Supernatural – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

June 14, 2022

Supernatural Launching Monthly Artist Series Starting With Katy Perry

Supernatural is launching a new series of workouts themed around music from a new artist each month, starting with Katy Perry this June.

The Katy Perry series begins on June 27 and will include two separate workouts, one centered around boxing and the other around cardio with squats, twists and lunges. The workouts, each roughly 20 minutes in length, are led by Coach Leanne Pedante and Coach Raneir Pollard and will be set to a curated playlist of Perry’s hits.

The boxing playlist includes Hot N Cold, Smile, I Kissed A Girl, When I’m Gone, The One That Got Away and Roar — you can listen to the selection here on Spotify. The cardio/flow playlist includes When I’m Gone, Teenage Dream, Dark Horse, E.T., California Gurls and Unconditionally — Spotify playlist here.

The Katy Perry series is just the beginning — Supernatural will feature a new artist each month for the rest of the year with curated workouts led by coaches and set to the music of said artist.

July will feature Imagine Dragons, August will be The Weeknd and September will bring Swedish House Mafia into the fold. The year will be rounded out with Kid Cudi in October, Coldplay in November and Lady Gaga in December. Overall, it’s an impressive selection of music and highlights the depth of Supernatural’s music catalog.

Around a year ago, we spoke with Supernatural Head of Fitness and Coach Leanne Pedante about exercise in VR and her experience with Supernatural — you can check that out here.

The Katy Perry series is available from June 27 for Supernatural.

March 17, 2022

Job Listings Confirm Supernatural Is Coming To PSVR

A new job listing for VR workout app Supernatural confirms that the team is looking to bring the fitness title across to PSVR on both PS4 and PS5.

Spotted on Twitter by @Zuby_Tech, job listings on Supernatural’s LinkedIn page are advertising for a number of positions, including a Senior Software Engingeer for VR on PlayStation platforms.

The part of the description that specifically mentions PlayStation platforms reads as follows:

Supernatural is seeking a Senior Software Engineer with expertise working on Playstation consoles (Playstation 4, Playstation 5) to lead development and support as we seek to expand the ecosystem footprint of Supernatural onto PSVR. You will be a force-multiplier working across a wide spectrum of VR client-side concerns helping to refine our architecture and best practices to ensure a correct level of platform abstraction where appropriate, and Playstation-specific approaches where required.

Given the mention of both PS4 and PS5, it’s possible the team is planning to bring the title to both the original PSVR headset and the upcoming PSVR 2. You can see the full listing description here on LinkedIn.

What’s most intriguing about this news is that last October, Supernatural developers Within were acquired by Meta. This suggested that the app might stay exclusive to Meta-owned platforms, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. The acquisition is also reportedly under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as part of an anti-trust probe, as of last December.

Before this, there was no inkling that Supernatural would move to any other platform besides Quest, let alone PSVR. The app isn’t even available on Meta’s PC VR platform for Rift.

It’s unknown whether the reported anti-trust probe may have influenced Meta’s plans for Supernatural, or whether the app was always set to make its way to PSVR regardless.

Either way, it’s an interesting precedent that suggests not all of Meta’s acquisitions will result in platform exclusivity for associated apps. Beat Saber, Popluation: One and other Meta-owned games are available on other platforms, but those versions already existed before their respective acquisitions.

Stay tuned for more info on Supernatural on PSVR in the future. In the meantime, check out other fitness and exercise apps available on the Quest platform and our verdict on the best PSVR apps available right now.

December 21, 2021

Workout With Comedian Tiffany Haddish in Supernatural’s “This Year, Be You” 2022 Campaign

There are a number of apps for the Meta Quest platform that focus on fitness with Supernatural being one of the most prominent. Today, the Supernatural team have announced that actress, comedian and producer Tiffany Haddish will be starring as the app’s next guest coach from January.

From 1st January 2022, you’ll be able to enjoy workouts led by Haddish as part of Supernatural’s This Year, Be You campaign, encouraging Meta Quest owners to start feeling healthier by getting their sweat on in VR. She’ll coach four Supernatural sessions during January: Boxing, Flow – a cardio workout – guided meditation and a stretch session.

“I became addicted to Supernatural last year,” says Haddish, having lost over fifty pounds using the app. “I’ve never felt so powerful or had so much fun working out. I can travel the world from my living room, move to music I love, and feel like a superhero every day. My mission in life is to spread joy and empower people and, as a Supernatural Guest Coach, I get to spread that goodness in a way that also gets people sweating and smiling as they get a great workout.”

Supernatural arrived on Quest in 2020, becoming one of the first apps for the headset to offer a purely subscription-based service. Whilst there’s a 7-day free trial, after that Supernatural will cost you $18.99/month or $179.99/year to enjoy its workouts. Aside from the range of workouts on offer, Supernatural also boasts an expansive collection of major-label music featuring over 1000 songs. The only caveat, Supernatural is currently only available in the US and Canada. Other territories are supposedly coming but there’s been no mention of when.

“Tiffany is not just a force for joy, she is a force for good, breaking boundaries and expectations with everything she does,” adds Supernatural Co-Founder and CEO, Chris Milk. “With this series, we’re proud to have her share her unmatched energy with the Supernatural community through a series of workouts that invite you to take on the most welcoming, positive and joyful new years resolution possible.”

Supernatural has done so well since its initial launch that in October the company announced that it had been acquired by Meta.

For continued updates on Supernatural and all the other ways to stay fit in VR, keep reading VRFocus.

December 17, 2021

Meta’s Acquisition of ‘Supernatural’ Reportedly Cost $400 Million, Under Scrutiny by FTC

Earlier this year Meta announced the acquisition of Within, the studio behind the VR fitness app Supernatural. While the price of the acquisition wasn’t disclosed, a report this week claims Meta hoped to pay $400 million for the studio but the deal may not have closed yet due to ongoing scrutiny by the US Federal Trade Commission.

Meta announced the acquisition of Within at the end of October, saying that the studio would be run under the umbrella of Meta Reality Labs, the company’s XR organization. The price of the acquisition was not announced at the time. Like previous VR studio acquisitions, Meta said the studio will “continue to be operated independently.”

This would mark the company’s sixth acquisition of a VR studio, though it turns out the deal may not be finalized just yet.

According to a report from The Information, the deal price was to be “$400+ million,” citing two unnamed sources. Further, the report claims that the US Federal Trade Commission, which oversees antitrust and consumer protection, has “opened an in-depth probe of the acquisition, meaning Meta may not be able to finalize the acquisition for another year, assuming the agency doesn’t formally challenge the deal in court, causing additional delays.”

The FTC’s interest in the deal is reportedly connected to its ongoing case alleging that Meta engaged in anticompetitive practices when acquiring companies like Instagram and WhatsApp. While that case had not previously directly involved any of Meta’s XR business, the size of the Within acquisition has reportedly put it on the FTC’s radar in conjunction with the existing case. We’ve reached out to Meta for comment on The Information report.

Meta’s acquisition of Within would mark the sixth VR studio that the company has bought in an effort to have greater control over the destiny of killer VR apps and the talent behind them. Meta has also acquired Beat Games (Beat Saber), Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath and others), Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo and others), Downpour Interactive (Onward), and BigBox VR (Population: One), all in just under two years.

The post Meta’s Acquisition of ‘Supernatural’ Reportedly Cost $400 Million, Under Scrutiny by FTC appeared first on Road to VR.

December 17, 2021December 17, 2021

Meta Supernatural Acquisition: FTC Opens Antitrust Probe For $400 Million Deal – Report

A new report from The Information states that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened an antitrust probe into Meta’s recently-announced acquisition of VR fitness platform, Supernatural.

The report (which is behind a paywall) cites “two people with knowledge of the situation” in saying that the FTC ordered the probe in November, a few weeks after Meta announced it would purchase the platform, developed by Within. If true, then a probe is likely to at least significantly slow down the process of the deal, if not stop it altogether.

Meta has in the past acquired five other VR studios — Sanzaru Games, Downpour Interactive, Beat Games, BigBox Entertianment, and Ready At Dawn — but the report states that the government saw these deals as too small to intervene.

Supernatural, meanwhile, is a fitness-focused experience in which players swing their Quest controllers to destroy targets and dodge obstacles. It plays incredibly similar to Beat Saber, but the app’s angle is on fitness-focused mapping and daily playlists curated by trainers to keep fans coming back. Crucially, Supernatural is also a subscription-based service, with fans paying a monthly fee to access most of these features.

We recently spoke to the app’s head of fitness about the experience, which you can see in the video above.

Whatever the outcome of the reported probe, it’s proof of just how closesly the FTC — along with many other organizations and governments — is watching Meta has it pushes on towards its vision of the so-called metaverse. How this development might affect Meta’s future strategy — and plans for further acquisitions — remains to be seen,

October 29, 2021

Meta Buys Dev Behind VR Fitness App ‘Supernatural’, Its Sixth VR Studio Acquisition in Two Years

Meta (formerly Facebook) today announced its sixth VR studio acquisition. This time it’s Within, the studio behind the popular Quest exclusive VR fitness app Supernatural.

Meta announced the acquisition of Within on the Oculus blog saying that the studio will be run under Meta Reality Labs, the company’s XR organization. The price of the acquisition was not announced. Like previous VR studio acquisitions, Meta says the studio will “continue to be operated independently.”

Within has had a winding path to this moment. The company was founded back in 2014, originally called Vrse, two years before the first consumer VR headsets hit the market. At first the company was producing 360 VR video content, including some seminal 360 short films like Evolution of Verse and Clouds Over Sidra. Eventually the company expanded beyond producing its own content and built a streaming content library of immersive films, and raised tens of millions of dollars along the way. Like most VR video streaming platforms, the app struggled to find strong traction, though it remains available today on all major platforms.

The company made a hard pivot into the VR fitness space with the release of the Quest-exclusive Supernatural in 2020. Structurally the app plays a lot like Beat Saber (which was also acquired by Meta), but with a much clearer focus on fitness and coaching.

Supernatural has been something of a darling for Meta since its launch. It was one of the first Quest apps to be built around a subscription pricing model, and though it’s been criticized for its relatively high monthly price, it seems to have found real traction with Meta regularly holding it up as the posterchild for VR fitness on Quest.

Meta says that Within will continue to focus on “fitness, wellness, and social experiences in VR, [and] helping people achieve their goals in the most joyful and connected way possible.” Specifically for Supernatural the company says it will “more music, creative ways to workout, features, and social experiences” in the future.

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Today’s acquisition marks the sixth VR studio that Meta has bought in an effort to have greater control over the destiny of killer VR apps and the talent behind them. Facebook has also acquired Beat Games (Beat Saber), Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath and others), Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo and others), Downpour Interactive (Onward), BigBox VR (Population: One), and now Within, all in just under two years.

The post Meta Buys Dev Behind VR Fitness App ‘Supernatural’, Its Sixth VR Studio Acquisition in Two Years appeared first on Road to VR.

October 26, 2021

Supernatural Adds New Boxing Workouts On Quest, Available Today

Supernatural, the fitness subscription service available on the Oculus Quest platform, is introducing a new workout type — Supernatural Boxing.

The new boxing workouts are available from today and join the existing roster of content available on the platform, such as Supernatural’s full-body cardio workout and Supernatural Flow. Just like those existing offerings, boxing workouts will have three intensity levels — low, medium and high — which increase the pace and choreography of your jabs, cross, hooks, uppercuts and blocks to the beat of the music.

There are eight initial workouts available now, with three further workouts releasing each week. Each of the boxing sessions are guided by your preferred Supernatural coach, including some with the company’s Head of Fitness and Muay Thai athlete, Leanne Pedante, who we spoke to back in June.

Boxing supernatural

As with Supernatural’s other workout offerings, the boxing workouts are available across 100 3D destinations, shot-on-location, with over 1000 music tracks including artists such as Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Kanye West, Fleetwood Mac, Beethoven, The Cure and more.

For beginners, you can start with a boxing training video, “Boxing Basics” from Coach Leanne and work your way up to the “Pros Only” video before moving on to the workouts.

The Quest 2 has somewhat unexpectedly found success and opportunity as a fitness device in the year since its launch, with Facebook even running a marketing campaign specifically centered around its workout potential. Supernatural launched in April 2020 and has since cemented itself as one of the leading fitness apps available on the platform, alongside others like FitXR (which added boxing and dancing DLC packs back in January) and Holofit.

Supernatural is available now on Oculus Quest, with subscriptions starting from $18.99/month or $179.99/year.

September 12, 2021

The VR Job Hub: Rendever, Supernatural & Tech Data

Every weekend VRFocus gathers together vacancies from across the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industry, in locations around the globe to help make finding that ideal job easier. Below is a selection of roles that are currently accepting applications across a number of disciplines, all within departments and companies that focus on immersive entertainment.

Location	Company	Role	Link
Boston, MA	Rendever	Director of Research	Click Here to Apply
Boston, MA	Rendever	Business Development Representative	Click Here to Apply
Boston, MA	Rendever	Inbound Marketing Manager	Click Here to Apply
Boston, MA	Rendever	VR Support Representative	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Within (Supernatural)	Growth Marketing Manager	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Within (Supernatural)	Manual QA Tester	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Within (Supernatural)	Partner and Experience Marketing Lead	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Within (Supernatural)	Principal Software Engineer	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Within (Supernatural)	Product Manager, Data	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Within (Supernatural)	Program Manager, Content Tooling	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Within (Supernatural)	Product Manager, Engagement	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Within (Supernatural)	Program Manager, Growth	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Within (Supernatural)	Product Marketing Manager	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Within (Supernatural)	Senior Android Engineer	Click Here to Apply
Basingstoke, UK	Tech Data	Business Development Manager – VR & AR	Click Here to Apply

Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hub to check as well.

If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).

We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.

July 28, 2021

Supernatural Update Makes It Easier To Find The Right Workout

Fitness subscription service Supernatural is getting an update today that overhauls its menu system for quicker navigation to the kinds of workouts you want.

The update is focused around new carousels in the menu system to navigate the library of 500+ workouts in the app. There’s new collections that highlight trending workouts that are popular, workouts that target specific muscle groups, dance workouts, as well as the “Monster Marathon” that groups together Supernatural’s longest workouts into a single list for folks that have the time to push themselves pretty far.

The trailer below showcases some of the new features:

“Everyone’s fitness journey is unique. You might have a specific taste in music, a specific coach you connect with, or a level of intensity that matches your goals for the day. With Supernatural 3.0, we’ve made it even easier to find the perfect workouts for you no matter where you are in your fitness journey. This makes staying consistent with your fitness routine that much more fun, joyful and satisfying,” said Leanne Pedante, Supernatural’s Head of Fitness, in a prepared statement.

We recently sat down with Pedante in our virtual studio for an interview discussing a wide range of fitness-related topics. She shared her top tip for how to keep up with your workouts, how she records her audio guidance for members while doing the workouts herself, and talked about the future of VR-based fitness.

You can find Supernatural on the Oculus Quest store and can get started with a free trial on its website.

June 8, 2021June 9, 2021

Livestreamed Q&A With Supernatural’s Head Of Fitness Leanne Pedante

A little more than one year after launch, Supernatural is changing lives with its subscription-based fitness program on Oculus Quest.

If you’re looking for a “daily source of inspiration and motivation” and curious about the broader impact of VR as a technology, you might think about checking out the Official Supernatural Community on Facebook. The group has more than 13,000 members with updates streaming in at all hours from people talking about their fitness journeys in VR. They share what’s going on their lives, their progress, the music and the workouts, and generally encourage one another with support and tips.

A key part of Supernatural is its focus on coaches in virtual reality who talk members through new workouts every day. Leanne Pedante is the Head of Fitness at Supernatural and her encouraging voice has been driving “champions” to finish their Supernatural workouts strong and proud. We’re going to be joined by Pedante in our virtual studio this week for a live broadcast interview talking about exercise in VR. Has Pedante been noticed out in the physical world by Supernatural players who “met” her virtually? Does she have any advice for people to keep up with their workouts? Do you have your own questions?

Tune in on Wednesday, June 9 at 11 am Pacific time for our live discussion with Pedante from our virtual studio. We should be able to monitor live comments, so no matter if you’re a member of the Supernatural community already, or entirely new to VR and thinking about getting a headset for exercise, leave a question or comment and we might talk about it on the show.

You can subscribe to our channel and set a reminder for the interview with the video below, or check back on this page at 11 am Pacific time on June 9.