Off the back of Facebook Connect this week, YouTuber Marques Brownlee released an insightful conversation with Mark Zuckerberg talking about the long-term future of AR and VR technology, and Facebook’s goals for how to get there.
We recommend watching the full video if you’re interested in Zuckerberg’s thoughts on how VR and AR (especially the latter) will play out in the long-term. However, we’ve also summed up 5 of the biggest talking points from the video below with direct quotes.
1. Facebook’s investment in AR and VR
“Our company is probably investing the most in virtual and augmented reality of anyone else in the world,” Zuckerberg told Brownlee.
They went on to discuss a lot about AR as opposed to VR, and the ways in which Facebook are working toward the eventual goal of producing AR glasses. “We have thousands of people working on [AR] at Facebook,” said Zuckerberg. “Because I just do think this is going to be the next computing platform, even if it takes several years to get there.”
2. Holographic TVs?
“Once we have really good, mature AR glasses, we won’t even necessarily need other kinds of screens anymore,” said Zuckerberg. “Things like TVs, tablets, all these things could just be digital holograms.”
“I think there is going to be a crazy amount of creativity that gets unlocked, and a lot of innovation, when a lot of stuff…can just get turned into an app that can be a hologram that you can give to someone. I think that’s going to be wild.”
3. Human sonar capabilities
“Haptics are one area where you wanna feel something, you pick up a rock or an object and it kinda has more weight… that’s kinda hard to model. But I do think we’re going to get other senses through augmented and virtual reality that may not be possible in the physical world. Let’s say for example I’m feeling around my desk and my hand is getting close to a water bottle.
“Today, you don’t feel the water bottle until you touch it but it’s possible in AR and VR that we can provide some kind of sense so that as you start getting close to an object, you start feeling some kind of resistance or some sense that you’re near something, which is of course how some other animals navigate the world through sonar and different things like that.”
4. ARsthetics
“[AR] has a very high bar for aesthetics [of the device/glasses] and feeling like it’s a normal pair of glasses,” said Zuckerberg, in response to a question about whether the quality of the experience or the form factor of a VR/AR device is more important.
“If you think about the range of glasses — really thin-rimmed glasses to really thick-rimmed glasses — I don’t know if we can cram all the electronics into a very thin-rimmed glasses anytime soon. But the goal is going to be to try to get all the electronics and things we need to produce that into a normal thick rimmed glasses pair of glasses. I think that matters. But then in the mean time, for virtual reality we just want to get it as light as possible.”
“We’re definitely going to focus on just smaller, faster processor, better screens, until you get down to the retina displays.”
5. Thoughts on Google Glass?
Marques also asked Zuckerberg for his thoughts on Google Glass, and whether the device was ahead of its time. “Well I think the idea that you’re going to want some information and context there [in your eyes/glasses], it makes sense to work on that,” responded Zuckerberg. “We’ll see other types of other glasses I imagine, I don’t know what Apple or others are working on, but there’s one version that the tech can take which you can kind of think of as a smart watch on your face.”
“[A Google Glass/smart watch-style AR device] is not personally the thing that I’m super excited about building for a number of reasons,” he continued, with a shrug.
“Firstly, I come at this from the perspective of ‘How do we connect people better?’ So having some information in the corner of your eye is just not as powerful, from my perspective, as having hologram Marques here with me and being able to interact, or share objects or play a game together. That, I think, is just a completely different value proposition that is going to be harder to build, but is worth waiting for to get to that.”
“Google glass was sort of an early take on the smart watch on the face thing. I don’t know, I’m sure others will try that too, that’s not the main thing that we’re focused on trying to build.”
What did you take away from Zuckerberg’s talk with Brownlee? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Confirmed today at Facebook Connect, the classic psychedelic rail shooter Rez Infinite is coming to the Oculus Quest and Oculus Quest 2 on October 13.
The original Rez released in 2001 for the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2, but was re-released as Rez Infinite (with VR support and some new content) for the PlayStation 4 and PC a few years ago. Now, Rez Infinite is making a move over to Facebook’s Quest platform, releasing for both the original Quest and Quest 2 on the latter’s launch day next month. The game is a “mind-blowing synesthesia” experience that mixes rail shooting action, a techno music soundtrack and some stunning visuals.
Just like on PC VR and PSVR, Rez Infinite will feature the five areas from the original Rez game, plus an extra area developed specifically for VR called Area X. The new area was so stunning back in 2016 that it made the game’s creator, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, cry.
Mizuguchi is also known for his more recent release, Tetris Effect, which took classic Tetris gameplay and turned it into an amazing audio-visual experience, similar to Rez. Tetris Effect launched on PS4 and PC VR first in 2019, with optional VR support, but only released on Oculus Quest a few months ago. A multiplayer expansion is now in the works and Mizuguchi is also working on a new game with VR support called Humanity.
Rez Infinite releases October 13 for Oculus Quest and Oculus Quest 2 — the price has yet to be confirmed. The game is available now for PSVR, and PC VR through the SteamVR and Oculus stores.
Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge got a brand new trailer today during Facebook Connect showing lots of blaster action and familiar faces.
Now that we’ve seen the game in action, it actually looks quite impressive. While not directly related from a story perspective, Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge looks extremely similar to Vader Immortal, which is also developed by ILMxLab.
Previously we only really got to see concept art and mock up images, but now in the new trailer embedded above, you can see lots of actual gameplay as well. This looks like it’ll be extremely action-packed and way more than just a tour of Batu.
You can find some more details on what we found out already about Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge right here in this article from a few months ago. And keep an eye on the PC VR and PSVR spaces next month for when Star Wars: Squadrons launches with VR and full HOTAS support!
Be sure to watch our Oculus Quest 2 VR Download special show diving into the latest announcements and find a list of other Facebook Connect announcements below the video.
Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge is releasing on Oculus Quest this holiday season. Stay tuned to UploadVR for more details as they come out! Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Confirmed today at Facebook Connect, Jurassic World Aftermath is a new survival adventure VR game coming soon exclusively to Oculus Quest and Oculus Quest 2.
Developed by Coatsink Games, Aftermath is set two years after Jurassic World and will see you crash land on Isla Nublar, the location of now-destroyed Jurassic World theme park:
Your mission to recover valuable information goes disastrously wrong when you find yourself trapped in an abandoned research facility. Your only hope of escape is to recover the confidential research for your employers on the mainland as quickly as possible, all while being hunted by deadly Velociraptors unwittingly set loose during the island’s evacuation. To survive and escape, you’ll need to explore, solve puzzles, and find ways to distract and hide from the ferocious Velociraptors that stalk your every move.
You can check out the announcement trailer below, which debuted during the Facebook Connect keynote presentation.
As you can see in the trailer, the game is going for a cell-shaded art style, which is an interesting choice for a VR game. Given that it will be a standalone title for Quest headsets, the decision was probably made to cut down on GPU costs. However, this also comes with a pretty big disclaimer — a message is displayed at the beginning of the trailer that says “Captured on PC. Actual gameplay may vary.” So the graphics and footage in this trailer might not be representative of the final product that runs on Quest and Quest 2.
We’ve got no set release date for Jurassic World Aftermath, except that it’s ‘coming soon’. Keep an eye out for more info in the future.
Announced at Facebook Connect, Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister is an upcoming single player first-person shooter for VR. It will be available for Oculus Quest, Oculus Quest 2 and Oculus Rift later this year.
The game is set in the universe of Warhammer 40,000, one of the most popular miniature tabletop war games, which has since spun off into a few related video games. You’ll play a veteran Sister of Battle called Sister Orphelia in a campaign where she “searches for her lost twin sister and fights for the future of humanity itself.” Here’s a description of the weapons and gameplay mechanics you’ll have access to:
Battle Sister features a range of iconic wargear from the Warhammer 40,000 universe for players to actually wield, for the first time, in their own hands, legendary weapons including Bolters, Plasma Pistols, Flamers, Las Rifles, Power Swords and Chainswords. As well as these devastating weapons the player has access to Acts of Faith. These powerful abilities can turn the tide of battle by allowing players to slow time, create a resilient force field, and push back enemies and objects.
The game is being developed by Pixel Toys, the studio that previously developed Oculus Quest launch title Drop Dead: Dual Strike. Not only does the studio have experience developing for VR, but they’ve also worked with the Warhammer 40,000 IP before, developing mobile games like Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade.
There’s no word on pricing or a specific release date for Battle Sister just yet, except that it will launch before the end of the year for Rift and Quest platforms.
During the Facebook Connect digital conference today The Climb 2 was revealed, a direct follow-up to Crytek’s The Climb. The original game was first released as an Oculus Rift exclusive, but has since been ported to Oculus Quest.
Details are scarce on The Climb 2 at this time, but it’s definitely not a sequel we expected to see today. In the announcement trailer embedded above you’ll notice much more exotic locations than in the first game, such as a volcano in the background or a city full of skyscrapers similar to Dubai in the key art. They’ve certainly gone with a more striking, stylized visual identity this time.
According to the press release: “The thrill of rock climbing comes alive with The Climb 2–explore a new city setting and exhilarating new maps with breathtaking views. Ascend grand peaks, navigate vast caves, climb skyscrapers, and discover hidden shortcuts as you find your path to the top. Compete with friends and conquer leaderboards in asynchronous multiplayer modes. From exploring mountain environments to scaling urban settings, feel the rush of climbing without ropes, and experience breathtaking vistas as you scale new heights.”
The Climb 2 is exclusive to the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 with the trailer saying “only on the Oculus Quest platform” at the end in small print. You might think that because it says “Captured on PC” in the trailer for the Quest game it might come to PC at some point. We reached out to Facebook to clarify whether the game might ever come to PC VR or PSVR and a representative replied that The Climb 2 is a “Quest platform exclusive.”
After the Quest port of The Climb was originally announced all the way back at the Quest announcement during Oculus Connect in 2018, the game itself didn’t actually release until December 2019. Now, less than a year later, we’re already hearing news of a sequel. Although, it’s likely work began on this sequel prior to the first game’s port launching.
In The Climb you use your hands to ascend up perilous mountains across a variety of picturesque locales. In the PC VR version the breathtaking visuals are the highlight of the experience and despite the downgrade, it’s still quite captivating on the Quest version as well. Hopefully the XR2 chip inside the Quest 2 will help it deliver even more impressive visuals for the sequel.
What do you think about the surprise sequel announcement? It’s coming this holiday season exclusively to Oculus Quest. Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below!
Today during the Facebook Connect digital event the Oculus Quest shooter library got a little bit beefier. Rebellion and Oculus revealed that Sniper Elite VR is officially coming to the Oculus Quest.
Previously showcased as a PSVR-exclusive, Sniper Elite VR is now taking aim at other platforms. We still don’t know for sure if it’s coming to PC VR headsets yet, but since Rebellion’s other VR projects like Battlezone eventually made their way to PC, it seems possible.
The first time we got our hands on Sniper Elite VR was at E3 2019 and then again at PAX East earlier this year, but we’ve only tried it on the PSVR using the PS Aim Controller both times. Admittedly, it plays so well with that controller peripheral it was hard to imagine ever playing it any other way — but they eventually confirmed support for PC VR headsets too. It’s still quite surprising to imagine it could run so well on a standalone device like the Oculus Quest, but games like Onward and Phantom: Covert Ops have made it happen already as well. Now that we’ve seen the latest footage in the trailer embedded above, it’s looking like a really capable shooter.
According to the press release it includes a full campaign, free smooth locomotion across all levels, the iconic x-ray kill cam redesigned for VR, and authentic weapon interactions.
For those worried about playing a game that’s just a collection of slow-paced sniper missions, it doesn’t look like you have much to be concerned with at all. The trailer is full of action, showcases a wide variety of weaponry, and looks like it could rival the likes of both Blood & Truth and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond for delivering a breezy action-packed VR FPS campaign.
We still don’t have a release date yet other than ‘Coming Soon’ but now Quest owners can also look forward to Sniper Elite VR right alongside PSVR and PC VR players. Let us know what you think of the game and its latest trailer down in the comments below!
Finally! On October 13th Beat Saber is getting its long-awaited multiplayer update which includes support for five players. The update launches on the same day as the release for the newly unveiled Oculus Quest 2. Also, a BTS music pack is coming to Beat Saber later this year!
One of the big highlights of Facebook Connect today if you’re a rhythm game fan was undoubtedly the news that Beat Saber is finally getting multiplayer support. This is a feature that has literally been teased for years by Beat Games, so it’s long overdue. In fact, just about two years ago, the developer indicated on Twitter that multiplayer support was 85% complete and would be added “quickly” after finishing the PSVR port. Obviously, that wasn’t the case.
Details are scarce still on what exactly multiplayer will entail for Beat Saber, but according to a press release from Facebook you’ll be able to, “pick your avatar, join a private party or random match, and prepare to dance off with your friends” which makes it sound like more of a party game mode. Hopefully there is some mode variety to do things like head-to-head real-time Beat Saber battles or even some creative modes that involve taking turns or dueling, similar to classic Guitar Hero games.
Additionally, we learned that BTS is getting its very own music pack for Beat Saber with 12 hit songs coming this November. The BTS pack will include multiplayer mode support and the TinyTAN characters, shown in the image above.
The press release only lists Rift and Quest for both of these updates, but since that press release came from Facebook that makes sense. We don’t have confirmation from Facebook on this particular issue yet, but we expect both of these updates will release on every other platform on the same day just like previous recent updates. They stated support for other platforms will continue when Facebook purchased Beat Games last year.
What do you think of the news? Will you be checking out Beat Saber multiplayer? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below!
Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused article series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today’s Community Download, we want to know about your Facebook Connect predictions, specifically surrounding the Oculus Quest 2!
Oops, this is awkward for Facebook. Someone apparently couldn’t keep their excitement in check and accidentally (or on purpose?) uploaded videos revealing a wide range of details about the Oculus Quest 2. So, there’s no mystery anymore: it’s real and it’s coming. We know that for sure now.
In fact, the VP of Facebook Reality Labs, the new brand that encapsulates all VR and AR at Facebook, including Oculus, literally said, “Welp” in regards to the leak:
Welp. It is hard to keep the lid on something this good and clearly the enthusiasm is bubbling over at Facebook. But stay tuned for more details (yes there are many more!) on Wednesday, 10am PT. https://t.co/YZ9ifnkolr
Other than the price, what else is there to know about the Oculus Quest 2, do you think? And what about Facebook Connect as a whole? Surely we should expect to see new details about Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond and Lone Echo 2 for Oculus Rift, since we’ve gone about a year without any actually new details about either of those games. Maybe some more Quest ports or, ideally, actually new Quest games are on the way as well.
This is the first year the event has adopted the name Facebook Connect (instead of Oculus Connect) and is also the first year it’s a digital-only event due to the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. For those counting, this would have been Oculus Connect 7.
What else could be in store besides Oculus Quest 2? What do you think the price will be? Let us know your predictions down in the comments below!
John Carmack doesn’t mince words. The legendary developer, who for several years held the role of Oculus CTO but now maintains a less formal “consulting CTO” arrangement, says that his keynote presentation at last year’s Facebook Connect conference foreshadowed some of the announcements that can be expected at the event next week. But the announcements won’t come without some personal reservations as “many of the challenges and pain points for me still remain unresolved,” he says.
In anticipation of next week’s Facebook Connect (formerly Oculus Connect) conference, where Carmack will deliver another unscripted keynote, he said this week that he rewatched last year’s keynote.
“There is definitely some foreshadowing of things to be announced next week,” he said on Twitter. “But many of the challenges and pain points for me still remain unresolved.”
Likely to the chagrin of Facebook’s PR folks, Carmack over the years has managed to speak bluntly about Oculus in a way that most other employees never do. His famously unscripted keynotes often cover a wide range of topics, and his session at Oculus Connect 6 last year was no exception. In addition to talking about where he thought the company was doing well and things he was proud of, he also spoke of missed opportunities, mistakes, and things that could be done better both in hardware and software.
With the talk clocking in at one and a half hours, there’s no clear way to pin down what he might consider “foreshadowing” of announcements to pain points which he considers “unresolved.” A summary of his keynote, however, at least clues us in to what we might hear about next week.
“Friction”
Image courtesy Oculus
Carmack opened his presentation talking about how “friction is such a dominant force” in retention of VR users. He said the company learned through the launch of Go, Quest, and Rift S that making headsets easier to use (by making them standalone and/or including inside-out tracking) meant that users would use their headsets much more regularly than compared to Gear VR and the original Rift, both of which had greater friction in usage.
“There’s also quite a bit of headroom for us to where we say ‘we still have all these friction points with Quest, and there’s still all the quality and things we can do to improve it’,” he said. “So we can expect future headsets to continue to take those ratcheting steps up as a more and more retentive platform.”
While Rift S was an improvement over the original Rift in retention, Carmack confirmed that “Quest is by far our most retentive hardware,” solidifying the company’s primary focus on Quest.
Future Headsets
When it comes to future VR headsets, Carmack laid out what he called a “decision tree for new headsets.” Though he didn’t make any announcements, he specifically said “you can maybe infer some possible directions that things could go.”
Hardware Architectures
‘Santa Cruz’, an early Quest prototype, had a split architecture with power and compute on the rear of the headset
On that front he talked about several possible headset architectures like the current Quest ‘all-in-one’ standalone or a ‘split architecture’ where battery and compute is in the back of the headstrap or even in a ‘computing puck’ in your pocket, but he stressed that each of choices decisions comes with tradeoffs about performance, battery life, and manufacturability.
Displays
A teardown of Valve’s Index headset reveals the complex mechanism necessary for an IPD adjustment with split displays. | Image courtesy GamerToTheEnd
On displays, Carmack waxed about the pros and cons of LCD vs. OLED and split displays vs. single displays including differences in manufacturability, pixel density, IPD adjustment support, and display properties like contrast ratio and brightness. He pointed out that the company has flip-flopped between these options across its headsets: Rift CV1 with split OLED displays, Go with a single LCD display, Quest with split OLED displays, and Rift S with a single LCD display.
He roughly concluded that LCDs typically are less expensive, brighter, and offer greater pixel density, while OLEDs have lower latency, better contrast, but suffer from limited brightness. Carmack noted that OLEDs have the potential to be curved which could be beneficial for VR displays, though he said the ideal would be a “bowl shape” display which he hadn’t seen prototyped.
As for resolution, spoke to the idea that a VR headset ‘should be the best screen in the house’. For that, he suggested, the company should move its total display density into the 4K realm, so that (after splitting per-eye and accounting for field of view) a headset could roughly approach the quality of a 1080p TV.
Diffusers
He also talked about the potential for using diffusers, thin films which can be applied to a display to help hide the ‘screen door effect’. The company has experimented with several options, he said, but has yet to ship one in a headset. That could change though, he alluded.
Refresh Rate
He also talked about 120Hz being an ideal refresh rate for media playback in a VR headset for its ability to perfectly divide easily between 24Hz (cinema framerate) 30Hz (TV frame rate) and 60Hz (web video framerate). While driving games at such a high framerate on a mobile chipset is “really tough to imagine,” he suggested that a mobile headset could have more than enough power to run media content at 120Hz.
Chipset
As for the processor used in Quest, Carmack said that many wondered why the company chose an older Snapdragon 835 chip rather than something newer. He suggested that this older and more mature chipset was a better choice while the company was spinning up its expertise in this area. Now that the team is more experienced, he said, “I think it’s likely we will be closer to the state of the art [chipset] in [future headsets].”
Carmack also spoke about the software experience of Link itself. At the outset, the company has opted to simply treat a Quest plugged into a PC pretty much like a Rift—the headset sees everything a Rift would see, dashboard and all.
But a more integrated approach might be desirable, he said, one where the user’s PC VR library would simply be listed inside the native Quest library interface. That way, users could plug Quest into their PC and use the headset’s own interface to seamlessly choose between standalone applications and PC-based applications. Carmack noted that such a “highly designed experience” could be even less frictional than the current approach which treats the standalone Quest and PC experiences as completely separate. “There’s a chance we’ll shift toward running [Link games] directly [through the Quest interface],” he said.
Video as a First Class Experience in VR
Carmack reiterated several times his belief that VR should be a “universal platform” capable of doing many things well, not just gaming. To that end, he has committed much of his time to demonstrating best practices for displaying high quality video and photos in VR. “There’s a trillion dollars worth of content made for [non-VR] screens,” he said, suggesting that bringing that content into the headset is a low-hanging fruit. “[A] VR [headset] should be the best screen in the house.”
He decried the poor user experience of immersive video on Oculus headsets, saying that there’s great immersive video content out there that isn’t getting its due because of a fragmented experience. One key issue, he said, is that much immersive video content is locked inside individual apps which are simple wrappers around a video, each requiring their own installation, unique interface, and often long loading times because of a reliance on a game-engine like Unity. A better experience, he said, would be if video content was accessible through a simple, high quality native Quest interface.
Oculus TV on Quest has become more deeply integrated into the OS ‘shell’ | Image courtesy Oculus
While the immersive video experience is still very fragmented on Quest, the company has made some strides toward Carmack’s vision via the Oculus TV app which lets users browse some immersive videos, and even Quill artwork, from a native Quest interface.
He also talked about the need to bring the smartphone experience into VR. “Hopefully people will be spending large amounts of time in VR and their phones are important. We need to find some way to surface that stuff in [VR].”
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And that’s just the highlights! If you want to see Carmack’s full Oculus Connect 6 presentation, you can check it out here. Let us know what you think is being foreshadowed and what you expect to see next week at Facebook Connect.
