The XR Week Peek (2025.02.10): The Meta Quest Store is in a transition phase, Apple may integrate PSVR 2 controllers, and more!
These days I feel better, so this newsletter is coming on time again (yay!). It’s been a good end of the week for me: on the work side, I have broken the news about camera access on Android XR (more on this later on), while on the personal side, I managed to cook some good […] The post The XR Week Peek (2025.02.10): The Meta Quest Store is in a transition phase, Apple may integrate PSVR 2 controllers, and more! appeared first on The Ghost Howls.
These days I feel better, so this newsletter is coming on time again (yay!). It’s been a good end of the week for me: on the work side, I have broken the news about camera access on Android XR (more on this later on), while on the personal side, I managed to cook some good Italian pasta here in China for some friends (I’ve brought some ingredients from home, of course). So let’s hope the next week will be great again, not only for me but for all of you, too!
Top news of the week
The Meta Quest ecosystem is in a delicate phase
Henry Stockdale from Upload VR has written a very well-made article highlighting the current situation of the Horizon Store. After merging the main store with App Lab and changing the UI of the Meta Horizon OS and mobile app that always gives more attention to Horizon Worlds, it’s become hard for Quest developers to have their games found by users. And if games are not found, revenues are not coming. Many studios are claiming losses in the order of magnitude of 50–80% if compared to what they were able to obtain in 2023. It’s many weeks that developers are screaming for help on the platform and in fact a couple of months ago, I had written a similar (but more personal) article myself on my blog. What is needed is that Meta releases ASAP an update to the Horizon Store that favors the discoverability of good titles instead of the shovelware of Gorilla Tag clones, and that stops putting under the spotlight always the worlds made on Horizon Worlds.
What Meta did, instead, was answer with a blog post that highlights that it’s been a great year for Quest 3 and Quest 3S (which is reflected also on Steam data) and that the demographics of the store are changing. Around two-thirds of the headsets bought this year are from new users, and now Quest is used a lot by kids, who do have not deep pockets, so they prefer free-to-play games, even better if they are simple and funny. Plus they are ok with the cheap copies of paid games that they can find for free on Horizon Worlds. So basically, Meta’s answer is: we’re seeing an influx of kids, they want free stuff, so we are going to serve them. If you are doing other types of content, like premium high-quality games, good luck, you are on your own.
I was appalled while reading Meta’s blog post. On one side they’re right, the XR ecosystem has changed and now there are a lot of kids that are looking for kids-oriented content. And honestly, I’m happy about that: it’s good that XR is one of the few markets where there is a growing market of young people. These will all be VR-native children and will help the tech to grow in the future. But on the other side, it’s also true that the two types of users can coexist and the platform holder, since it takes 30% of every transaction, should offer a service that tries to bring benefit to everyone, not only the developers of free-to-play games. Plus it’s since 2022 circa that we started seeing a lot of kids in the platform, but developers saw the 80% loss in revenues start around half of 2024 when Meta changed its store. So the problem is not the kids, the problem is that the store now sucks.
I wonder what Meta plans to do because this week we had new layoffs in VR studios (SideQuest and nDreams). If it continues not taking action, in the end us developers will start doing something else, like flatscreen content, because simply we can not survive on the Horizon Store. Furthermore, as soon as some competitors will come out, like Android XR, we will all go in that direction, because we feel betrayed. If Meta wants its headsets to just run Horizon Worlds and its cheap content, it can, but it will lose all the vibrant ecosystem of Quest creators that it has spent 6 years creating.
In the meantime, the community is mostly taking the side of the devs, with some people on Reddit inviting other people to buy more premium games, and others suggesting to uninstall Horizon Worlds so as to stop seeing the Horizon Worlds worlds in the search results.
In all this mess, Mark Rabkin, VP of XR at Meta, has left the company for family reasons. The managers’ shakeup that is happening at this moment won’t help in giving a fast answer to this huge problem.
More info (Upload VR’s article about the Quest developers’ situation)
More info (My article on the same topic)
More info (Meta talks about the new reality of the Quest Store — Road To VR)
More info (Meta talks about the new reality of the Quest Store — Upload VR)
More info (A Redditor translated Meta’s blog post in a funny way)
More info (Quest 3 and Quest 3S gaining shares on Steam)
More info (Mark Rabkin is leaving Meta)
More info (nDreams announces layoffs)
More info (SideQuest announces layoffs)
More info (Redditors inviting other people to buy premium content)
More info (A Redditor suggesting to uninstall Horizon Worlds)
Other relevant news
Andrew Bosworth states 2025 is the “make it or break it” year for XR
One of the most commented pieces of news of the week has been for sure the memo that Andrew Bosworth has sent to Meta employees. The whole post sounds like a motivational speech to entice Meta people to work more and better, and to be motivated to make XR happen. There are a few passages worth a comment.
Boz states that 2025 is the “make it or break it” year for XR at Meta, but I personally don’t think it is true. XR is still in the early days and this year nothing mindblowing is going to happen: the major event will be the launch of Android XR headsets, but the Samsung device is too expensive to compete with Meta. Meta is spending billions on XR and has already planned to spend until the 2030s, with Zuck sustaining that this year the total spending of Meta in XR could reach $100B. So there is no reason why this year should be special… to me, it seems only a motivational trick.
Boz says “This year likely determines whether this entire [XR] effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure”. The fact he talked about a potential failure triggered many people to think that this may be Boz putting his hands forward, already expecting to fail, so that to justify further cuts in the VR spending of the company. The same people think that Meta has already decided to abandon VR to focus on smart glasses. I personally don’t agree: first of all, no manager would ever prepare employees for failure… employees would smell it and go away from the company. Then, as much Ray-Ban Meta sold well, it sold 1 million devices, which is not enough to prove mainstream adoption. Abandoning VR to focus on an unproven new (over-hyped) market would be a stupid move no one would make.
Boz also said that Meta is going to launch “half a dozen wearables”: he’s probably referring to the upcoming smartglasses, smartwatches, and neural smartbands.
John Carmack read the memo and liked it, but he criticized two points, too. First of all, he did not like that Boz said the company should push on “MR”, in his opinion, he should have mentioned both VR and MR, or it seems that VR is being abandoned for real. Then he didn’t like also the mention of Horizon Worlds on mobile… Horizon Worlds is becoming too much of an obsession for Meta and is distracting Meta from the greater scheme of things.
More info (Meta expected to spend $100B in XR)
More info (Boz’s leaked memo)
More info (Upload VR speculates which can be the “half a dozen” wearables)
More info (John Carmack commented on the memo)
Apple still working on integrating PSVR 2 controllers
According to the usual Marc Gurman, Apple is still working to integrate PSVR 2 controllers with the Apple Vision Pro. The controllers would be sold separately and would be fully optional, mostly dedicated to people who want to play games requiring controllers on the Apple Vision Pro. Currently, Sony does not sell the controllers separately by the headset, but if the partnership is confirmed, it will start to do so.
It is not clear when the update to support PSVR 2 controllers should be released, but a good candidate moment could be the announcement of VisionOS 3 during WWDC in June.
Android XR to guarantee camera access
Google confirmed to me that the Android XR operating system will offer camera access in the same way phones do. Developers can access the front and the back camera of the headset, provided they ask permission from the user, which has to be confirmed through a popup.
The front camera of the headset, the one facing the world in front of the user, will be the equivalent of the back camera of the phone, while the equivalent of the selfie camera will be a reconstruction of the face of the avatar of the user that is done with the sensors run by the headset. This way existing mobile apps can work as is, accessing either what the user is seeing or the (reconstructed) face of the user.
I think this is great news. Only with camera access, we developers can build true mixed reality. And it is good that Google is taking the same approach it is having on the phones, with the user always in control in giving permission.
News worth a mention
Quest Game Optimizer reaches 100K users
In this negative moment when I’m often reporting negative pieces of news about XR, let me compensate with a good one. Quest Game Optimizer, a Quest app to adjust the settings of the Quest to run every application in the most performant way possible, has reached 100,000 users. Not bad for an application that is not on the store and must be sideloaded! Big compliments to its creator.
John Carmack stated that for XR Beat Saber was more important than Half-Life: Alyx
John Carmack stated on X that “standalone VR was the biggest win that VR ever had, by a huge margin, and Beat Saber was far more important than Half-Life Alyx.” I think that speaking merely about adoption, he’s fully right. But both games were very important and for very different reasons. Alyx was very important to put VR in front of hardcore gamers (the fans of Half-Life) and to show how much immersion can be pushed far in VR.
Ray-Ban Meta ads for the SuperBowl are out
It is now possible to see the two ads starring famous Hollywood actors that Meta prepared to promote the Ray-Ban Meta glasses during the Super Bowl. I’ve watched one, starring Chris Hemsworth, and I’ve found it nice, but not great. The pacing is wrong, and the jokes are just mildly funny. But I hope it still helps in raising awareness for smart glasses.
Spatial.io is now making a game
Spatial.io is a company that has had quite a few hard pivots in the last few years. The company that started as an enterprise meeting platform to then become a platform to showcase NFTs is now having some success with a game called Animal Company, which is heavily inspired by Gorilla Tag. Happy they have found some success after all this business parkour…
Civilization VII is coming to VR
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII is coming also to Meta Quest, besides the usual flatscreen platforms. The game will be available both in MR and VR. I’m not sure this is the game that the current Quest market wants, but as a millennial who has spent quite some time in Civilization II, this brings a smile to my face.
More info (Civilization VII coming to Quest — YouTube trailer)
More info (Civilization VII coming to Quest — Upload VR)
Some news about content
- Synth Riders is celebrating Super Bowl LIX with a Kendrick Lamar Experience on Apple Vision Pro
- FRENZIES kicked off a new Super Bowl-themed event on Quest
- Gorilla Tag celebrated its fourth anniversary with a new Birthday Bash event. Happy Birthday, GT!
- Harpagun, a new shooter-smasher VR arcade game, launches in early access on February 13 on Quest
- Project Aeroes, a mixed reality game where you guide spaceships, has been launched on Quest. The game costs $9.99, but until March 5 you can download it for free and keep it “for 30 days only.”
- Boxed Out, a color matching VR puzzle game, is heading for Quest on March 24
- DIVR Labs’ VR rail shooter Aim Assault is debuting a demo on February 13 for PC VR
- An indie team is developing a co-op game called Duet where you meet a stranger in silence, then gradually open up communication as you cooperate
- Upload VR has published its usual XR News Round-Up column with a collection of minor pieces of XR news
More info (Synth Riders)
More info (Frenzies)
More info (Gorilla Tag)
More info (Harpagun)
More info (Project Aeroes)
More info (Boxed Out)
More info (Aim Assault)
More info (Duet)
More info (XR News Round-Up)
Some review about content
- COLD VR is an interesting take over SUPERHOT, but some levels are frustrating and would require polish
Other news
Steam now warns players if early access games haven’t been updated for over a year
Stereopsia and AWE Europe merge into a single event called UnitedXR based in Brussels
Meta internally is working on a “Desk Mode” for Meta AI on Quest so that you can query AI also when the headset is on standby. But it is unclear if it will ever be released
News from partners (and friends)
Support the XR developers!
You’ve read in this newsletter how it is hard for XR developers to survive in the current moment of the technology. So do whatever you can to support us XR devs: buy a game/application, write a positive review, share a game with your friends, give it visibility on your social feed… whatever you do will be highly appreciated!
Some XR fun
The real reason why people are using the UEVR universal mod
Funny link
The comments to this post are hilarious…
Funny link
So do you have money for a new headset?
Funny link
Men want only one thing
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
- DeoVR
- GenVR
- Eduardo Siman
- Jonn Fredericks
- Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
- Reynaldo T Zabala
- Richard Penny
- Terry xR. Schussler
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Paolo Leoncini
- Immersive.international
- Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
- Jake Rubin
- Alexis Huille
- Raghu Bathina
- Chris Koomen
- Cognitive3D
- Wisear (Yacine Achiakh)
- Masterpiece X
- Dimo Pepelyashev
- Carol Dalrymple
- Keith Bradner
- Jennifer Granger
- Jason Moore
- Steve Biggs
- Julio Cesar Bolivar
- Jan Schroeder
- Kai Curtis
- Francesco Strada
- Sikaar Keita
- Ramin Assadollahi
- Juan Sotelo
- Andrew Sheldon
- Chris Madsen
- Horacio Torrendell
- Andrew Deutsch
- Fabien Benetou
- Tatiana Kartashova
- Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
- Eloi Gerard
- Adam Boyd
- Jeremy Dalton
- Joel Ward
- Alex P
- Lynn Eades
- Donald P
- Casie Lane
- Catherine Henry
- Qcreator
- Ristband (Anne McKinnon & Roman Rappak)
- Stephen Robnett
- KaihatsuJai
- Christopher Boyd
- Anonymous Supporter
- Giuseppe Pippi
- Sb
- Boule Petanque
- Pieter Siekerman
- Enrico Poli
- Vooiage Technologies
- Caroline
- Liam James O’Malley
- Hillary Charnas
- Wil Stevens
- Francesco Salizzoni
- Alan Smithson
- Steve R
- Brentwahn
- Michael Gaebler
- Tiago Silva
- Matt Cool
- Mark G
- Simplex
- Gregory F Gorsuch
- Paul Shay
- Matias Nassi
And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by Meta)
The post The XR Week Peek (2025.02.10): The Meta Quest Store is in a transition phase, Apple may integrate PSVR 2 controllers, and more! appeared first on The Ghost Howls.
