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5.1 for apps built for the Quest platform. Two of the engine’s headlining features aren’t designed for mobile though, so it’s doubtful we we’ll ever see them on Quest.
In a dev blog post announcing the news, Meta says developers who choose to work with Epic’s game engine should start thinking about using UE5 for their Quest apps. The company isn’t advising devs to upgrade to UE5 if in the middle of a project though; apps based on UE4 can still be distributed to the Meta Quest Store or App Lab.
Still, the clock is ticking. Meta will support critical bug fixes for UE4 until the end of 2023, although devs can access UE4 resources and documentation on Meta’s GitHub repository even after the support is scaled back.
As you’d imagine, Meta says the original 2019 Quest won’t be supported—it’s unceremoniously getting pushed off into the sea—however the company is slated to provide separate binaries for each device soon, which will allow developers targeting Quest 1 an upgrade path. Notably, OpenXR is the only VR API supported by Meta in UE5.
No Nanite or Lumen
Unfortunately, two of the biggest features of Epic’s latest and greatest aren’t coming to the company’s standalone headsets. Released in April 2022, UE5 packs in two new tools called Nanite and Lumen.
Nanite is a virtualized geometry system which uses a new internal mesh format and rendering technology to render pixel scale detail and high object counts.
It essentially works like a continuous Level of Detail (LOD) system that draws detail from the original ‘master’ 3D model. In its developer documentation, Epic Games says Nanite can increase an app’s geometry complexity, higher triangle and objects counts by “multiple orders of magnitude.”
Here’s a look at what Nanite can do for VR games, courtesy of YouTube channel ‘Smart Poly’:
Lumen, the engine’s new dynamic global lighting system, also makes virtual environments look better, as it can use both software and hardware ray tracing for more realistic lighting.
And why not on Quest 2 or Quest Pro? Nanite and Lumen simply aren’t built to work on mobile processors, and don’t support Android at all.
Nanite is currently supported on a host of devices, including PS5, Xbox Series S|X, and PCs with even the most-humble of Maxwell-generation graphics cards. PS4 and Xbox One also support Nanite, albeit experimentally.
Lumen on the other hand is developed for PS5 and Xbox Series S|X, and high-end PCs. Software ray tracing can be done on NVIDIA GeForce GTX-1070 or higher cards, while hardware ray tracing must be on NVIDIA RTX-2000 series or higher, or AMD RX-6000 series or higher. Not even PS4 or Xbox One.
Moreover, Epic says in Lumen’s documentation that there are “no plans to develop a dynamic global illumination system for the mobile renderer. Games using dynamic lighting need to use unshadowed Sky Light on mobile.”
Without direct support from Epic, Meta has little other choice. Granted, many VR creators opt to develop in Unity thanks to its relative simplicity for smaller teams and greater overall market share, meaning more assets and general know-how to go around.
Following a mass layoff at Meta late last year which affected 11,000 of its employees, the company announced today that it would be laying off another 10,000 workers through multiple rounds.
Update (March 14th, 2023): According to a Facebook post by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta is laying off an additional 10,000 employees across multiple rounds. It’s also set to close hiring for 5,000 open roles, and cancel more low-priority projects. Layoffs are said to begin this week, first hitting the company’s recruiting organization. A second weave in late April will affect tech roles, while a third in late May will affect business roles.
In the post, Zuckerberg calls this the “Year of Efficiency,” which the Meta chief says will optimize distributed work, increase developer productivity and tooling, and make the organization flatter by removing multiple layers of management. Zuckerberg also hopes to make it leaner by prioritizing higher-priority projects.
Notably, Zuckerberg doesn’t mention specific projects, or XR in any capacity. Meanwhile, the company has lowered the price of both Quest 2 and Quest Pro before the launch of Quest 3, which has come amid reports that Meta is planning a cheaper follow-up to Quest 3 in 2024 in addition to its AR projects.
The original article detailing the first large layoff round follows below:
Original Article (November 9th, 2022): Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said this in an internal memo obtained by Reuters:
“Not only has online commerce returned to [pre-covid] prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected,” Zuckerberg said. “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”
Meta plans to cut discretionary spending and extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter, Reuters maintains. Laid off Meta employees are said to receive 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, as well as all remaining paid time off, as a part of the severance package.
It’s not certain what percentage of layoffs will affect those working in Reality Labs. We’ve reached out to Meta for further comment and will update this if/when we hear back.
Trouble in XR Paradise?
Meta’s most recent quarterly earnings spelled trouble when it was released last month. Close to celebrating its first year after rebranding from Facebook to become a self-described ‘metaverse’ company, Meta battled slumping revenues across multiple divisions, not least of which was its XR centerpiece Reality Labs, which took an expected hit that didn’t sit right with investors.
While Meta has been aggressively spending on its XR division over the past few years, its recent shift away from Facebook amid all-time low revenues and record inflation has made layoffs almost a guarantee to keep stock prices from plummeting further.
Back in May, Reutersreported that hiring freezes would affect Reality Labs, which has added more than 13,000 employees last year and nearly 6,000 in the first quarter this year.
Zuckerberg warned at the time that Reality Labs probably wouldn’t truly profit for at least decade. In the meantime, the Meta’s XR efforts has cost the company $10.2 billion in 2021 and another $3 billion in the first quarter this year.
Meanwhile, Meta has just released its $1,500 Meta Quest Pro mixed reality headset for prosumers and business, and plans to release a consumer-focused follow-up, likely dubbed Quest 3, sometime in 2023.
PlayStation VR 2 launched late last month alongside more than 40 titles, which included games entirely new to the platform as well existing games from other platforms and upgraded PSVR titles. The headset’s first monthly top download chart has revealed a big shift in which games are taking an early lead in the headset’s growing library.
Taking the top spot across the US & Canada, the EU and Japan is Kayak VR: Mirage, a kayak racing sim initially released on SteamVR headsets in 2022 by Amsterdam-based indie studio Better Than Life.
In it, players race across lush, photorealistic environments including ice caves in Antarctica, tropical locales in Costa Rica, storm waters in Norway, and the stark canyons of Australia. The paddling movement mechanic is also something that works really well in VR too, which we hope more games will make use of thanks to just how immersive it can be.
Horizon Call of the Mountain, undoubtedly a product of sizable investment by Sony, only managed to eke out third place in the US/Canada and the EU, taking second place in Japan, which is probably more than a tad disappointing to the Sony-owned developers Guerilla Games and Firesprite.
Horizon Call of the Mountain is a single-player adventure that showcases some of the best graphics you’ll find anywhere in VR. Combat could be a bit more fluid and climbing could have more interesting challenges, although it certainly stacks up to Half-Life: Alyx in terms of immersion. Check out why we game it a respectable [8.5/10] in our review.
Granted, Horizon Call of the Mountain comes with a premium price tag of $60, which may explain why it underperforms in unit sales in comparison to the cheap and cheerful $25 team shooter Pavlov and $23 Kayak VR: Mirage. There’s also to consider that it was the subject of a hardware bundle, however that included a voucher code and not a physical disk. As the PlayStation blogpost states, the chart is counting downloads and not unit sales.
What’s more, it seems the era of Job Simulator (2016) ruling the PSVR top download charts has come to a definite end—despite it and sequel Vacation Simulator both offering PSVR 2 versions. Job Simulator has ruled the download charts nearly every month without fail since it launched on the original PSVR.
Take note: the February download chart only accounts for the headset’s first week in existence (Feb 22-28). March’s chart should be another fairly interesting read, as we see whether these top spots remain, or falter as more users pick up PSVR 2 headsets. Check out the chart below:
PSVR 2 Games
US & Canada
EU
Japan
1
Kayak VR: Mirage
Kayak VR: Mirage
Kayak VR: Mirage
2
Pavlov
Pavlov
Horizon Call of the Mountain
3
Horizon Call of the Mountain
Horizon Call of the Mountain
The Tale of Onogoro
4
Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge
Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge
Dyschronia:Chronos Alternate Episode I
5
PISTOL WHIP
Moss: Book II
After the Fall – Complete Edition
6
Moss: Book II
PISTOL WHIP
Moss and Moss: Book II Bundle
7
Swordsman VR
Job Simulator
Puzzling Places
8
Drums Rock
Swordsman VR
Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge
9
NFL PRO ERA
Drums Rock
Drums Rock
10
The Light Brigade
After the Fall
Job Simulator
Update (12: 00PM ET): Horizon Call of the Mountain was also included in a hardware bundle, however that included a voucher code and not a physical disk. As the PlayStation blogpost states, the chart is counting downloads and not unit sales. We’ve included this information in the article above.
