Meta announced its third annual Quest Gaming Showcase is arriving next month, coming only a few days before Apple’s rumored XR headset announcement at Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
Meta is livestreaming the Quest Gaming Showcase on June 1st, a bit unusual for the company, as it traditionally holds the annual event in late April.
Calling it their “biggest celebration of the depth and breadth of content across the Meta Quest Platform yet,” Meta is slated to share over 40 minutes of content, including a brand-new pre-show covering game updates and debut trailers, starting 15 minutes before the show begins.
Meta says to expect new game announcements, gameplay first-looks, updates to existing games, and more. There’s also set to be a post-show developer roundtable, which will feature conversation around upcoming games.
There could be at least one clue to what’s in store, as we get a brief glimpse at a horned helmet in the showcase’s promo video, which seems very much like Loki’s helmet from Rift exclusive Asgard’s Wrath (2019). Maybe Meta’s Sanzaru Games has slimmed down the Norse-inspired RPG?
Meanwhile, previous reports maintain Apple is finally set to unveil its long rumored mixed reality headset during the company’s WWDC keynote, taking place on Monday, June 5th.
Provided Apple indeed plans to announce its headset at WWDC, Meta could be looking to generate so called ‘strategic noise’ to better manage market reactions, and potentially offset any negative sentiment prior to Apple’s expected announcement—undoubtedly slated to be a pivotal moment for the entire XR industry.
Meta recently released its Q1 2023 earnings report, showing a consistent investment of around $4 billion per quarter into its XR division Reality Labs. With Apple rumored to be unveiling their own XR headset and a host of apps, reportedly set to include everything from fitness to VR/AR gaming, Meta may want to showcase where some of that investment is going.
Who knows? We may even hear more about Meta’s promised Quest 3 at the gaming showcase, which the company has confirmed will “fire up enthusiasts” when its released at some point this year, notably targeting a higher price point than its Quest 2 headset.
To find out, tune into the Quest Gaming Showcase on June 1st at 10AM PT (local time here), livestreamed across the company’s various channels, including Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, and in Meta Horizon Worlds.
Tuesday I cannot recount that well, only that I spent most of it wracked with pain. Wednesdays traditionally I work the later shift as both Peter and Rebecca have social things they do in the evening which I was able to drag myself through but I had to wave the white flag midway through Thursday, consumed by a splitting headache, nausea, a stomach apparently practicing a gymnastics floor routine and some bastard had in the middle of the night tilted the entire flat by twenty degrees or so making standing up an issue. So, I signed off, keeled over and slept… somewhere, I’m not even sure where. for about 7 hours in total. Waking up long enough to find I needed to go to bed again. All-in-all not the best of preludes to Friday where I was hosting friends before Saturday’s trip to the 2018 UK Games Expo.
Nope, not one solitary instance in all of that of immersive technology being implemented in some way. No virtual equivalents, no cards with fancy AR effects. Zip. Nada. Was it because it was a traditional audience? Was it because the imagination is still a far more powerful tool that immersive technology ever will be and board/card games are inherently a little bit about immersion in that sense? It was disappointing but I kind of understood why I didn’t find anything.
LEGO’s ARKit 2 items are coming later this year and they look fun. I just hope the company remembers just why LEGO is fun in the first place. When you’re suggesting to kids how to imagine, repeatedly saying “it really opens up those creative play possibilities” doesn’t come across so good. In fact, it sounds pretty disconcerting. I seem to remember a movie about a children’s toy that had its bad guy tell everyone that “Let’s take extra care to follow the instructions” and make sure to have fun on Tuesdays at the designated time. Last thing LEGO wants is coming across a bit like that(!)
When it came to actually going through these at WWDC, it was immersive technology – in this instance augmented reality (AR) – that was front and centre. Senior Vice President of Software and Engineering Craig Federighi kicking things off with AR and a number of announcements and reveals. Including an ARKit powered measuring app called, appropriately, 
Federighi then revealed how ARKit 2 (which also has an updated logo) was bringing with it shared experiences, allowing for multiple users to have their own person viewpoint of a single AR experience within a common environment in real-time. Be that a videogame, or other experience. This was showcased in two forms. The first through captured video of an app to be released today that Apple created, a versus videogame featuring an AR slingshot, before Apple invited LEGO’s Director of Innovation Martin Sanders onto the stage. To showcase how the popular toy firm had used ARKit 2 to create a virtual playset, that can come to life at the touch of a button.
