The XR Week Peek (2026.02.02): Meta confirms the work on new headsets, Google Genie builds worlds with AI, and more!

It’s already February! I hope things are going great for you. I’m good, keeping working in XR because I didn’t get the memo about VR being dead…

Top news of the week

Meta reiterates that it is still working on VR headsets

During its quarterly earnings call, Meta reiterated that it is still into VR. The CFO, Susan Li, said that the company is still “building future headsets”, probably the lightweight Puffin/Loma/Phoenix device and the Quest 4 that various rumors mentioned in the past weeks. This is good news and confirms what the CTO Andrew Bosworth said last week. Boz also talked about supporting an ecosystem of third-party VR content creators, but it is not clear if this means actually funding indie game studios (which is still very important if we want the VR ecosystem to thrive).

The problem I have with this “good news” is that Meta continuously changes its plans, so an executive saying today that they are still building VR headsets doesn’t save us from seeing these two headsets being canceled two months from now. So let’s say that I’m cautiously optimistic for now.

The company also reitereated it is doubling down its investments in smartglasses and AI. Zuck even tried to make the investors dream about a future in whichthe users could enter inside every video they are watching. Considering the advancements in AI and world models, this doesn’t even sound too futuristic to me…

Meta is keeping pouring money into Reality Labs. The earnings in Q4 2025 have not been that bad, but the losses have been stellar: almost $7B in a single quarter! The executives clarified that these losses are going to peak in 2026, and then hopefully start to shrink, with the company aiming to slowly start to make Reality Labs more profitable.

More info (Meta is still building future headsets)
More info (Zuck wants people to enter into every video)
More info (Boz commented the situation at Meta)

Other relevant news

Project Genie lets people experiment with AI Worlds creation

Google has released to the public a playground for Project Genie, its world creation model. With Project Genie, you can describe with a prompt the environment you want to see and the character you want to embody, and after that, the system will create an interactive experience where you can move the character and let it explore the just-generated world. It is crazy how AI-powered frame-by-frame generation can create interactive experiences without you having to write a single line of code. It is something that a few years ago was just unthinkable.

While I think all of this is technically amazing, I’m still not completely sold on the idea that long games can be generated this way. LLMs are probabilistic machines, and as much as you can instruct them, they will always hallucinate and make things not deterministic. And a game must be deterministic: every time you press fire, the gun should shoot, and every time you interact with the same object, the same things should happen. Games must also be coherent, and what happened before should persist in the rest of the game, not randomly change. I personally think that games will still be made with game engines for the years to come. But maybe small interactive experiences, like Zuckerberg’s idea of “entering a video” could be implemented with similar technologies to Google Genie.

The project is also currently experimental, and Google is opening it only to US people who are 18+ and who are subscribed to Google AI Ultra. The experiences you try can be played only for 60 seconds, I guess because later they start to become too inconsistent.

Anyway, this announcement was enough to make the stock of gaming companies (Unity included) plunge on the day of the announcement. As I told you in my latest article, the market is very emotional, and investors are just selling their stocks in Unity just because Google released a technology that maybe one day may replace Unity. This may make no sense at all…

More info (Google Project Genie)
More info (Stock of gaming companies going down)

Snap creates subsidiary for smartglasses

In the preparation of the launch of its consumer AR glasses, Snap has created Specs Inc., a subsidiary of Snap focused on managing the future AR glasses and smartglasses the company may launch.

Having a subsidiary has a double advantage:

It is like a startup that orbits around the main company, and given its smaller scale and the leaner management, it can attract external investors more easily
It allows Snap to separate the AR business from the standard business: this means that if smartglasses fail in a “legendary misadventure”, the main business of the company remains unaffected

This also confirms the fact that Snap is very committed to the project of building and shipping glasses. When I spoke with people at Snap, they were all very confident about their upcoming launch, so I can’t wait to see how the next Specs will be!

More info (Snap launches Specs Inc)
More info (Official blog post)

News worth a mention

Virtuix goes public

VR treadmill company Virtuix has just gone public on the Global Market tier of the Nasdaq using the ticker VTIX. Together with this announcement, Virtuix secured an additional $11 million investment from Chicago Venture Partners and established a $50 million equity line of credit, subject to conditions.

This is the happy ending of a long story: Virtuix was the first company to launch a VR treadmill, and I still remember one of its first YouTube videos featuring Palmer Luckey. It had many ups and downs during these years, but it always managed to survive, before getting some success in the location-based entertainment sector, and then returning to also serve the domestic market.

I really praise the CEO Jan Goetgeluk and his team for what they have done across all these years, and I wish them many more years of success!

More info

XREAL rolls out automatic 3D conversion of all content

Glasses manufacturer XREAL is now rolling out an incredible update to all its glasses. The glasses will be able to convert from 2D to 3D all types of content that is enjoyed through them: movies, videos in streaming, locally stored media, and games. XREAL is using a proprietary algorithm optimized for its chipset, and is allowing this way all its users to enjoy content in a more immersive and realistic way.

More info

Quest 3 can now turn every surface into a keyboard

The v85 PTC of the Quest 3 runtime now lets you turn every surface into a keyboard. With this feature, you can place a virtual keyboard on whatever planar surface you have in front of you and then touchtype on it. This is going to give users a more realistic and usable typing experience than the usual floating keyboard, and it is the result of many years of research on the topic. I can’t wait to try it and tell you how it is!

More info

Ian Hamilton has been fired from UploadVR

The drama of the week has been for sure about Ian Hamilton being fired from UploadVR. Ian, who was the editor there, has been working at Upload for many years, during which he has written countless articles: in the beginning, he was more like a standard journalist, while in the latest years, he wrote more as a VR enthusiast. I really thank him for the work he has done over these years.

After the departure from Upload, he started his own blog on Substack. There, he also explained why he had been fired: he had a controversy with Upload upon the magazine wanting to start having “AI journalists” in it, and so he cc-ed the conversation about this topic with his chief to many industry contacts. While I agree on his stance against AI bots writing slop on Upload, I think the gesture he made could only lead to what happened.

I hope the best for both Ian with his new platform and for Upload VR. Lately, Upload has been less active on its website, but David Heaney confirmed the company is doing well and is already hiring new people.

More info (Ian Hamilton fired from Upload VR)
More info (Ian explaining what happened on his new blog)
More info (David Heaney confirming Upload is doing ok)

Some news about content

Pixelity confirmed that its VR game based on the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) is still coming, as the studio just showed off its first teaser image
The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand is an upcoming fantasy VR action-adventure for Quest available to wishlist now
Half-Life: Alyx soundtrack arrives on multiple vinyl and CD editions on April 24, with pre-orders open now. For the occasion, the game has been discounted to just $17.99

More info (Neon Genesis Evangelion VR)
More info (The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand)
More info (Half-Life: Alyx soundtrack)

Some reviews about content

D-Day VR Museum is a virtual reality exhibition about the famous historical day of World War II. It is a rich experience that combines multimedia elements and interactivity to let you explore everything in a very impactful way

More info (D-Day VR Museum)

Other news

5 Lessons from Building ‘Bootstrap Island’: Best Practices for Creating Truly Immersive VR Worlds

Learn more

A new “VR is dead” article from TechCrunch

Learn more

Vivo canceled its smartglasses

Learn more

Gestala is a new startup using ultrasounds to create brain-computer interfaces

Learn more

Discover FM DUO camera!

Meet the FM DUO, a VR camera that is capable of filming up to 12K @30fps, and 8K @60fps. With built-in RTMP live streaming and 5G connectivity, the FM·DUO will immerse your viewers in real time! The FM·DUO features 2 full-frame CMOS sensors, with 6000 x 6000 pixels each. This allows for high-resolution zooming capabilities. Not only can you narrow in on one subject, but you can also focus on singular details of the subject’s facial expressions, clothing textures, and a multitude of other small details, enabling a much more immersive experience of VR video.
Visit Product Website

Some XR fun

She looks like a very fun person!
Funny link

I wonder if this controller is SteamVR-compatible
Funny link

Meta supporting VR indie devs
Funny link

Donate for good

Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate to my blog, but to the poor people who are facing the consequences of the war. Please donate to the Red Cross to handle the current humanitarian situation in Ukraine. I will leave you the link to do that below.

Let me take a moment before to thank anyway all my Patreon donors for the support they give to me:

Alex Gonzalez VR
DeoVR
GenVR
Eduardo Siman
Jonn Fredericks
Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
Reynaldo T Zabala
Richard Penny
Terry xR. Schussler
Ilias Kapouranis
Paolo Leoncini
Immersive.international
Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
Jake Rubin
Alexis Huille
Raghu Bathina
Chris Koomen
Cognitive3D
Wisear (Yacine Achiakh)
Masterpiece X
Dimo Pepelyashev
Carol Dalrymple
Keith Bradner
Jennifer Granger
Jason Moore
Steve Biggs
Julio Cesar Bolivar
Jan Schroeder
Kai Curtis
Francesco Strada
Sikaar Keita
Ramin Assadollahi
Juan Sotelo
Andrew Sheldon
Chris Madsen
Horacio Torrendell
Andrew Deutsch
Fabien Benetou
Tatiana Kartashova
Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
Eloi Gerard
Adam Boyd
Jeremy Dalton
Joel Ward
Alex P
Lynn Eades
Donald P
Casie Lane
Catherine Henry
Qcreator
Ristband (Anne McKinnon & Roman Rappak)
Stephen Robnett
KaihatsuJai
Christopher Boyd
Don Williams
Giuseppe Pippi
Mark Frederiksen
Ken Lin
Sebastien Poivre
Ixn91
Sb
Boule Petanque
Pieter Siekerman
Enrico Poli
Vooiage Technologies
Caroline
Liam James O’Malley
Hillary Charnas
Wil Stevens
Francesco Salizzoni
Alan Smithson
Steve R
Brentwahn
Michael Gaebler
Tiago Silva
Matt Cool
Mark G
Simplex
Gregory F Gorsuch
Paul Shay
Matias Nassi

And now here you are the link to donate:

Support The Red Cross in Ukraine

(Header image by Google)

Disclaimer: this blog contains advertisement and affiliate links to sustain itself. If you click on an affiliate link, I’ll be very happy because I’ll earn a small commission on your purchase. You can find my boring full disclosure here.

This article was originally published on skarredghost.com