The XR Week Peek (2026.06.30): Steam Machine costs $1050, Meta launches its cheap smartglasses, and more!

It’s the last day of June, and I’m writing this newsletter across airports during my trip to Berlin to be a mentor at the XRCC hackathon. It’s a pretty busy period of the year…

Top news of the week

Valve launches Steam Machine starting at $1,050

In the end, the rumor from last week was true, and Valve actually launched one of its devices on the 22nd: the Steam Machine. This was very exciting for all of us people waiting to know more about it, but was also pretty disappointing as soon as we discovered the price, that is pretty high.
 
 Steam Machine launched with this pricing (courtesy of Road To VR):

• Steam Machine (512GB): $1,050
  • Steam Machine (512GB) + Steam Controller bundle: $1,130
• Steam Machine (2TB): $1,350
  • Steam Machine (2TB) + Steam Controller bundle: $1,430

This is not what people were expecting for a PC with those specifications. Immediately, many memes about the high price of the device were published on social media, and many people jumped off the hype train. 
 
 This is clearly not Valve’s fault: when Steam Machine was designed, the price they had in mind was completely different. But no one could predict the shortage of RAM and storage chips due to the exponential growth of AI data centers, and so Valve found itself launching a PC in a moment where the PC components are incredibly expensive, and had so to adapt the original price to the current harsh reality.
 
 I’m pretty sure the Machine will still have good sales, because it looks like a good product and Valve is full of fanboys. There are already clones coming to the market, some of them from China, and this is actually a good thing for Valve, because these cheaper clones still run SteamOS, meaning they will still be used by people buying games on Steam.
 
 The only device that Valve has to fully launch now is the Steam Frame, the virtual reality headset everyone is waiting for. But given the price of the Steam Machine, we can forecast it is going to be pretty expensive, too. It is true that the RAM used by the Frame is not as expensive as the one used by the Machine, but we are in an era where Meta and Apple are raising the prices for the VR headsets, and this means that the components for VR headsets are expensive, too, now. Anyway, let’s wait and see. I guess Valve will announce it quite soon, as soon as it has sorted out the logistics for the launch of the Steam Machine. So, prepare your index finger to hit F5 repeatedly…
 
 (Thanks Rob for the tip on the clones)

More info (Steam Machine launches for $1050)
More info (The reaction of the community to the price)
More info (Steam Machine clones)

Other relevant news

Meta is launching cheaper smartglasses with Meta branding

In a totally unexpected move, Meta launched its own lineup of smartglasses. They’re still made in collaboration with Luxottica but feature only the Meta branding.
 
 The glasses have the same technical specifications as the second generation of Ray-Ban Meta glasses (no display, of course), and they come in three different lines:

• Meta Adventurer: “A clean rectangle shape for a timeless, versatile look. Available in Standard and Large”
• Meta Fury: “A bold frame that makes a bold statement”
• Meta Glasses by Kylie: “A unique slim oval frame inspired by Kylie Jenner’s personal style”

Every one of these glasses types comes with different colors. Both Adventurer and Fury start at $300, while the Kylie Jenner frames start at $400. This means that the basic model is $80 cheaper than the Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

The glasses come with a foldable charging case, similar to the one of the Meta Ray-Ban Display. Meta is also selling a new stainless steel charging stand for the glasses, priced at $60. And it is also giving free smart glasses to the legally blind US veterans, which is a good thing.
 
 I was pretty surprised to hear about the launch of these glasses. It’s a pretty strange move: Meta keeps claiming that the smart glasses it is making with Luxottica are selling very well… so well that they can’t keep up the production pace. Then why launch new cheaper glasses without the Luxottica branding? What was the need for this run to the bottom about pricing, if your glasses are already super-successful? I honestly don’t fully get it.
 
 The only real explanation I can find is that Meta wants to make a test whether it can make glasses alone, without relying on the brand of another company. They’re still partnering with Luxottica on these ones, and they are still sold via the Luxottica distribution channels, but to me this is a sign that Meta is also experimenting with going for its own route. And the next news you’ll read in this roundup makes me think that Luxottica is also making its moves in this sense. So let’s say that to me this looks like a couple that is still married, but in which both the husband and the wife have a “plan B” in case things don’t go as planned.
 
 And it will be an interesting experiment to follow. In Italy, wearing Ray-Ban glasses is considered cool, and I think it is the same in many other countries. But I don’t know anyone who would be proud to show a “Meta” branding on their face. So let’s see if $80 on the glasses will make people change their mind, it will be interesting to discover.
 
 While I find all this move pretty weird, I think that Meta made one genius move in this operation: it partnered with Kylie Jenner. Kylie Jenner is a super popular fashion icon, and if she says that some glasses are cool because they have been co-designed with her, I’m pretty sure many girls are going to buy them. This is a good strategy to make smartglasses look “cool”. There are two other advantages coming with this move: the first is that now Meta is selling smartglasses clearly targeted at women, opening up a new market segment. And the second is that, since these glasses are very similar to the ones that Google is launching with Gentle Monster, Meta is ruining the launch of a product from a competitor. I think that other companies should follow Meta’s strategy on this one…

More info (Meta announces cheap smart glasses with its own branding / Road to VR)
More info (Meta announces cheap smart glasses with its own branding / Upload VR)
More info (Meta partners with Kylie Jenner)
More info (New charging stand for smartglasses)
More info (Meta is giving free smartglasses to blind veterans)

Luxottica partners with Applied Materials and acquires Lynx assets

Luxottica has made two moves this week that let it gain interesting technological expertise in the glasses sector.
 
 EssilorLuxottica and Applied Materials have signed a long-term joint development agreement, which the companies say will accelerate the commercialization of next-gen optical systems for AR and AI-powered smart glasses. The two companies should collaborate on R&D at a dedicated lab located on Applied Materials’ Silicon Valley campus. Applied Materials’ expertise is in optical systems like waveguides, so we can assume the two companies are working together on that.
 
 This sounds to me a bit weird: Meta and Luxottica are having a very good collaboration on smart glasses, and their products are selling incredibly well. But it is Meta that is working on the tech side of the glasses, and the chosen supplier for the waveguides on the Meta Ray-Ban Display is Lumus (which is a great company). So it sounds strange that now Luxottica is working together with a competitor of Lumus.
 
 It sounds even more strange that Luxottica has just acquired the assets of the liquidating company Lynx. You may remember Lynx very well, the French startup building a standalone MR headset. The company went into liquidation some months ago, and now, reportedly, the assets have been acquired by Luxottica. There is no official confirmation of that, but some trusted people I know in the XR ecosystem claim to have direct sources on the matter, and I trust them. It is not clear what Luxottica should do with these assets, either.
 
 It seems that Luxottica is trying to acquire some internal expertise and knowledge about glasses. And the only explanation that seems reasonable to me about the previous news and this one is that the partnership between Meta and Luxottica, while successful, is not to be taken for granted. It seems to me that both companies are preparing for an eventual future when this collaboration may come to an end. It’s just a speculation of mine, but I honestly don’t see any other explanation.

More info (Luxottica partners with Applied Materials)
More info (Luxottica acquired the assets of Lynx)

Apple increments the price of Apple Vision Pro

We heard the rumor about it, and now it is happening: Apple has increased the price of many of its products.
 
 You already know the reason, so I guess I shouldn’t repeat the thing about the memory components becoming more expensive because of AI data centers. Apple tried to avoid increasing the prices, but then it had to surrender to the inevitable and increase the prices of many of its products. Among these products, of course, there is also the Apple Vision Pro.
 
 The new pricing of the Vision Pro has now become (courtesy of Upload VR):

• 256GB: $3499 –> $3699 (a $200 increase)
• 512GB: $3699 –> $3899 (a $200 increase)
• 1TB: $3899 –> $4199 (a $300 increase)

Honestly speaking, I don’t think this is going to change much for the sales of the Vision Pro: it was already a super-expensive device, and a 5% increase in pricing is not what makes people change their minds. If you could afford it before, you can afford it now, too.
 
 But this is surely a nuisance. It is also pretty ironic: after speaking so much about how Apple should create a cheaper Vision Pro, we find ourselves with a more expensive Vision Pro.

More info (Apple increasing the Vision Pro price — Upload VR)
More info (Apple increasing the Vision Pro price — Road To VR)

Apple’s executive in charge of XR goes to OpenAI

The usual Mark Gurman reported a very interesting scoop: longtime Apple hardware exec Paul Meade is leaving Apple for OpenAI’s hardware team.
 
 Paul Meade was the guy in charge of the Vision Pro and smart glasses team. He was also the guy currently supervising the work on the future AR glasses. So this is a piece of news that is very interesting for us XR people.
 
 But I wouldn’t jump on the “Apple is abandoning XR bandwagon”. He’s not being fired because Apple is disinvesting in glasses, but his departure is the result of a shake-up of executives caused by John Ternus becoming the new CEO of Apple. And in fact Apple is appointing another executive, Fletcher Rothkopf, in his place.
 
 I actually find the news much juicier on the OpenAI side. OpenAI is rumored to be working on many AI-powered devices together with Jony Ive, the famous designer of many iconic Apple products. Meade is probably leaving so that he can collaborate again with Jony Ive in creating amazing products. And his big experience with glasses and headsets seems to corroborate the rumor that OpenAI is also working on smart glasses. It would be incredibly interesting to see the most famous AI startup entering the field. I will follow these developments with a lot of interest.

More info (Mark Gurman’s tweet about Paul Meade going to OpenAI)
More info (Paul Meade goes to OpenAI — Bloomberg)
More info (Paul Meade goes to OpenAI — Road To VR)

News worth a mention

Snap is allegedly trying to onboard Robert Downey Jr. as an ambassador

According to the famous journalist Alex Heath, Snap is in talks with Robert Downey Jr. to hire the actor as an ambassador for Specs. And the money the company is willing to put on the table is quite a lot: $100M to have Mr. Iron Man promote the glasses.
 
 I personally don’t think it’s a great idea. I’m not so sure that Robert Downey Jr. is the right person to target the Snapchat generation, or even the people that are interested in augmented reality. I think it’s a good idea to have some celebrities help in making the glasses look cool, but $100M on RDJ seems too much money without having a sensible return on investment for Snap. I would rather invest $100M in startups that try to find real use cases for these glasses than wasting them on an actor…

More info

The VR Games Showcase has taken place

Last week we had the sixth edition of the VR Games Showcase. With so many of these showcases happening and all the news being diluted across them, I’m honestly becoming less and less intrigued by them. So I’ll just lazily post here the link to the roundup of the announcements from this event. Have a nice read!

More info

Your weekly dose of bad news

In this new Winter of VR, we are continuously having a stream of bad news about our ecosystem. Unluckily, this week has been no exception to this rule. Here you are some bad news about XR:

• U.S. consumer spending on VR gaming is expected to decline by 7.5 percent over the next five years, according to PwC’s new Global Entertainment & Media Outlook report
• Combat Waffle Studio (the developers of Ghost Of Tabor) is seeing layoffs
• A Township Tale is shutting down next month
• Quantaar shuts down this fall
• The development of Memoreum has been suspended because of poor sales.

What a shitty week…

More info (Forecasts on VR gaming)
More info (Shutdowns and layoffs at VR games studios)

Mixed News is being rebooted, kind of

A few months ago, I sadly announced to you all that the German XR publication Mixed News was shutting down, because of the down moment of XR and the increasing difficulty for indie publications (mine included) to be found via search engines and AI assistants. 
 
 This week, there was an announcement about Mixed News relaunching, with a blog post on the Mixed News website. The article has been signed by James Bruce, who, in the post, speaks about his passion for computers and VR. He really seems like a guy who has a strong interest in VR. It was so exciting reading it.
 
 Anyway, I’m a bit sad that this is not a story of Mixed coming back from the ashes. This is a new team that got only the English version, and it seems no one from the old team is still there. So it is basically a new publication about VR that acquired the name and the website of Mixed News. It is still a good thing for the ecosystem, but I’m also a bit sad for my German friends of the OG Mixed website.

More info

Robots and balloons used for haptics

If you were looking for a WTF research project, you’ve reached the right point in this newsletter. I’ve found a project about using helium-inflated balloons moved by robots that can move around the room so that you can have touch sensations wherever you want around you. It is a quite absurd idea, but it is also kinda interesting, so I’m linking it for you here below.
 (Thanks Ivan Aguilar for the tip)

More info

Enjoy the sales of VR games

There are currently many sales of VR games on both Steam and the Quest Store! If you’re looking for some content to play, now is the right time to do so!

More info (Steam Summer Sale)
More info (Quest Summer Sale)

Some news about content

• Synth Riders adds a new music pack, this time about the Linkin Park

More info (Synth Riders)

Some reviews about content

• Starvault is a fast-paced, strategic first-person MOBA that surprises with the incredible diversity of its heroes, the depth of its strategic gameplay, and the strength of its online community
• Color-a-cube is a simple and relaxing color-by-number 3D game
• Spell Siege lets you have fun by casting a lot of spells against enemies using hand gestures

More info (Starvault)
More info (Color-a-cube)
More info (Spell Siege)

Other news

Virtuix Omni is the first VR treadmill with official support for Meta Quest

Learn more

A mount to repurpose your Vive Wands as Vive Trackers
 (Thanks Rob Cole for the tip)

Learn more

News from partners (and friends)

Support Frustrain

My friend Georgy Molodtsov and his team are working on a very interesting project called Frustrain. Frustrain is a “horror adventure game for XR, PC, mobile, and consoles where you will have to solve puzzles and dive into the stories of fellow passengers in a night train to solve the mystery about the reason you are running away and your own personality.”. It has a pretty peculiar graphical style, and I saw some early previews, and it seems definitely something worth playing. You can now support the project on Artizen, so check out its page and let this team do its magic!
Support the project on Artizen

You can be featured in this section!

Do you want to show your AR/VR product to the XR community? Contact me, and I can help you by featuring it in this sponsored section of the newsletter 😉
Contact me

Some XR fun

Oh, the price of the Steam Machine…
Funny link

Apple explains the raise on the price of its products
Funny link

If you are Italian and you lost the release of “Emma, the first AI made in Italy”, you lost the most important piece of news of the week! Enjoy its hallucinations…
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
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• Vooiage Technologies
• Caroline
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• Brentwahn
• Michael Gaebler
• Tiago Silva
• Matt Cool
• Mark G
• Simplex
• Gregory F Gorsuch
• Paul Shay
• Paul Hadley
• Matias Nassi

And now here you are the link to donate:

Support The Red Cross in Ukraine

(Header image by Meta)

This article was originally published on skarredghost.com