During GDC on Tuesday, Nvidia announced that visionOS 26.4, expected later this spring, will include support for Nvidia’s XR streaming platform CloudXR 6.0, allowing users to play games like X-Plane 12 and iRacing on the Vision Pro. Developers will soon be able to test their games over the cloud, too, with GeForce NOW Playtest.
If you don’t already own the game, which is still arguably one of the best VR games ever, you’ll be able to play it as part of the $7.99 per month subscription starting this month, Meta says.
I was impressed with foveated streaming on the Steam Frame, which, when you’re interacting with games streamed to the headset, renders what’s right in front of your eyes at the highest fidelity. I hope it’s just as good on the Vision Pro.
Apple announced visionOS’s foveated streaming as part of the first developer beta for visionOS 26.4.
[Apple Developer Documentation]
A passionate group of women rediscovered fitness in VR. They’re furious with Mark Zuckerberg for killing their community.
Jason Rubin became Oculus’ game studios boss in 2014, shortly after Facebook bought the company, and led VR content ever since, as well as brokering deals that might’ve led to a killer app — like Rock Band, Assassin’s Creed and more. But over a decade later, Meta’s gutting its studios. Rubin is leaving in March because “this seems like a good time.”
Ryan Payton confirmed to The Verge that he was impacted by this week’s job cuts affecting Meta’s Reality Labs division.
Aftermath previously reported that Camouflaj studio heads had been let go and that the developer is now just “a handful of employees” working on “the new user experience for upcoming hardware.”
The studio, Camouflaj, hasn’t been “completely laid off,” as one Arkham series fan page reported; Camouflaj experienced layoffs but is not shutting down, Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton tells The Verge. The team is now “just a handful of employees” working on “the new user experience for upcoming hardware,” former Meta employees tell Aftermath.
Update: Added Aftermath’s reporting.
Stratechery’s Ben Thompson says Apple just doesn’t understand Vision Pro after the first live NBA broadcast on the device bounced from camera to camera, rather than offering an immersive, courtside experience:
Just let me sit courtside and watch an NBA game. I don’t need a scoreboard, I can look up and see it. I don’t need a pre-game or post-game show, I can simply watch the players warm-up. I don’t need announcers, I’d rather listen to the crowd and the players on the court. You have made a device that, for this specific use case, is better than TV in every way, yet you insist on producing content for it like it is TV! Just stop!
[Stratechery by Ben Thompson]
Apple and Spectrum have released the schedule of the Lakers games you can watch in the Apple Immersive format inside a Vision Pro. The first game takes place this week on January 9th, with the Lakers taking on the Milwaukee Bucks.
Meta had already announced the streaming service was coming to its headsets, but now it’s here.
They’re available “starting today,” Google says. And system-level “autospatialization,” which turns 2D content into 3D, is coming next year, Google announced during its Android Show presentation.
I brought our Quest 3 to Valve’s offices just in case we’d be seeing the Steam Frame, formerly known as Deckard — and it paid off! I didn’t have time to directly compare optics, but I’d say comfort is superior. It’s noticeably smaller, with controllers that are bigger.
It’s a thing now. The game is available for Meta Quest 2, Quest 3, Quest 3S, and Quest Pro right now. It’s a standalone game, so if you already own the flatscreen version and want to play in VR, you’ll need to buy this special version, according to an FAQ.
In another good tidbit about Valve’s new hardware from Gamers Nexus, the channel says that the controller has LED markers that can be detected by the Frame. Pretty cool!
Just for Verge subscribers, Sean Hollister and I will be replying to comments and questions regarding Valve’s new Steam Frame, Steam Machine, and Steam Controller. Ask your questions here, and we’ll be jumping in at about 3PM ET.
The company confirmed it to Gamers Nexus in a statement:
APKs can also be side-loadable just like any non-Steam applications on Steam Deck. We expect that VR APKs that don’t leverage proprietary APls to just work.
This is what Valve’s new headset is all about.
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The best part might be the new headband, which costs $99 and supports the first model.
Brad Lynch, a project manager at EOZ VR, figured out that, while streaming Half-Life Alyx from SteamVR to a Samsung Galaxy XR headset, you can pull up Google Gemini, draw a circle on the screen, and have it spit out English translations of signs for you.
At $1,799 and with an impressive subscription bundle, Samsung is aggressively taking shots at the Vision Pro.
