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Meta Quest Gaming Showcase showed off VR versions of Bulletstorm, 7th Guest and more by John Callaham Just a few hours after Meta surprised many people by officially revealing its Meta Quest 3 VR headset, the company held its annual online Quest Gaming Showcase. Over 20 upcoming VR games were either revealed or got new updates as part of the event. The Meta Quest blog has a solid recap of all the VR games that were shown off during the Games Showcase. However, not all of them will be exclusive to Meta's headsets. Indeed, many of the games will also be coming to Sony's PS VR2 and even Valve's SteamVR platform. One of those games will be Bulletstorm VR, an adaptation of the great 2011 sci-i first-person shooter from developer People Can Fly. Here's what you can expect: Utilize everything from your Flailgun to Bulletstorm’s iconic energy leash to perform creative acts of carnage on your enemies. Effortlessly switch between melee and ranged combat to perform an array of unique Skillshots on your adversaries to earn additional experience and boost your abilities. These range from kicking an enemy into a cactus, to impaling them on rebar, to shooting them in the groin. In Bulletstorm VR everything is a weapon, and you’re encouraged to get as creative as possible when racking up your kill count! Another VR game adaptation that's coming this year is The 7th Guest, the classic 1990s adventure game. This new version is being developed by Vertigo Games. Here's what you can expect: The team is using volumetric video capture to recreate the FMV (full-motion video) storytelling of the original game, bringing the classic adventure to life like never before. And for the first time ever, the iconic mansion is being recreated in full 3D—though don’t be surprised if it starts shifting around you. After all, it’s haunted. Both games are due out later this year. Some of the other highlights of the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase include: Asgard’s Wrath 2 - This is a sequel to Meta's in-house developed VR title, The new game will continue its theme of players battling mythical creatures and even god in this fantasy RPG. Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord - Announced at last year's Quest Gaming Showcase, we got to see a new story trailer for this multiplayer co-op game based on the movie franchise. PowerWash Simulator VR - Yes, this cult hit game where you wash down things is perfect for a VR game, and later this year we will get our wish. Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR - This was the only game that was announced during the showcase but that we didn't see any footage. Ubisoft's hit franchise is coming to VR with more info to be revealed at the Ubisoft Forward streaming event on June 12. As we reported earlier, Meta revealed the Quest 3 headset, which will have a lot of improvements over the current Quest 2. It's due later this fall with a starting price of $499.99.

Meta Quest 3 gets a surprise reveal to beat Apple to the VR punch, due this fall for $499.99 by John Callaham In a surprise announcement, Meta officially revealed the first details for its Meta Quest 3 VR headset. This move is clearly designed to take some of the attention away from Apple's expected announcement of its own mixed reality headset that could come on June 5 at WWDC 2023. In a blog post, we got some early info on what we can expect from the Meta Quest 3: Quest 3 combines our highest resolution display yet and pancake optics to make sure content looks better than ever. To power those extra pixels, this will be the first headset to feature a next-generation Snapdragon chipset developed in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies. That next-gen Snapdragon chipset delivers more than twice the graphical performance as the previous generation Snapdragon GPU in Quest 2—meaning you’ll get smoother performance and incredibly crisp details in immersive games. Meta claims that the Quest 3 headset has a 40% slimmer optic profile compared to the Quest 2. The headset's hand controllers will also ditch the outer tracking rings which gives them a "more streamlined and ergonomic form factor". The headset itself will have two 4MP RGB color cameras and a depth sensor. All the games that support the Quest 2 will be supported with the Quest 3. The Meta Quest 3 will launch this fall at a price of $499.99 for the 128GB model. The current Quest 2 headset is getting a price cut to $299.99 for the 128GB version and $349.99 starting on June 4. In addition, both the Quest 2 and the more expensive Quest Pro is getting a big software upgrade soon: Quest 2 and Pro will see an up-to 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19% GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro. Meta will be holding its Quest Gaming Showcase later today starting at 10 am Pacific time (1 pm Eastern time). It will showcase a number of VR games, including one made especially for the Quest 3.

The Meta Quest 3 VR headset is reportedly "far lighter and thinner" than the Quest 2 by John Callaham The Meta Quest 2 VR headset is getting a bit long in the tooth. When it launched nearly three years ago in October 2020, it even had a different name, the Oculus Quest 2. It's one of the worst-kept secrets in tech that Meta is working on the Quest 3 device, and now a new report claims to have gotten some hands-on time with a prototype. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that he got access to an early version of the Meta Quest 3. He says that physically, the prototype "feels far lighter and thinner" than the Quest 2. The design of the headset has also changed, according to Gurman: Instead of a bland-looking gray face, it has three vertical pill-shaped sensor areas across the front. The left and right pills each include one color video pass-through camera (the part that lets you see the world around you) as well as a standard camera. That means it has two color cameras versus only non-color cameras on the Quest 2. The middle pill includes a depth sensor, a first for a Quest. The video pass-through hardware on the Quest 3 prototype also got a big improvement for the device's AR mode. Gurman reports that it "presented colors more accurately and offered an almost lifelike rendering of the real world." The overall performance for the headset's interface and apps is also better, most likely due to a new custom chip that was developed by Qualcomm and first announced in 2022. The current Meta Quest 2's starting price is $399, and today's report says Meta might sell the Quest 3 for a higher cost. However, if it's not too much higher, Gurman believes that it "could make some noise this holiday season." We will have to see, however, as VR headsets, even at low prices, have not gained much traction with normal consumers. Meta will reportedly launch the Quest 3 in October. It's possible we may get a teaser of the headset later this coming week at the company's annual Meta Quest Gaming Showcase. The streaming event, which will show a number of new and unannounced Quest VR games, will begin at 10 am Pacific time (1 pm Eastern time) on June 1.

The Meta Quest Gaming Showcase for 2023 has been announced for June 1 by Ishtiaqe Hanif In a post on Facebook, Meta announced it will hold the next Quest Gaming Showcase on June 1, 2023 at 10am PT and promises double the amount of apps, games, and updates offerings from that of the 2022 showcase. The previous edition showcased big titles like Ghostbusters VR, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Chapter 2, and Among Us VR for the Oculus Quest 2. The third installment of the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase will concentrate on the upcoming year for Meta Quest games. It'll have pre-show game trailers and post-show roundtables with VR developers. June is traditionally a big time for the gaming industry in terms of new game reveals and announcements. Meta plans to catch the first limelight before other big events like Summer Game Fest on June 8, Xbox Game Showcase and Ubisoft Showcase on June 11, and more by starting their event on the first day of June. It aims to make this year's event larger than ever before. If last year's showcase of 12 games was any indication, we expect 24 games to be announced this summer. Meta posted a short teaser on its Facebook page. It has so far kept tight-lipped on any namedrops for games but we do know from previous announcements, it's working on over 150 Quest games. While they are to announce double the titles, Meta's back-to-back layoffs of 11,000 and 10,000 employees have reportedly affected the development pace. The aging Quest 2 VR headset was announced almost three years ago. We can't expect the Quest 3 until the Meta Connect 2023 showcase that's due in October, 2023. This showcase can be expected to focus solely on the software side of things. Source: Android Central via TechRadar

Meta's "iPhone moment" for its AR devices will happen in 2027 according to its AR roadmap by Karthik Mudaliar According to an internal presentation of its AR and VR efforts, Meta has set out a roadmap that includes smart glasses, neural interface smartwatches, and even the device that Mark Zuckerberg thinks will be the "iPhone moment" of AR devices. The roadmap details were shared in Meta's Reality Labs division on Tuesday. For later this year, Meta is planning to launch the flagship Quest 3 headset, which will reportedly be two times thinner, at least twice as powerful, and also costlier than its predecessor, the Quest 2. The device will feature mixed reality experiences that will integrate the real life environment with the virtual one. Mark Rabkin, Meta's Vice President for VR, told employees during the presentation that the company has sold nearly 20 million Quest headsets till date. Rabkin said that Mixed Reality Reality will be a new "smart guardian" to help users navigate the real world. He said: “The main north star for the team was from the moment you put on this headset, the mixed reality has to make it feel better, easier, more natural. You can walk effortlessly through your house knowing you can see perfectly well. You can put anchors and things on your desktop. You can take your coffee. You can stay in there much longer.” Rabkin said that there will be 41 new apps and games for the Quest 3 and will include the new mixed reality experience to take advantage of the powerful hardware. We have already seen how the Quest Pro's mixed reality experience works and we can expect improvements to the same with a snappier experience and the said new features with the upcoming Quest 3. The third generation of smart glasses, which will come out in 2025, will ship with a 'viewfinder' display using which users could view incoming text messages, scan QR codes, and translate text from one language to the other in real time. The glasses will also come with a smartwatch equipped with "neural interface" that will allow the user to control the AR experience through hand movements. Alex Himel, Meta's Vice President for AR said that eventually, the neural watch will also let the wearer use a virtual keyboard and type the same words per minute as that of what mobile phones allow today. Himel added: “We don’t want people to have to choose between an input device on their wrist and smartwatch functionality that they’ve come to love. So we are building a neural interfaces watch. Number one, this device will do input: input to control your glasses, input to control the functionality on your wrist, and input to control the world around you.” Himel also showed the employees a demo of the glasses during which the cameras on the glasses were showing the wearer's front-facing perspective during a video call. At the same time, a selfie view was being shown from the camera on watch as well. Himel said that the smartwatch with the camera will be an optional upgrade, and can integrate with other Meta apps like WhatsApp and Instagram while also offering health and fitness features. As for the final deal, Meta's true pair of AR glasses will come out in 2027. This is Meta's most important device of the roadmap, and the company is already been working on it for the last 8 years, codenamed as "Orion". Meta is planning an internal launch in 2024 just for its employees to test the product, according to Himel. The executive added that there will be two versions of the product when it's launched in 2027, an "Innovation" line meant for early adopters, while the "Scale" line will be slightly less advanced version of it. Himel said that Meta will rely on its existing business model of advertising to help it make money off its new generation of smart devices. However, since this time Meta will be the producer of these gadgets, the company expects a higher average revenue per user: “We should be able to run a very good ads business. I think it’s easy to imagine how ads would show up in space when you have AR glasses on. Our ability to track conversions, which is where there has been a lot of focus as a company, should also be close to 100 percent. If we’re hitting anything near projections, it will be a tremendous business, a business unlike anything we’ve seen on mobile phones before.” The roadmap is part of Zuckerberg's vision to make AR the "holy grail" of devices that will apparently redefine our relationship with technology. The company went through a rebranding, to cast the idea of it as the front and center of innovation and to perhaps take eyes off various privacy- and content moderation-related scandals that hurt Facebook over the years. Source: The Verge

Meta teams up with Microsoft and Accenture to bring workspaces to Metaverse by Anushe Fawaz Meta unraveled the Meta Quest Pro today at Meta Connect 2022. The company’s VR headset brings workspaces into Meta’s virtual world and adds features like eye-tracking, pancake optics, better controllers, and more. The VR headset targets creative individuals like architects and builders and brings their workspaces into Metaverse. Last year, Meta launched Meta Horizons Workrooms (Beta), which created a VR space for work teams to collaborate. The Meta Quest Pro expands on the existing features by adding more expressive avatars that depict emotions more accurately due to eye-tracking and face-reading technologies. It also added breakout rooms, similar to the ones on Zoom, where a separate room can be created for teams from a bigger presentation. Next year, individuals will be able to join the Workrooms via Zoom as well. Additionally, Meta Quest Pro brings improved pancake optics with higher contrast than the Meta Quest 2, which display text clearly in VR and reduce the bulk in front of the headset. Meta also added sticky notes, 3-D models (launching next year), three virtual screens, and a Magic Room. The Magic Room – coming next year– is a hybrid system that can connect remote individuals virtually with ones present physically in a room. Meta Quest Pro controllers also have a 360-degree range of motion, comprise precision gestures, and provide haptic feedback, such as vibrations. Other than this, Meta mentioned its collaboration with Microsoft to bring productivity tools to the Meta Quest 2 and Pro. These tools include the integration of Microsoft Teams with Meta Quest letting users share an immersive meeting experience. Individuals can access personalized apps, settings, and content through Microsoft 365 on Meta Quest products. Similarly, users can interact with 2-D content, such as Word and Excel documents from Meta Quest’s VR spaces. Furthermore, users can join meetings on Microsoft teams through workrooms using their Meta Avatars and enable security and management through Azure Active Directory and Microsoft Intune. Meta and Microsoft will also collaborate with Accenture to “transform the way they engage employees, interact with customers, or create products and services in the metaverse.” Thus, interested individuals can join the Software Vendor Program to provide AR/VR/XR-related solutions. Furthermore, Meta unveiled the addition of 3-D immersive views and 3-D models for creators and architectures through Autodesk and Adobe’s collaboration. It stated: “Next year, Adobe’s Substance 3D apps for professional 3D creators, designers, and artists are coming to Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 2, so anyone can model 3D objects and join collaborative reviews inside VR with our controllers. And Adobe will bring Adobe Acrobat to the Meta Quest Store, enabling PDF document viewing, editing, and collaboration – major advances for productivity in VR.” Next year, Meta plans to launch a subscription for businesses called Meta Quest for Business that would include more tools and features to provide greater control. Additionally, it would add Azure Active Directory to ensure security on the virtual platform.

Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to Meta's Quest VR headsets by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Meta just held its virtual reality focused Connect keynote today, and while the brand-new $1,500 Meta Quest Pro all-in-one VR headset was the biggest announcement in the presentation, it also had a few other surprises. One of these was the appearance of Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella to announce a new partnership with Meta. After reaching PC, consoles, mobile devices, TVs, and more, Microsoft's cloud game streaming platform is now aiming at a virtual reality entrance. Meta and Microsoft today announced Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to the Meta Quest Store, offering the gaming service to the Quest line of headsets. While details are currently slim, once the service is active, Quest users will be able to play Xbox Cloud Gaming's hundreds of Xbox console games on a projected 2D screen while in VR. This is similar to a theatre experience that's already possible in VR, but this one is specifically for playing streamed games. Users will require an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription and an Xbox controller to use this feature. A launch date was not announced today, with more details slated to come later. "It's early days, but we are excited for what's to come," added Nadella. The two companies are also working on bringing Meta Quest headset support for Windows 365 as well as Microsoft Teams on Horizon Workrooms.

Meta unveils enterprise-focused Quest Pro VR headset that costs $1,500 by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe During its Connect keynote today, Oculus unveiled its next-generation virtual reality headset, the Meta Quest Pro. Described as the first high-end enterprise VR product from the company, the all-in-one headset has an innovative slim design, eye tracking, LCD displays with quantum dot technology, mixed reality support, and more. The Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ platform is powering the new hardware, which Meta says is 50% more powerful than what's inside the Meta Quest 2. The all-in-one headset touts 250 GB of storage, 12 GB of RAM, and 10 sensors, with five being on the inside and five out. Meta says the Pro headset has major improvements over its consumer-focused headset. Starting with the lenses, the two LCD displays offer 37% greater pixels-per-inch for major sharpness gains and a 1.3x larger color gamut than the Quest 2. The high-res outward-facing cameras of the headset also offer mixed reality experiences in full-color. The new eye-tracking and "Natural Facial Expressions" features will arrive disabled by default, but they can be enabled for more expressive avatars in games and other experiences. Meta says the captured images for this data are deleted after processing and are not sent out of the headset. Newly designed Meta Quest Touch Pro controllers with built-in sensors that remove the need for the outside hoop seen in previous iterations as well as a lens spacing adjustment dial on the headset to accommodate various inter-pupillary distances (IPDs) will be present in the Pro package too. Moreover, the new Touch Pro controllers are compatible with Meta Quest 2 headsets. "We believe VR devices will help usher in the next computing platform—becoming as ubiquitous as laptops and tablets are today—and that people will use them in their everyday lives to access the metaverse," added Meta regarding its new VR hardware. "With its cutting-edge technologies, Meta Quest Pro represents an important step toward that future." The Meta Quest Pro launches on October 25 and is now available for pre-order for $1,499.99. Accessories such as a full light-blocking facial interface, Link cable, and official VR earphones are also available as separate purchases. The base package includes the Meta Quest Pro headset, Touch Pro controllers, stylus tips, partial light blockers, and a charging dock.

Meta: Employees should make it their mission to fall in love with metaverse project by Usama Jawad Although big tech firms love to casually throw the term "metaverse" around from time to time - in fact, Facebook even rebranded to Meta to emphasize its importance - barely anyone has been able to explain how the concept significantly differs from other digital worlds and what value it adds to our lives. Now, leaked Meta memos have indicated that the Horizon Worlds metaverse project isn't faring so well inside the company either and executives are seemingly desperate to increase engagement and interest in any way possible. In a series of memos obtained by The Verge, Meta's VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, has expressed frustration at the quality issues plaguing Horizon Worlds. In a memo dated September 15, the executive has noted that the feedback from the title's playtesters, creators, and users has not been positive due to the plethora of bugs present. He went on to highlight that the project hasn't gained much engagement inside the company either: For many of us, we don’t spend that much time in Horizon and our dogfooding dashboards show this pretty clearly. Why is that? Why don’t we love the product we’ve built so much that we use it all the time? The simple truth is, if we don’t love it, how can we expect our users to love it? However, tensions seemed to be mounting up until September 30, when Shah sent out another memo saying that internal engagement metrics still haven't improved and that a plan is being drafted to "hold managers accountable" and have their teams explore Horizon Worlds on a weekly basis, at least. He emphasized that: Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. You can’t do that without using it. Get in there. Organize times to do it with your colleagues or friends, in both internal builds but also the public build so you can interact with our community. Shah also highlighted other issues such as a frustrating and unclear onboarding experience, lack of flexibility, and difficulties in finding a product market fit. However, in a statement to the same media outlet, a Meta spokesperson downplayed the wording of these memos, saying that: [Meta is] confident that the metaverse is the future of computing and that it should be built around people. [Meta is] always making quality improvements and acting on the feedback from our community of creators. This is a multiyear journey, and we’re going to keep making what we build better. Horizon Worlds is currently available via Meta Quest but is coming soon to the web too. Meta has reported losses of billions of dollars in the metaverse initiative and it remains to be seen how sustainable this is given the low internal and public traction. We do have a Meta Connect event coming up in a few days so we'll soon find out if the company is successful in generating more interest in this area. Source: The Verge

Qualcomm and Meta sign custom chip agreement for future Quest lineup by Karthik Mudaliar Meta has announced that it is signing an agreement with Qualcomm to produce custom chipsets at IFA 2022, Berlin. The chip-making company will officially develop the Quest lineup of VR devices. Qualcomm has already been making chips for Meta aging back to Oculus Go. Qualcomm says that this agreement solidifies the mutual commitment to deliver "multiple generations of premium devices and experiences powered by custom VR platforms in the years to come".. Mark Zuckerberg added that customized virtual reality chipsets, boosted by Snapdragon XR platforms and technology, will power the future roadmap of Quest products. The agreement is in line with Meta's ongoing long-term strategy which started when the company changed its branding from Facebook last year. Meta wants to bring the "metaverse to life" in its journey forward. Although the customized chips for Meta will be powered by the Snapdragon XR platform, it won't use Snapdragon Spaces. Spaces is an AR software toolkit that Qualcomm is building to bridge the gap between phones and AR glasses. Instead, the built-for-Meta chips will use Meta's Presence Platform for VR. Meta further said that the agreement only covers virtual reality devices. Meta will continue work to develop its own silicon solutions in the future. Source: Qualcomm via Reuters

The next Meta VR headset will be available from October by Stephen Bennett During an interview on the The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed that the successor to the Meta Quest 2 will be at the Meta Connect conference in October, which is an annual event that Meta (previously, Facebook) hosts to announce upcoming features and products from the company. Mark stated the following while talking about how the new headset will be focused on tracking facial expressions and displaying them on the virtual avatar, focusing on areas such as eye contact through VR and making it more seamless: "When you're on a video call, you don't actually feel like you're there with the person. To me, what virtual reality unlocks is that it really convinces your brain that you're there" Considering that Meta recently announced that the Quest 2 headsets will receive a $100 price increase this month, and without a targeted price or spec sheet for the new headset, it remains to be seen where it will fall in the lineup of VR hardware that Meta provides. Looking to the future of VR and the Metaverse, with other companies such as Apple looking to enter the market, it will be crucial for Meta to get the price to value ratio correct on this new headset. Source: Ars Technica

Meta opens Horizon Worlds to everyone over 18 in the U.S. and Canada by Paul Hill Meta has announced that it’s social virtual reality experience, Horizon Worlds, is now available for free to everyone over 18 in the United States and Canada. Horizon Worlds first became available last year but was in beta and was invite-only. https://www.facebook.com/Meta/videos/horizon-worlds-now-available-for-everyone-18-in-the-us-and-canada/589914502093951/ With the today’s launch, Meta is also debuting Arena Clash, a laser tag game where players battle in a 3v3 format inside Horizon Worlds. Additionally, Meta is launching new mechanics and templates that creators can use when they design their own games which can then be played by the Horizon Worlds community. Meta did have a bit of disappointing news for owners of the Meta Quest 1 headset and that is that Horizon Worlds will not be supported on that headset from January 13, 2022. If you want to use the app, you’ll need to go out and buy the newer Meta Quest 2 which costs $299 for the 128 GB model and $399 for the 256 GB model. Meta said it wants to foster a safe and respectful environment in Horizon Worlds so apart from needing to be 18+ to play, you’ll also need to abide by the Conduct in VR Policy. If you meet all the requirements, you can head over the Meta Quest website now and download Horizon Worlds, there is also an official Facebook group to meet other community members.