Interested in what games you can play on Apple Vision Pro? Here's the full line-up.
Out on February 2 in the US, Apple Vision Pro is almost here but the $3,500 headset isn't specifically focused on gaming. Because Vision Pro won't include tracked controllers, the kinds of VR/AR/MR games that will be available may be quite a bit different from other headsets, and Apple is insisting on calling them "spatial" games.
So, if you're planning to pick up Apple Vision Pro and are curious to know how it handles AR/VR gaming, only a handful of options are currently confirmed as on the way. We'll continue updating this list as more announcements come in but, for now, here are all the confirmed Apple Vision Pro games:
Contour
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Previously launched on Quest App Lab, Contour is a mixed reality based drawing / painting app. Speaking to UploadVR, Dehats Studio informed us that its taking a two-step approach to Contour by initially integrating hand-tracking support on Quest, followed by an Apple Vision Pro port.
Demeo
One of the best games available on Meta Quest, Demeo is also coming to Apple Vision Pro. A virtual game board with up to four-player co-op, you battle monsters within dungeons through turn-based combat across fantasy campaigns.
On Vision Pro, developer Resolution Games previously confirmed Demeo includes playing the game in either fully immersive VR or mixed reality.
Game Room
Previously spotted during the Apple Vision Pro reveal, it's recently been listed as a launch game. While the main image suggests classic board games like chess and cards, little else is currently known.
Just Hoops
Just Hoops - Quest MR trailer
Currently available on Quest App Lab and Pico, Just Hoops is a retro-inspired arcade basketball game with mixed reality support from Realcast.
Speaking to UploadVR, Creative Director Diego Fernandez-Bravo confirmed it's also coming to Apple Vision Pro with the team targeting launch on February 2.
Mindway
Described as a holistic VR wellbeing app focused on interactivity, Mindway previously appeared on Quest App Lab, supporting meditation courses, daily mindful practices, ASMR and more.
Speaking to UploadVR, co-founder Tim Levent Yurdum confirmed Mindway is currently "on track" to launch on Vision Pro by February 2nd.
Rec Room
Rec Room remains a popular social experience across VR and flatscreen platforms, so it's little surprise to see it's coming to Apple Vision Pro. It currently only supports controller inputs, though the studio previously confirmed hand tracking controls are being developed. A release date remains unknown.
Soul Spire
Soul Spire is a launch game coming exclusively to Apple Vision Pro. Created by Soul Assembly (Drop Dead: The Cabin), Soul Spire's premise sees you freeing friendly ghosts trapped within spires of color-shifting cubes. Featuring a lo-fi beats soundtrack, Soul Assembly states eye and hand movement is an integral part of the puzzle gameplay.
Super Fruit Ninja
Continuing the trend of Fruit Ninja VR adaptations following last year's Fruit Ninja VR 2, Halfbrick's next entry is Super Fruit Ninja. Apple confirmed that instead of motion controllers, you'll use your hands to slice fruit directly. Across three new screenshots, this provided our first look at Apple Vision Pro's passthrough quality for gaming.
What The Golf?
Initially released in 2019 on mobile before subsequent PC and Switch ports, Triband's original game is being adapted for Vision Pro. This physics-based golf parody promises to "transform the space around players" on February 2nd. However, all we've seen so far is a brief clip (1:21:35) during WWDC's Platforms State of the Union.
Interested in learning more about Apple Vision Pro? Check out our recent hands-on preview:
If you're working on an Apple Vision Pro game we should know about for this article, you can use our contact page or email tips@uploadvr.com with details.
Apple Vision Pro's battery has an enormous energy capacity.
Thee Apple Vision Pro unboxing and review embargo was yesterday. The first reviews are already out, and the unboxings have revealed Vision Pro's battery capacity.
Apple Vision Pro has a 35.9Wh (watt-hour) external tethered battery. For comparison, Quest 3 has a 18.88Wh internal battery and Quest 2 has a 14Wh internal battery, while Quest Pro has a 20.58Wh battery behind its rear padding.
You may have already heard Vision Pro's battery cited in mAh (milliampere-hours). It's 3166 mAh, smaller than Quest 3's battery, which is 4879 mAh! So how can this be? The trick is that mAh is only a valid way to compare batteries with the same voltage output. But Quest 3's nominal voltage is 3.87V, while Apple Vision Pro's is 13V. Because of the different voltages, the normalized way to compare battery energy capacity is watt-hours.
Location
Capacity
Voltage
Apple Vision Pro
Tethered
35.9Wh
13V
Meta Quest Pro
Rear Padding
20.58Wh
3.85V
Pico 4
Rear Padding
20.4Wh
3.85V
Meta Quest 3
Visor
18.88Wh
3.87V
Meta Quest 2
Visor
14Wh
3.85V
While it was initially assumed that the sole purpose of Vision Pro's external battery was to reduce weight, it seems clear now that the true purpose is to support a higher performance but more power-hungry computing hardware.
Even with the battery being external Vision Pro weighs 600-650 grams, notably more than the 515 gram Quest 3. And Quest 3's battery weighs only 60 grams. Yet both headsets have the same roughly 2 hour battery life.
It's conceivable that Apple could have integrated a battery of a similar size as Quest 3 and used an A-series chipset from its iPhones with a relatively negligible weight penalty. But it didn't. Instead, Vision Pro features the 10-core GPU variant of the M2 chipset alongside a dedicated R1 coprocessor for processing the input from the headset's plethora of sensors. This enables it to deliver roughly twice the performance of Quest 3, and video passthrough free of the distortion that plagues Meta's solution.
In effect, Vision Pro's battery architecture was clearly chosen to enable Apple's performance targets, not to deliver a lighter headset. Whether Apple continues that strategy with future models will depend on its priorities for the future of Vision: will it want to keep pushing performance as far as possible, or prioritize getting rid of the external battery?
Apple was recently granted a patent for ‘EyeSight’, the external display on Vision Pro which shows the wearer’s eyes. The patent was filed way back in 2017 and envisioned the feature being used to show stylized eyes like those of anime and furry characters.
Image courtesy Apple
EyeSight is perhaps the most unique bit of hardware on Vision Pro. Apple has been sitting on the idea for the better part of six years, having first filed a provisional application for the idea in June of 2017. After filing the full application a year later, Apple was just granted the patent this month, formally titled Wearable Device for Facilitating Enhanced Interaction.
When a company files a patent, it generally aims to make the patent as broad as possible to maximize protection of its intellectual property. To that end, the patent envisions a wide range of use-cases that go beyond what we see on Vision Pro today.
At launch, Vision Pro’s EyeSight display shows a virtual representation of the wearer’s eyes, but Apple also envisioned stylistic representations of the wearer, including anime eyes, the eyes of a furry avatar, and even augmenting the wearer’s eyes with various graphics.
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Apple imagined an even wider range of uses than just showing the person inside the headset, like showing the weather or a representation of the content the user is seeing inside.
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The patent also covers the ‘breakthrough’ feature of Vision Pro, where Vision Pro detects people outside of the headset then fades them into view inside the headset so they can be seen by the wearer. While the feature currently shows the outside person in sort of a faded-in view, Apple also envisions showing them in a window with hard edges, or even placing them seamlessly into the virtual environment.
The patent also imagines a hilarious looking ‘FaceSight’ version of EyeSight which would use a display large enough to show the wearer’s entire face.
Patents like this can be interesting because sometimes these unrealized concepts will make their way into future versions of the product. One interesting bit that stood out to me in the patent described the system as detecting “whether the observer matches a known contact of the wearer,” and using that info to decide what to show on the display. As of now the headset does detect when people are near you, but doesn’t analyze who they are or if you know them.
Apple provided early Vision Pro units to some mainstream news outlets and YouTubers, and the review embargo was for today.
My editor Ian Hamilton has already been hands-on with Apple Vision Pro twice, once just after its announcement at WWDC 2023 and again a few weeks ago. You can read his impressions from both demos here:
UploadVR was not provided a Vision Pro review unit by Apple, but we did order our own for launch day. Ian will be picking it up on Friday, and myself and our manager Kyle Riesenbeck will join him on Saturday. I then plan to fly the Vision Pro back to the UK for a full review.
In the meantime, you can read (or in most cases watch) the reviews from these news outlets:
Don't have time to trawl through all of those reviews? Don't worry, we have you covered. Here's some of what they said:
The Good
The Displays Are Incredible
The Verge said Vision Pro's near-4K OLED microdisplays "look generally incredible — sharp enough to read text on without even thinking about it, bright enough to do justice to movies. Apple calibrates them for color at the factory so they are also vibrant and color-accurate without looking oversaturated or blown out. They are so small, but they work so well that they seem huge."
CNET called the displays "vivid, richly colored, HDR and just stunning. Not only is it good enough for movies – something Apple is touting constantly – but it's better than any TV in my house."
The Passthrough Is Mostly Great
Ian reported in his hands-on time, Vision Pro's passthrough is so good that in ideal conditions it rivals transparent optics, and the reviewers agree.
The Verge described it as "an astonishing engineering achievement to do all of this in real time, at high resolution, in a computer that fits over your eyes".
The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern really put the passthrough through its paces. As well as using it to cook, finding that placing virtual timers above food was useful and unique to spatial computing, she even briefly wore it while skiing to verify just how low the latency is - just 12 milliseconds from the camera exposure to hitting your eyes.
However, Apple Vision Pro's passthrough still doesn't match a transparent optic in some ways - see The Bad below for more.
Multitasking Is Revolutionary
While Meta Quest only lets you position 2D web apps or sideloaded Android apps in two predetermined triple-screen configurations, the reviewers praised the freedom of visionOS which lets you place as many windows as you want wherever you want, including a mirror of your Mac display, iPad apps, and visionOS apps that support the Shared Space.
The Verge did note that this could be overwhelming for mainstream users, but praised the freedom it will give enthusiasts to build the exact workspace they want.
The Bad
Accidental & Missed Inputs Can Be A Problem
Vision Pro introduces a radical new interaction paradigm. Your eyes are the cursor and a pinch from your fingers is the click.
While most of the reviews described this system as feeling like "magic", The Verge found the eye tracking and hand tracking isn't always perfect:
"visionOS feels also designed for an eye tracking system that’s just slightly more precise than it actually is — a lot of controls are just a little too small and a little too close together to let you quickly bop around the system. You have to look, make sure you’re looking at the thing you want, and then tap, or you might end up clicking on the wrong thing. Sometimes the fastest way to select what you want is to look away entirely and try again."
"It’s not a given that the Vision Pro can always see your hands, either. There’s a pretty large bubble around the front of your body where the cameras can see your hands — it basically extends the length of your arms in a semicircle around the front of your body. But if you lean back in a chair with your arm at your side, it can’t see your hand. If you’re sitting at a table and your hands are on your legs, it might not see your hands. If you’re lying down in a dark room and the IR illuminators can’t reach your hands, the cameras might not be able to see them. If you’re simply standing up with your arms at your sides, it might not be able to see your hands if they drift too far backward."
The Lens Field Of View & Clarity Is Worse Than Quest 3
While you might expect the $3500 Vision Pro to be superior to the $500 Meta Quest 3 in every primary specification, the one it seems to be inferior in is the lenses.
The Verge reports that Vision Pro's field of view is "certainly smaller" than Quest 3.
Image by The Verge of Apple Vision Pro's lenses.
Worse, they say Vision Pro's lenses are "not sharp edge to edge", and have "a little bit of color fringing, distortion, and vignetting around the edges of the lenses, which shrinks the usable field of view even more".
In comparison, we strongly praised Quest 3's expanded field of view over Quest 2 and almost complete edge-to-edge clarity in our review.
Comfort Is Bad With The Default Strap
Two different head bands come in the box, the Solo Knit Band and the recently announced Dual Loop Band.
Solo Knit Band (left) and Dual Loop Band (right)
Most of the reviewers agreed that the Solo Knit Band isn't comfortable for anything other than very short duration sessions, while the Dual Loop Band much better supports the headset's weight.
Passthrough Isn't Perfect
While the reviewers all agree the passthrough is incredible in the right lighting, as with all cameras the performance will decrease as less light is available.
The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern said in low light she "couldn't read things with smaller print" and couldn't see pepper coming out of a shaker. She also said low light reduced the color accuracy.
The Verge's Nilay Patel noted that while he could easily use his iPhone in good lighting, as the sun set the iPhone screen "got noticeably blurrier".
Patel also pointed out that Vision Pro's passthrough has motion blur when moving your head, its displays can only show around 50% of the colors your eyes can see, and the exposure time can lead to issues like seeing a flickering clock display on a microwave.
None of these issues are unique to Vision Pro, and all the reviewers agree it's noticeably superior to Quest 3's passthrough, lacking any warping for example and having 60% higher resolution, but these issues do show the limitations of camera passthrough with today's technology - even at $3500.
The Ugly
EyeSight Is Dim And Blurry
Apple described making sure that you're "never isolated from the people around you" as one of its "foundational design goals" for Vision Pro, and the company sees it as a clear differentiator from other opaque headsets like Meta Quest.
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EyeSight on Apple Vision Pro
While that sounds like a noble goal, the reviews make clear that Apple's execution of EyeSight has fallen flat. The front display is apparently dim and extremely low resolution, and the glass is so reflective it makes it hard to see through it in regular or bright lighting. Further, the parallax effect from the lenticular is only on the horizontal plane, so the effect doesn't really work when you're looking down or up at the wearer.
It's possible Apple or Meta will deliver a compelling implementation of reverse passthrough in a future product. But for now, Vision Pro clearly doesn't.
Personas Are Uncanny
EyeSight is Apple's way to keep you connected to others in the room, while Personas are how you connect to others not physically present. They're generated by holding the headset in front of you to scan your face, then driven in realtime by the internal face and eye tracking sensors.
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Reactions to Personas seem to vary more than any other Vision Pro feature. YouTubers iJustine and Brian Tong were mostly impressed, with iJustine describing it as "pretty good" and Tong giving it a "nine out of ten".
MKBHD had a more mixed review, calling it "both really impressive and really bad at the same time".
The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern on the other hand said her Persona looked like "a memory from a nightmare", and cited impressions from iPhone FaceTime users who said her persona looked "awful". Tom's Guide felt like it was deep in the uncanny valley.
The Verge's Nilay Patel found the experience of Personas so disappointing he simply quit the FaceTime call saying "It's like hard to have this conversation right now - that's what I will say about this".
It should be noted that Personas are still in Beta, so the software driving them could significantly improve in coming months. We've been hands on with Meta's research "Codec Avatars" that truly cross the uncanny valley and look almost exactly like you're speaking to a real person, but it's unclear whether Meta can actually ship this experience in products any time soon.
The Conclusions
CNBC:
"Apple’s real opportunity will materialize when it finds a way to mass produce the Vision Pro at closer to $2,000, or less. Until then, it may be a niche product. But the experience blows everything else out of the water. It’s Apple’s most exciting product in years and it’s the best example yet that this will become a new way of computing."
The Wall Street Journal:
"Apple’s headset has all the characteristics of a first-generation product: It’s big and heavy, it’s battery life sucks, there are few great apps and it can be buggy. And come on, have you seen what this thing thinks I look like?
Yet so much of what the Vision Pro can do feels sci-fi. I’m flicking apps all over my home office. I’ve got multiple virtual timers hovering over my stove. I’m watching holograms of my kid petting a llama. It’s the best mixed-reality headset I’ve ever tried, way more advanced than its only real competition, the far cheaper Meta Quest Pro and Quest 3."
CNET:
"Do I believe in the destination of this mixed reality future? Yeah, I've been writing about it for 10 years. I can see it coming. Apple Vision Pro is a moment where the ecosystems are starting to finally arrive, the hardware is hitting levels of audiovisual quality that are truly remarkable and input systems are being reinvented. It's an exciting time, and Vision Pro won't be the only product in this landscape. However, it'll likely be the most influential since the Oculus Rift.
That said, it's clearly not a device you need to get on board with now. The Mac debuted 40 years ago this month, a coincidence that Apple seems well aware of. The Mac was the birth of modern computing, but few people had the first Mac."
The Verge:
"The Vision Pro is an astounding product. It’s the sort of first-generation device only Apple can really make, from the incredible display and passthrough engineering, to the use of the whole ecosystem to make it so seamlessly useful, to even getting everyone to pretty much ignore the whole external battery situation.
But the shocking thing is that Apple may have inadvertently revealed that some of these core ideas are actually dead ends — that they can’t ever be executed well enough to become mainstream. [...] I don’t want to get work done in the Vision Pro. I get my work done with other people, and I’d rather be out here with them."
Tom's Guide:
"The Apple Vision Pro is easy to scoff at because of its price. And I definitely can’t afford one at $3,500. But now that I’ve been wearing one and testing all its features, I would argue that it’s the most innovative Apple product since the original iPhone."
The first reviews for Vision Pro are live, highlighting a ton of great, good and not-so-great things about Apple’s first mixed reality headset.
The $3,500 Vision Pro is set to launch on February 2nd, but it seems the first reviews are already out from a select number of outlets, including CNET, The Verge, The Wall Street Journal, and CNBC.
CNET’s Scott Stein took the lead on the Vision Pro review, lauding the headset for its clear micro-OLED display, mostly fluid hand-eye control interface, great mixed reality capabilities, impressive list of compatible iOS apps, and chance to view spatial video captured both on iPhone 15 and the headset itself.
On the flipside, Stein criticized the $3,500 price tag, imperfect hand-eye input, lack of native VisionOS apps, cabled battery, and lack of space for glasses, requiring special prescription inserts instead.
Dual Loop band | Image courtesy Apple
Nilay Patel from The Verge called it “magic, until it’s not,” echoing many of Stein’s highlights and concerns in addition to noting that video passthrough wasn’t perfect, the 3D avatars for video calls, called ‘Personas’, are uncanny “and somewhat terrifying,” and criticizing the social isolation of not being able to instantly share what you can see with others in the room.
Joanna Stern of The Wallstreet Journal took it to a new extreme by wearing Vision Pro for nearly 24 hours straight (that’s a tight review embargo if we’ve ever seen one). On the positive side, Stern notably didn’t puke, got a lot of work done, and cooked a delicious meal, but also thought Personas were weird. Apparently you’re not supposed to cook when using Vision Pro (knifes, boiling water, and all that) but being able to look up a recipe, have a floating timer, and watch a tutorial video while you cook sounds pretty handy.
CNBC’s Todd Haselton calls Vision Pro “the future of computing and entertainment,” as Haselton was the only one of the bunch to actually like the Personas feature in addition to headset’s strong suit: serving up traditional media. Still, Haselton says it lack key apps such as Uber, DoorDash, Amazon, and Facebook, and popular mobile games likes Diablo Immortal and Genshin Impact.
We’ll eventually get ahold of a Vision Pro for another one of patented deep-dive reviews, so make sure to check back soon. We’ll be going through a lot of the things others haven’t mentioned, such as how the FOV stacks up against the competition, passthrough camera limitations, display and optical artifacts, and also what sort of apps you would expect as an XR enthusiast, developer, prosumer—whoever. That, and more.
In the meantime, Marques Brownlee hasn’t released a proper review as such, but you can watch his unboxing and initial impressions below:
Meta's next headset needs to support color mixed reality, and hints suggest it will.
Mixed reality is a headline feature of Quest 3. Meta even markets Quest 3 as "the first mainstream mixed reality headset". Despite this, most of the Quest Store remains VR-only. Some apps offer passthrough as an optional background instead of a virtual environment, but few developers offer full mixed reality content that truly integrates with the geometry of your real environment.
That's because most Quest customers are still on Quest 2, but only Quest 3 can automatically generate a 3D mesh of your real environment. More basic room-aware mixed reality is possible on Quest 2, but requires manually marking out your walls and furniture in an arduous and imprecise process most users simply won't want to bother with. And of course, it's in black and white, which just isn't appealing.
Quest 3 Lite Should Expand The Mixed Reality Market
A leaked Meta roadmap last year revealed Meta planned to release a new headset after Quest 3 in 2024 "at the most attractive price point in the VR consumer market", a project called Ventura. Reports from The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and a Chinese analyst who has been reliable in the past suggest this headset will feature the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset from Quest 3 but use the old fresnel lenses from Quest 2, to hit a low enough price to replace Quest 2 in Meta's lineup.
The Chinese analyst suggested Quest 3 Lite will only have black and white passthrough like Quest 2, but there's reason to believe he's mistaken.
By including the XR2 Gen 2 chipset, Meta will enable Quest 3 Lite to run the same VR content at the same quality level as the main Quest 3. From a developer perspective, there would be no difference. But if Quest 3 Lite didn't have similar mixed reality capabilities, developers would have to treat it very differently if integrating mixed reality capabilities.
Supporting the idea that Quest 3 Lite must include mixed reality, last week a Meta engineering director seemed to directly hint at all future Quest headsets supporting mixed reality. In a recent Meta blog post, Director of Engineering for XR Tech Paul Furgale said "after Quest 3, I’m convinced that Passthrough and MR will be a standard feature on all future headsets.”
While the dual 4-megapixel color cameras on Quest 3 may have some special properties such as a global shutter, it's unlikely they are any significant expense. The real cost in passthrough is having a chip that can efficiently process those 8 million pixels per frame efficiently, and the XR2 Gen 2 handles that.
Even Without A Depth Projector
What could start to drive the price up beyond Meta's target of a Quest 2 replacement however is also including an IR depth projector. But there is evidence that Quest 3 Lite will not include a depth projector.
Quest 3 was codenamed Eureka, just as:
Quest Pro (the result of Project Cambria) was codenamed Seacliff
Quest 2 was codenamed Hollywood
Oculus Quest (the result of Project Santa Cruz) was codenamed Monterey
Oculus Go was codenamed Pacific
Back in October, Quest firmware dataminer Samulia discovered a new headset codenamed Panther. Samulia previously discovered many of Quest Pro's specs a year before it launched, as well as Quest 3's resolution and 3D room meshing capabilities.
The reference to Panther was in a debug feature for "simulating" it on Quest 3 (Eureka). Applying this setting, according to the debug log text, prevents the depth projector being used.
Feature found in the Quest firmware by dataminer Samulia.
Many people believe that Quest 3's depth projector is an essential part of how its passthrough works, but this isn't true. In reality, it's only used for generating the 3D scene mesh at room setup. The realtime depth map used for reprojecting the passthrough and exposed by the new Depth API to support dynamic occlusion is in fact generated by a computer vision software algorithm that compares the views from the two frontal greyscale tracking cameras.
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And in theory, the depth projector shouldn't be necessary to even generate the 3D scene mesh. Estimating depth without hardware-level depth sensing is an area of rapid improvement in the field of computer vision today, and the fact that Quest 3 is already doing this suggests the same estimate could be used to populate the scene mesh. Though it would likely be less accurate than Quest 3 and require you to get closer to each wall by walking near it, these seem like acceptable tradeoffs for a markedly lower-cost device.
To me, that's what the simulation text above strongly implies. And going to this effort would make little sense for a headset with only black and white passthrough.
Vital For Meta's Mixed Reality Ecosystem
If Meta abandoned mixed reality in its next device after making it the primary focus of Quest 3 it would send a signal to developers that it's simply not a technology worth developing for, killing any real chance of Meta building a mixed reality content ecosystem to set the stage for competition with Apple Vision Pro and Samsung's Google-powered headset.
With color passthrough, Quest 3 Lite becomes a cheaper Quest 3 with a bulkier design and less sharp lenses. A lower quality but not a fundamentally different device. It would move both VR forward and expand the market for mixed reality. While it's of course possible Meta could value ruthless VR cost-cutting over its mixed reality goals, the hint from Paul Furgale and finding of Samulia suggests that won't be the case.
Meta is reportedly optimistic about the release of Apple Vision Pro, seeing itself as the future Android of the market. But is this thinking flawed?
The Wall Street Journal cites "people familiar with their thinking" as saying that Meta executives believe Apple's entry into the market will "validate Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s gamble and draw more consumers".
Those executives believe Meta will act as the primary competitor to Apple in spatial computing, these sources claim, playing the same role that Android does in the smartphone market today.
The week after Apple Vision Pro was announced, Zuckerberg told Lex Fridman in an interview that he saw Apple's product as "a certain level of validation" for Meta's significant investment in AR and VR. And in an all-hands meeting, he told Meta staff that Vision Pro's announcement made him "even more excited and in a lot of ways optimistic that what we’re doing matters and is going to succeed".
But there's a huge problem with the idea that Meta will be the equivalent of Android in the XR (AKA spatial computing) market.
Android is a semi-open software platform. Any phone maker can integrate the open-source core of Android for free and without permission, and can integrate Google's services and the Google Play Store by agreeing to certain compatibility criteria and preinstalling Google's suite of apps.
The Meta Quest platform on the other hand is exclusive to Meta's own devices. Its strategy is more akin to wanting to be a second Apple than what Google did with Android. That sounds more like BlackBerry than Android, and the market combination of iPhone and Android killed off BlackBerry.
Further, Google itself is seemingly preparing to be the Android of XR with... Android. Google is building an 'Android XR' platform to power Samsung's upcoming headset. It will be able to bring the full Android phone and tablet app ecosystem over, something it refused for Meta, while Samsung will be able to leverage its expertise in hardware and get priority access to key components like OLED microdisplays from its subsidiaries. And while Samsung may have a period of exclusivity, that almost certainly (and reportedly) won't last forever.
On the other hand, a major difference between the XR market and the smartphone market renders these analogies of limited use.
Meta sells its mainline Quest headsets at cost price, and sometimes even at a loss. Barring an unprecedented revenue-sharing deal that would eat heavily into Google's profits, hardware companies like Samsung likely won't want to compete directly with mainline Quests any time soon, especially the rumored Quest 3 Lite. Samsung's headset will reportedly be priced somewhere around $2000.
Until it's possible to build compelling headsets at low cost, Meta could continue its monopoly on lower-cost mass-market devices, while Apple and Google compete for a smaller market of wealthy early adopters.
But Meta's strategy also harms its reported own long-term goal of being an Android-like player. While the company is reportedly partnering with LG for future Quest Pro headsets, no such partnerships are likely for lower-cost headsets because, again, without an unprecedented revenue-sharing deal that would eat heavily into Meta's profits, there's little incentive for most hardware companies to enter this subsidized segment of the market. It's a market more akin to game consoles, where the platform holders are also the hardware providers, than smartphones,
This problem of hardware-only partners needing to make a profit in a market dominated by subsidies is arguably what killed 3DO consoles in the 90s, why so many Android phone makers exited the market in the 2010s, why the HTC Vive lost to the Oculus Rift, and why Steam Deck is a first-party device, not an ecosystem of devices as the failed Steam Machines were.
Apple
Meta
Google
Hardware Strategy
First-Party
First-Party
Third-Party
Hardware Pricing
Profit
Subsidized
Profit
Existing Ecosystem
Integration
✅
❌
✅
While Meta has had a 10-year lead over Apple and Google, I'd argue it has mostly squandered it. Until 2018 it was mostly focused on PC VR, a market it has mostly abandoned. And since then, it has failed to build its own software development platform besides a fragmented series of integrations for game engines like Unity, nor has it built out its own suite of vital first-party applications beyond Horizon Workrooms.
Quest today is a proven and successful games console, but Meta doesn't have a clear path to making it a competitive general computing platform. Meta also lacks any real moat beyond its game studios. Quest headsets are powered by the same Qualcomm chipsets Samsung and others can access and use displays anyone can buy. And Google has its own world-class computer vision team.
Worse, the Quest system software and mobile app are riddled with quality and design issues. While I once expected these to be temporary teething issues in a busy time of transition in the company, that the software remains so buggy and unpolished in 2024 doesn't inspire optimism.
The bull case for Meta is that its current software quality issues might be growing pains, solvable in coming years. Neither Apple nor Google has ever faced a well-financed vertically integrated competitor willing to subsidize hardware to push its platform. Without the ability to achieve the potential unit scale of Quest, Google's venture could fail as consumers opt for Meta's lower-priced alternatives with a broader range of true AR and VR content.
But the bear case is that the Quest software could remain broken as Google enters the market with a polished alternative featuring the Play Store and integration with existing Android devices and services. Alongside high-quality hardware from partners like Samsung with existing retail and marketing capital, this could render Meta as unwanted third option, the BlackBerry of spatial computing. All of Meta's investment and research would, in this scenario, be as useful to it as Xerox PARC was to Xerox.
It's impossible to know with certainty how the future of XR will play out. It's even possible that new entrants ike Amazon or Valve could change the landscape entirely. But what's clear to me is that despite tens of billions of dollars of investment, Meta's place as Apple's primary competitor in spatial computing is far from a sure thing, and will depend on quality of execution, not just scale of investment.
PlayStation's State of Play presentation returns this week, promising a "new look" at PSVR 2 games.
Airing on January 31, Sony confirms the latest State of Play presentation will last for over 40 minutes. However, while this broadcast includes "a new look at other titles coming to PS5 and PSVR 2 in 2024 and beyond," we'd expect this to primarily focus on flatscreen PS5 games with only a couple of VR titles, as was the case during PlayStation Showcase and September's presentation. Presently, Sony has no confirmed upcoming first-party PSVR 2 titles.
For more details, here's the full statement from PlayStation Blog.
The broadcast will be over 40 minutes long, and feature guest appearances from some of the most talented minds in gaming. Among many other updates, we’ll feature extended looks at Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin, two great games coming to PS5 this year. And we’ll give you a new look at other titles coming to PS5 and PS VR2 in 2024 and beyond.
As for what to expect, rumors suggest State of Play could reveal Metro Awakening, a VR entry in the Metro series published by Deep Silver. It's worth noting that Deep Silver's parent company, Embracer, also owns Vertigo Games, and back in November, Vertigo stated it's working on a 'high profile AAA VR game' based on a global franchise. Furthermore, Vertigo previously announced plans to bring Deep Silver franchises to VR in 2021, partnering with Meta but not as exclusives.
PlayStation's State of Play presentation airs on January 31 at 2pm PT across YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok.
One of the big features being touted by Apple is Vision Pro’s ability to play back spatial video captured on iPhone 15. According to data recently mined in the Meta app, Quest is reportedly set to natively support the specific video codec.
The information was obtained by X (formerly Twitter) user M1Astra, who notes a number of strings found within a beta version of Meta’s app for iOS. The strings that most likely refer to native support for the MV-HVEC codec include:
“Immerse yourself in your favourite memories by uploading videos on the Meta Quest app.”
“Enable spatial video in your camera settings. {link}”
“Upload spatial video” “Spatial video ready”
M1Astra notes there are some possibly related strings that refer to Apple’s spatial video too:
“Your videos are ready!” “Your video is ready!”
“From the Meta Quest app gallery, upload videos to view them in VR”
“Go to the cloud gallery of the Files app in your headset to experience your videos”
“Uploaded videos are stored on Meta servers. Your headset will need to be connected to the Internet to view them.”
“View uploaded videos on Meta Quest in the Files app Synced media tab”
“Cancel upload?”
Quest users can already view iPhone’s spatial videos, however official support is set to not only make it easier, but more closely align Quest 2/3/Pro’s feature set with Vision Pro.
Notably, spatial video capture is only available on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max—in addition to the $3,500 Vision Pro itself, which is set to ship out to pre-order customers starting on February 2nd. It’s thought that spatial video will be a more prominent feature moving forward, possible arriving on a wider swath of iPhone 16 models in the near future.
Searching for new VR games in 2024 and beyond? You're in the right place.
2023 was a pivotal year for VR. While the upcoming Apple Vision Pro isn't heavily focused on gaming, PSVR 2 heralded big releases, while Quest 2 and Quest 3 had numerous heavy hitters. That isn't letting up just yet, and in 2024, there are still plenty more upcoming VR games on the way.
Our aim is to create a wider list that we will keep regularly updated, so you can better plan ahead or remind yourself of upcoming VR games you had perhaps forgotten about. That doesn't mean we're stopping our more in-depth monthly round-ups – you can find more specific information about new VR games for January 2024 below.
With Meta dropping Quest 1 social support and new feature updates, expect most of the games listed for 'Quest' below to only support Quest 2, Quest Pro and Quest 3 – Quest 1 support for new games is becoming rare. If a game is being optimized for a specific Quest headset, that will be noted. You can find the Quest Store and mobile apps (iOS/Google Play) here.
Keep this page bookmarked as we'll continue updating it regularly each month. For now, here's our list of upcoming VR games in 2024 and beyond to come.
Notice: * denotes a game that either is currently available in early access on that platform, or a game that will have been released in early access by that time.
** denotes an early access launch.
*** denotes a game currently available but without VR support.
Ian Hamilton
