VR News - June 2022 - Volume 8
Our team at Fun Train cultivates our favorite news stories from the prior month to help you keep up with the fast-moving landscape of virtual reality! Enjoy this digest.
Welcome to the eighth Fun Train VR Newsletter! Here we will be recapping major news from the previous month, and looking ahead at upcoming releases.
How The Twilight Zone Was Revived as a VR Game
The next Twilight Zone reboot won't be on TV, but in virtual reality. Den of Geek takes a deep dive into the project.
Wands Alliances Releases on Quest 2
The follow-up to one of VR’s first competitive spellcasters was announced back in February and debuts at $19.99. You can find Wands Alliances on the Quest store now.
SideQuest Can Now Be Accessed Inside Your VR Headset
If you own a Meta Quest headset you’ve probably heard of SideQuest. The popular VR platform features a wide variety of unofficial games and apps as well as a number of useful tools for your headset. Previously, you had to connect your headset to a computer or Android device using a USB Type-C cable in order to download content. Thanks to a new update, however, you can now access the platform’s growing catalog of VR games and apps directly from your Quest headset.
‘Beat Saber’ Earned Nearly $100M in Revenue Last Year Alone
Beat Games, the Czechia-based studio known for VR’s most popular game Beat Saber (2018), revealed it’s managed to generate nearly $100 million in revenue over the course of last year thanks to the block-slashing rhythm game. This places it as the top-earning game studio in Czechia, as it now sits above Bohemia Interactive (Arma, DayZ), SCS Software (Euro Truck Simulator 2), and Warhorse Studios (Kingdom Come: Deliverance).
‘Immerse’ Brings Live Spanish Courses to Quest 2, More Languages Coming in 2023
Immerse, a startup focusing on teaching languages in VR, has launched a social app on Quest 2 which lets subscribers take part in live Spanish or English lessons, peer-to-peer conversation practice, and weekly community events. The company has raised a total of $10.5 million in investment, and will be launching its application with a $45/month subscription model.
JRPG ‘Ruinsmagus’ to Release on Quest 2 & SteamVR July 7th
In RUINSMAGUS, you venture beneath the alleyways of Grand Amnis, a town that sits atop a vast labyrinth of ruins, long-forgotten by those above. In search of precious and powerful artifacts, you journey into the heart of the ruins and unravel the secrets of a lost age. Starting out as a humble novice wizard, you learn more powerful spells on your path to becoming a ‘Magus’.
Low-Fi Spin-Off Agency Now In Development For Quest
Agency, a spin-off from upcoming VR title Low-Fi, is in development for Quest after a conceptual tech demo released mid-last year. While Elijah and his studio develop Agency, Renaud will continue his work on Low-Fi. Renaud also wrote on Twitter that Agency won’t be Quest exclusive, and will “work on all VR headsets.”
Apple Recruits Hollywood Directors For VR/AR Headset
According to The New York Times, Apple is enlisting the help of the Hollywood elite to help bolster its catalog of immersive content for its long-rumored VR/AR headset. This will supposedly include mysterious video content from celebrated director Jon Favreau (The Lion King, Ironman, The Mandalorian).
Thief Simulator VR Headed To Quest Soon
VR stealth game Thief Simulator VR is coming to Meta Quest (formerly Oculus Quest) soon. A port of the game has appeared in the Coming Soon section of the Quest store and is named Thief Simulator VR – Greenview Street.
Compound Is Getting A Quest 2 Version
Not only is the VR shooter, Compound, getting a full PC VR release soon – it’s coming to Quest 2, too. Developer Bevan McKechnie confirmed as much to UploadVR following the reveal of last week’s news that the full version of the game was nearing release on Steam. Currently there’s no official timeline for when this version will be fully revealed and released, but stay tuned.
Zuckerberg: Meta Pay Is Part Of A ‘Wallet For The Metaverse’
Meta will introduce a digital wallet for use in the metaverse, as part of its Meta Pay (formerly Facebook Pay) service. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news in a post shared to his Facebook account.
Pico Is Planning To Take On Quest 2 In The USA & Will Fund VR Games
TikTok’s corporate parent, ByteDance, is getting ready to enter the U.S. market with another product: The company has started to assemble a team of Pico employees on the West Coast, with a major focus on content licensing as well as marketing its hardware to U.S. consumers. ByteDance has also been approaching VR content producers.
IDC Estimates Quest 2 Has Sold Almost 15 Million Units
IDC’s Francisco Jeronimo wrote on Twitter that with almost 15 million units sold (after 20 months on the market) Quest 2 is “the most successful VR headset to date”. He further claimed VR sales grew 97% last year, and 242% in the first quarter of this year. For comparison, PlayStation 5 has officially sold 20 million units, and estimates put Xbox Series X & S together at over 14 million.
China’s Tencent Forms XR Unit to Build Its Own Metaverse
Tencent, the China-based multinational known for WeChat and a host of mobile games, reportedly announced to staff that it was creating a unit dedicated to building out its XR offerings. As reported by Reuters, Tencent allegedly told staff on Monday about the official formation of a unit tasked with building up its XR business, which is said to include both software and hardware projects. The internal XR unit was supposedly launched in secrecy earlier this year.
Meta Reveals VR Headset Prototypes Designed to Make VR ‘Indistinguishable From Reality’
Meta says its ultimate goal with its VR hardware is to make a comfortable, compact headset with visual finality that’s ‘indistinguishable from reality’. Today the company revealed its latest VR headset prototypes which it says represent steps toward that goal.
‘Twilight Zone VR’ Quest 2 Release Date Announced
“Developer Pocket Money Studios today revealed that Twilight Zone VR is set for a July 14th release date on Quest 2 and released an action-packed gameplay trailer. Based on the iconic anthology series, The Twilight Zone VR is said to feature three self-contained single-player episodes which will span the sort of genres we’ve come to expect from the franchise: hard sci-fi to psychological horror.”