XR Today launched its inaugural Big News show last month to commemorate the top news stories across the world. These headlines highlighted some top milestones in the virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR/AR/MR) industry, where companies continue to rise and fall among competitors.
Progress across the immersive sector has led to the release of new products and collaborations between firms, allowing the convergence of working metaverse platforms. Such efforts will eventually create the framework for regulating the future spatial communications platform and drive growth and innovation.
For the discussion, XR Today hosted panels talks with the following,
- Kevin O’Donovan, Co-Chair, VRARA Industrial Metaverse and Digital Twin Committee
- Andre McQueen, Special Lecturer, University of Arts London
Roblox to Join Meta Quest Lineup, Report Says
Speaking on the future of serious gaming innovations and collaborations in XR, including Meta’s collaboration with Roblox, O’Donovan called it a “very positive step.”
He stressed that the Metaverse was an interoperable platform as it would not “be just one thing” and would also facilitate moving between worlds seamlessly.
Speaking further, he said,
“Looking back at the internet, we we started out our Apple and Google over the last few years, we could end up with very much ‘walled gardens.’ All the companies are starting to collaborate with each other. Obviously, they all have vested interests, but I see that as a positive. I think that working together will drive a lot of the standards, where people will say, ‘Oh, stuff doesn’t work with yours. We need to fix that.’ I think it will accelerate some of the interoperability, and I think most companies realise that nobody can do it all.
McQueen also stated that interoperability was essential and that people would “win together” and “lose together,” quoting a sports analogy.
He explained that if companies did not “play together as a team,” the industry would suffer for becoming “too sectioned off.” This would create troubles for the Metaverse’s development and XR in general.
Furthermore, doing so would eliminate or reduce friction by allowing metaverse users to access digital experiences. He explained,
“I think it could be a case of necessity, by having [the digital worlds] play together. […] Regarding those partnerships, some will ‘get married’ and some will ‘get divorced.’ I look forward to seeing how some of them may become a bit of a soap opera, but I think generally, the idea of firms working collaboratively ultimately makes sense”
Interjecting, O’Donovan referenced Roblox’s efforts to develop the Metaverse would receive substantial benefits from working with virtual and mixed reality (VR/MR) headsets such as the Meta Quest 2, Quest Pro, and upcoming Quest 3 devices.
Additionally, news of deepening collaboration with Roblox from the XR industry had also caught O’Donovan’s attention. He added,
“I’m a bit of a geek and got into Roblox and different games. What’s fascinating is that, if you want to create a game in Roblox, the editor is not the same as NVIDIA’s Omniverse, Blender, Unity, Epic Games, and others, but was still a full editor. You can go off and create an environment that looks like a factory and then do cool stuff, inside-out, [or design] a treasure hunt for company employees”
Concluding, he stated that he found it fascinating that people could create bespoke environments with Roblox and similar platforms.
“Where we think about us [in relation to Roblox], there’s just young kids playing games,” he concluded.
Meta Could Release Quest 3 in 2023, Analyst Says
When asked about the pending release of the Meta Quest 3, McQueen raised questions about the improvements in speed and visual clarity from specific areas.
Despite this, he believed it would remain an incremental step, stating: “I think it’s too short of a period to see any dramatic, mind-blowing new things not in existence within the typical pipeline.”
He added,
“I would be really interested to see what they do in terms of introducing the [Snapdragon] chipset and what it will do for graphical capabilities. I also want to see how that could really elevate [markets] and how consumers or users will interact to enjoy their experiences, where they can level up [to where] we start seeing progress [in] the long-term.”
O’Donovan added that he agreed with McQueen that Meta could potentially surprise fans with the device despite not advertising aggressively in public. He stated that, if Meta releases its software developer kit (SDK) for the Quest 3, it would allow developers to estimate the device’s capabilities.
He also agreed with McQueen that the device would become an incremental step up from the Quest 2 with its passthrough, which would “open up all sorts of things” with its collaboration with Roblox.
Speaking on his previous work experience with Intel, he referred to a period in the mid-1990s where the chipmaker would develop and deploy incrementally faster chipsets.
People focused more on how the device was designed, how it distributed weight with the battery, and other features.
Speaking on further competition with rival firms such as ByteDance and Pico Interactive, HTC VIVE, and Valve Steam, O’Donovan explained,
In my industry, and the industrial metaverse as well as more enterprise-ready hardware platforms, there’s a very different consumer. You’ve got IT people to do cybersecurity device management and other professions. I’m not sure what [Meta CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg] is going to do, but it depends on the price point. If they lower the price point for consumers, that opens up an entirely different kettle of worms with more people getting access to this technology.
