Apple’s significant impact on the market tends to draw attention from companies that might not have otherwise entered a specific product category—aka “The Apple Effect.” With the entrance of Apple Vision Pro, one such entity to follow suit is Stryker’s Mako, a robotic surgery group initially founded as a standalone company by Rony Abovitz, the founder and first CEO of AR unicorn Magic Leap.
The Game Developer Conference (GDC) is coming up next week, which could give ByteDance’s XR subsidiary Pico Interactive a perfect opportunity to showcase what, according to a recent trademark and leaked controller model, could be its next standalone VR headset.
Mighty Coconut, developer of indie VR hit Walkabout Mini Golf (2020), announced it’s partnering with Wallace & Gromit creators Aardman to bring a course inspired by the very same British boffin and canine pair.
Announced late last year, Meta is shutting down three of its exclusive titles this week, including VR shooters Dead and Buried (2016) and Dead and Buried II (2019), and virtual pet simulator Bogo (2019), making it your last chance to say goodbye.
This week Apple released its first significant update for Vision Pro, visionOS 1.1, bringing key enterprise features like the ability to enroll and configure headsets at scale, visual improvements for Personas, and more.
In terms of reviews and revenue generated, Gorilla Tag is by far one of the most successful games on the Quest platform. Now it’s the first to top 100,000 user reviews.
Vision Pro doesn’t support motion controllers, however Apple published a new patent last month that describes an Apple Pencil-like device which could point the way for the company’s first Vision Pro-supported controller.
There are plenty of live action VR videos out there, but most are fairly short, based entirely around sports, or other things… Coming soon to Meta Horizon Worlds on Quest is a VR horror series called The Faceless Lady, which is bringing six half-hour episodes in stereoscopic 3D.
Meta’s Beat Games teased earlier this month that everyone’s favorite block-slicing rhythm game Beat Saber was finally getting the music pack that always needed to happen: Daft Punk. Now that day has come, which arrives with some improved haptics on Quest that promise to be harder, better, faster (and) stronger.
Meta announced it’s overhauled its aging PC software with a few new features, which should make using Quest for PC VR gameplay a little less 2019 and a little more 2024, as it now includes more modern features such as a higher refresh rate on Quest 3, longer playtime via Air Link, and broadened support for nVidia 4000 series GPUs.
Vision Pro launched on February 2nd with a solid count of first-party accessories and in-box items. If you’re shelling out at least $3,500 for the thing, you might as well protect it from scratches and dust, and kit it out with everything under the sun while you’re at it. Here are a few great options:
Vision Pro doesn’t have controllers, but it’s clear Apple will need to support immersive hardware input somehow in the future, if only for the greater precision it might bring to industry professionals. Sony has a pretty interesting take on how to serve up ‘pro’ style controllers in its recently revealed enterprise-focused standalone, which could point the way forward for Vision Pro.
