MyOpinion

The latest leaks concern the Quest 3, which is almost a year old, and the more affordable Quest 3S, which will be unveiled on Wednesday.

VR blogger Cezary Sobociński on X claims to have learned the following about the devices:

The Quest 3S will be available with 128GB and 256GB of storage and the two SKUs will cost $300 and $400 respectively. The price of the 128GB model was leaked a few days ago.
Meta will end production of the 128GB model of the Quest 3 in mid-November, only the 512GB model will continue to be sold.
Both SKUs of the Quest 3 (128GB and 512GB) will be temporarily discounted by 5-10 percent until the 128GB model is sold out.

The new price of the 512 GB model is not known, but there are rumors that the price will be reduced to $500 (the current price of the 128 GB model). The current price of the 512 GB SKU is $650.

Build your own Bundle from 2 for $14.99. Add games to start saving. The more you add, the more you save! 4 + Games $7.25/Per item. Skyrim, Fallout, I expect you to die 3, etc.

The Quest Touch Pro controllers now cost $250 instead of $300 The controllers are compatible with Quest 3 and 2 and are included with the Quest Pro, which will is still sold by Meta for $1000.

In addition to the controllers, the box includes:

Compact Charging Dock
2 Meta Quest Touch Pro Controllers
Meta Quest Touch Pro Stylus Tips
HMD USB-C Short Charging Cable
45W Universal Power Adapter

The Meta Quest Pro launched in October 2022. Meta has been selling the Touch Pro controllers separately since late 2022.

What makes Beyond the smallest and lightest shipping VR headset is the same reason it takes longer to ship. Each unit has its lenses fixed to match the distance between the customer's eyes and a face pad molded to the shape of their face, based on the iPhone face scan they provide when ordering.

When Bigscreen started shipping the first Beyond headsets to preorder customers just over one year ago, new orders faced many months of waiting from submitting the scan to having the headset, with even preorders slipping by months.

If Beyond's claim of now shipping within one week of the scan is true, it represents a significant milestone for custom-fitted headsets.

A group of fans were working to revive the VR game Marvel Powers United, which was released in 2018 and discontinued by Meta in 2021. However, Meta has now shut down the project due to copyright infringement.

In a statement on the project's Discord server, the team behind the revival announced that the project will be completely removed in the coming days.

"Unfortunately, we regret to announce today that the “Powers Revival Project” will be closed and completely removed in the following days. While we, in good faith, wanted to help legitimate game owners download the game as most had already uninstalled it at Meta's request after shutdown, that ultimately ended up being a terrible decision as we were unintentionally infringing on the copyrighted files belonging to Meta Platforms (MP). As would be expected, they've kindly asked us to take down this project and any infringing files. Unfortunately this also means that we will not be releasing our multiplayer servers that were very close to being finished."

The Immersed IRL event, held yesterday in Austin, Texas was the company’s big moment to showcase its upcoming headset and build confidence that it was on track to deliver on the promise of an ambitious headset. But a botched demo may have done the opposite.

At the end of the keynote, Bijoy said that the headsets were being updated to a new firmware, and that the start of promised demos might be slightly delayed. I headed to the demo line, scheduled to be part of the first demo group at 11am. At 11:30, a harried-looking group of Immersed employees pressed quickly through the crowd with headsets cushioned in styrofoam and disappeared behind the black curtain screening off the demo area.

For the next couple of hours, we waited patiently, getting occasional hints from event workers that setup was still in progress, and that demos should start soon. Eventually, a voice over the intercom announced that demos were starting, but that software issues meant that they would be “hardware only” demos.

What that ended up meaning was that we could look at and handle the headsets, and we could even put them on our heads to feel the comfort and weight. But that none of the headsets would actually be powered-on. I asked if we could at least power them up to see the quality of the displays, even if we couldn’t use them running a proper virtual environment, but was told no. Questions to determine when an actual demo might be possible—late in the day? Tomorrow?— were met with discouragingly noncommittal responses.

Subside’s realistic graphics continue to impress in the game's full release on Steam. After a successful demo period that caught the attention of VR enthusiasts, A2D’s VR diving sim has officially launched and we dove back in to soak up more of its amazing underwater visuals.

From our first dive Subside’s realistic underwater world is what stood out and the full release expands on the demo’s captivating environment, offering even broader and richer underwater scenes to explore and enjoy.

HTC has unveiled the HTC Vive Vision — an upgrade to the Vive Focus 3 with core elements that are sure to appeal to the business community. I got to try out the new headset at the recent Shift Medical, an XR medical conference in Heidelberg, Germany, where we were on hand to share our expertise.

As mentioned at the beginning, this headset is not for XR enthusiasts. Even if HTC advertises it differently and wants to grab a piece of the consumer market, I see these VR headsets being used primarily in the business sector with customer contact.

They are rugged, easy to use, and designed for continuous use. I think the evolution from Focus 3 to Focus Vision with better pass-through, more stable processing in critical areas and permanent eye tracking is a good decision.

The use of the 3 year old XR2 instead of the current XR2 Gen 2 is a shame, but I think HTC knows its numbers and knows that its target audience is either using highly customized entertainment software anyway, or will switch to PC streaming in a heartbeat. Both are true for my customers who might be interested in this device.

The technical capabilities of the XR2 are rarely pushed to their limits in research projects or education. If it is, it is usually due to poor optimization or unfinished applications. Even an XR2 Gen 2 would not change that.

I think it's great that HTC is another consistent manufacturer in this market and is consciously trying to differentiate itself from other devices to find its niche within the niche. I wish them good luck because this is precisely what the VR market needs.

The fast approaching Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is landing on PC and Xbox consoles November 19th. While it wasn’t clear at its initial unveiling last summer whether Asobo’s next-gen flight sim would include VR support, the studio says it’s definitely coming, and even showed it off in action.

Asobo confirmed in a developer Q&A earlier this year that VR support was indeed coming, and that, in Executive Producer Martial Bossard’s words, it would be “spectacular.”

And while you still won’t find mention of VR support buried anywhere in the marketing material, the studio showed off VR support in action during the MFS 2024 Preview event, letting press and creators fly around using a Pimax Crystal Light headset.

Reddit user Vast_Front259 posted a recording of the Peacock running on their phone that they say they took with their laptop webcam because the streaming service's DRM prevents screen recording. It's a Quest 3 ad we've seen before, but at the end a render is shown of it alongside Quest 3S, Meta's repeatedly leaked next headset, alongside the text "Starting at $299.99".

The smallprint below the renders reads "Meta Quest 3S 128GB is $299.99. Content sold separately." below an Amazon logo. Listing the storage suggests that like Quest 3 and Quest 2, multiple storage variants of Quest 3S will be offered.

This apparent leak comes less than a week before Meta Connect, the company's annual conference where it's expected to launch Quest 3S.

An Austin-based startup best known for its VR and mixed reality workspace software for other companies’ headsets now has hardware of its own. The Immersed Visor appears to sit somewhere between a Vision Pro Lite and Xreal Plus: a lightweight head-worn device that creates a high-resolution spatial computing environment on the cheap (well, relatively speaking).

Teased to death for months, Immersed founder Renji Bijoy finally unveiled the Visor at an Austin event on Thursday. The device, a bit more than glasses but much less than a full headset, gives each eye the equivalent of a 4K OLED screen. It has a solid 100-degree field of view. It supports 6DoF tracking (meaning it responds to motion on different axes, not just simple head rotations), and it offers hand and eye tracking and support for over five screens in a virtual or mixed reality environment.

In the presentation, Bijoy revealed that the Immersed Visor only weighs 186g, slightly less than an iPhone 16 Pro. It’s 64 percent lighter than the Meta Quest 3 (515g) and around 70 percent lighter than the Apple Vision Pro (600 to 650g). Weight and ergonomics have been drawbacks for many early adopters of VR and mixed-reality tech. (That includes some customers of the $3,500 Vision Pro.) So, trimming the Visor’s weight to about the same as a high-end smartphone could, in theory, help it succeed where competitors struggled. Part of that comes from (in borrowing a trick from Apple) a wired battery pack you stash in your pocket.

But unlike those devices, the Immersed Visor doesn’t include an app store or onboard experiences like games. Instead, it’s tailored for work: link it to your Windows, macOS or Linux computer (wirelessly or wired), and get stuff done on its immersive array of virtual screens. Its 6DoF tracking means you can stand up, lean or twist, and the virtual screens will remain planted where you put them, rather than awkwardly following you through space.

Like the company’s workspace app for Meta Quest and Vision Pro, you can operate either in a passthrough view of your space or an entirely virtual one. (It includes pleasant virtual environments like a mountaintop ski resort by a cozy fire.) You can also work with others in a shared space.

The device runs on the Qualcomm XR2+ Gen 2 chip, which debuted at CES 2024. The chip supports up to 4.3K per-eye resolution and can handle content up to 90fps.

Hands-On Visor Demos @ Immersed IRL 2024 Sept 19 @ Zach Theatre, Austin, TX (shipping starts right after)