Sandfall Interactive made a GOTY contender for a fraction of what most companies spend

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Save up to 25% on the Samsung EVO Select MicroSD, with storage sizes of up to 1TB.

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This soundbar brings all your favorite content to life, and Amazon is letting you grab it for under $100 now.

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Meta appears to be planning to raise the price of its VR headsets moving forward, according to a recent internal memo, which company leaders hope will combat rising costs. Meta may also be retiring the Quest 3 and 3S line a little later than expected.

The News

As reported by Business Insider, a December 4th memo from metaverse leaders Gabriel Aul and Ryan Cairns notified employees that Meta has “made a shift” in its VR efforts which could include price increases to combat costs associated with tariffs, as well as keep existing hardware in the market for longer.

“Our devices will be more premium in price going forward, but we’ll have a healthier business to anchor on and free ourselves from feeling existential about any singular device’s success,” Aul and Cairns’ memo reads.

The memo, which thus far has only been viewed by Business Insider, also includes a call for high-quality software experiences meant to match the “excellence” of its devices. Additionally, Aul and Cairns’ said Meta will “ship new hardware at a slower cadence going forward.”

“We’re committed to VR for the long-haul so we need to align our business model and roadmap to an approach that will make this possible,” the memo says. “We’ve been working hard to bend the curve and accelerate ahead of the category’s natural growth rate, which means running multiple programs in parallel as well as carrying costs like tariffs and subsidies for content, GTM, and devices.”

Notably, the memo also included info on a critical delay of a puck-tethered XR headset, and a new Quest headset which is set to be a “large upgrade” in capabilities from current devices, and will “significantly improve unit economics.”

Meta currently sells Quest 3, starting at $500, and Quest 3S, starting at $300—the latter of which is currently on sale for $250.

My Take

Meta regularly subsidizes Quest in an effort to recoup on software sales, making them technically cheaper than they might otherwise be. It’s a strategy console platform creators have been doing for ages, and it certainly works at getting people through the door.

But now, it seems we’re headed for another rough patch that Meta needs to navigate if it wants to continue its role as the holder of the most popular VR platform. And above all, I’m curious how Meta will keep serving the entry level user while pushing prices higher. It’s basically stemmed the flow of cash to third-party studios, making platform exclusives few and far between nowadays. And competition is coming from both sides: Google’s Android XR represents a threat to the low end, and Valve’s Steam Frame on the enthusiast end of things.

While the memo said the next Quest will “significantly improve unit economics,” I’m afraid that doesn’t really mean much since it didn’t come with a supporting statement. Relative to what? Previous pricing estimations? Current prices?

Anyway, Meta could hike prices in a number of ways we’ll be watching out for in the coming year: Quest 3 may get a price bump over its regular $500 MSRP, leaving Quest 3S at the low end. This could keep the flow of new users coming at the regular pace, while effectively only “taxing” users looking for the technically better headset.

Then again, both headsets may see a modest price bump, which is then teased down in successive sales periods, like it did with Quest 2 when that one was hiked from $300 to $400 following supply chain shock stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. The company could also equally leave pricing the same, and only apply hikes on forthcoming devices.

Any which way, I’d expect Meta to attempt to soften price shock with included first-party games (even older ones) and possibly longer free memberships to Horizon+, its monthly game service.

And whatever the case, it’s pretty clear the Quest 3 platform is going to be around for a while, which means developers will need to keep it in mind even as Meta tries to push better hardware, which could include more powerful chipsets, higher pixel density displays, and stuff like built-in eye-tracking.

The post Meta Reportedly Set to Raise VR Headset Prices, Keep Existing Devices in Market Longer appeared first on Road to VR.

Retro Wayfarers meet the latest in advanced wearable tech with amazing audio and video capability for just $224.

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The look’s an odd choice considering Aerith and Kaine could not be more different

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It comes with a solid processor, and the battery is designed to last all day.

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Save 35% on the UGREEN Steam Deck Dock 6-in-1 capable of up to 4K at120Hz gameplay.

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Don’t let low storage affect your productivity.

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Wario World brings his crazed greed for gold to the subscription package

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With 8 cores and 16 processing threads and a 4.8GHz Max Boost speed, this is the brain transplant to turn your PC into a gaming superpower.

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Ward also appeared in Metal Gear Solid 3, Grim Fandango and F.E.A.R.

The post Jim Ward, Voice Of <i>Ratchet & Clank’s</i> Captain Qwark, Has Died Aged 66 appeared first on Kotaku.

Meta has partnered with Coldplay in a big way, soon bringing the British pop-rock band’s music to Beat Saber, and an immersive concert to Horizon Worlds before the New Year.

The News

Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour became the most-attended concert tour in history this year, bringing the band’s live music to over 13 million people over the course of its 2022-2025 run.

Now, Meta announced it’s bringing Coldplay to the virtual stage on December 30th, as Horizon Worlds users can jump in for a free immersive concert, which is set to include hits like ‘Yellow’, ‘Fix You’, and ‘Viva La Vida’.

Notably, the concert was captured at Wembley Stadium with 15 VR cameras, which will bring virtual concert-goers front-row vantage points in 180 degree VR video.

When it goes live on December 30th in Horizon Worlds, available on Quest and mobile devices, fans will also be able to don free Coldplay-themed avatar merch to show their support.

The concert kicks off on December 30th at 11:00 AM PT (local time here)—you can RSVP here.

And the Coldplay digital takeover doesn’t stop there. Leading up to the event, block-slashing rhythm game Beat Saber is launching a 12-track Coldplay Music Pack on December 18th, priced at $15 (or $2 per song), with bundle discounts for new players. You’ll be able to find it on Quest and SteamVR headsets when it launches—just don’t expect it on PSVR 2.

Meanwhile, in the US and Canada, VR fitness app Supernatural will debut new Coldplay workout sessions on December 29th, mixing hits and recent releases into Boxing, Flow, and Stretch routines.

My Take

It seems like Meta is really looking to nail the holiday timing with its immersive Coldplay concert, not to mention embedding the band into its top-performing apps. While you may or may not like Coldplay, it’s a pretty smart move by Meta to leverage the band with pretty much the broadest appeal—since, well, the company isn’t funding exclusive game content like it used to.

Granted, there are a ton of great games on the Horizon Store for newcomers to grab, but Meta seems to have tightened the belt on content funding lately, which is odd since major competitors are just now entering the market—certainly interesting times ahead.

On one hand, we have Samsung Galaxy XR possibly making way for the release of more (and cheaper) Android XR devices, which could serve as more direct competitors to Quest in the future.

Launching early next year though, we have Valve’s Steam Frame, which is likely to drive Quest developers to update their PC VR versions to include Frame-compatible play. I don’t expect Frame to unseat Quest as the most popular XR platform, as the company has built a core usership of younger consumers, although it does represent the first time in recent history when Meta may actually need to defend against platform apostacy among upgraders.

Meta is aiming to do this with some powerful new hardware in the future, but it could come later rather than sooner, according to recent reports—so there’s no telling how Meta will position itself in the future to maintain market share superiority.

The post Coldplay Immersive Concert Coming to Quest Soon, Music Pack Lands on ‘Beat Saber’ Next Week appeared first on Road to VR.

After a decade-long wait, Pokémon‘s mascot finally has two Mega Evolutions in Legends: Z-A‘s DLC

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The annual awards ceremony tries to celebrate game developers and hype up fans, to varying degrees of success

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The Thrill of the Fight 2 with career mode is available now on Quest headsets, so I put on my boxing gloves to throw some punches.

As a fan of the original The Thrill of the Fight, I had high hopes for the sequel coming into this, buying The Thrill of the Fight 2 in early access to try its multiplayer mode. I encountered arm-flailing multiplayer matches that saw spam fighters rack up damage, so I put it down and decided to wait for the more fleshed-out full release, which arrived several weeks ago.

The Thrill of the Fight 2 welcomes you with a main menu presented on a small tablet held in your gloved hands. After it calibrates your height and arm length, you hold a stylus to choose multiplayer, career, or training mode. Training mode practices with a dummy or spars with a bot fighter. There are also settings for customizing your fighter to make them look reasonably unique.

I chose Career mode first and find myself inside a ring for my first fight. Coming from the first Thrill of the Fight, the updated difficulty is an immediate shock. The previous game took a more arcade-style approach to the boxing, so I wasn’t expecting the AI to be this intense.

I throw out jabs it sees coming and deftly dodges, infuriating me. I lean in and get called for a foul. Occasionally the bot will clip directly into me while throwing punches and a foul gets called on my behalf instead. The game repeatedly fails to detect how much space I have around me to fight in “roomscale” mode, forcing me to smaller confines for standing mode during fights. This contributed to the problem of stepping outside of bounds while the AI fighter is still sending punches my way. Whenever the fighting gets intense, I can see flashes of my room boundary as the fists fly.

Coach yells directions at you during the fight, and the jeers of the crowd can be heard too. Outside the ring, they realistically move in their seats, craning their necks for a better view. I saw solid performance across each stage with strong immersion throughout.

I backed on up to training mode and tried sparring. Sparring mode provided a better onboarding experience with practice for proper fighting form. Training with a dummy gives instruction via tutorial videos on how to punch with drill exercises to perfect different moves. Still, I can’t land punches as well as I want to because of my scores.

The numbers next to the training dummy show how much force is applied to each move you make, including how much “body effort” is included. Body effort is a way for The Thrill of the Fight 2 to grade punches with the aim of stopping players from cheating during matches. The problem is it doesn’t record the effort in my punches properly most of the time.

You can see how the camera moves as I swing; I’m not sitting there and flailing my arms. I’m not being sufficiently graded for my efforts, and it cuts into the fun. Difficulty is never a dealbreaker for me, but the system needs a few fixes. Is head movement calculated as part of the attack? How does it impact the sensitivity of the movement detection? Currently, the fighting system feels like pillows – not gloves – have been put on my hands.

At the end of each training session, there are points for attack and defense added to my profile. The numbers for these didn’t make much sense; they change depending on the training session type you choose.

Career mode provides a certain amount of fights to win in order to qualify for a tournament. If you miss out, you can skip to the next year to continue training and fighting. Although I’m happy to win after training so much, my desire to keep fighting in career mode eventually evaporated. I opted to switch to multiplayer mode to experience facing off against other players instead.

Multiplayer is greatly improved in the full release for The Thrill of the Fight 2. You can either fight players to rank on a global list, or you can pick a round of casual sparring. I matched up in a casual round with a player who paused and evaluated where I was throwing punches before he moved in. Within a few swings, I’m knocked out.

Despite the swift loss, I laughed because I’m still having a good time. The other player was sportsmanlike, and we made sure to touch gloves as a sign of respect. While I can’t guarantee everyone you face in multiplayer will be as polite, I’m impressed by the game mode improvements. I hope to never meet another flailing toddler in the ring again.

The Thrill of the Fight 2 – Final Verdict

The Thrill of the Fight 2 is a bit of a departure from the first game and might surprise anyone expecting more of the same. You should instead look forward to improving your boxing form and working more seriously toward beating the challenges in this installment. The damage system needs further work to detect when you put your body into a punch, and the bot should not clip into you during fighting.

What’s working for this title are beautiful graphics and a great choice in how you choose to play the game. You can spend time in multiplayer exclusively, try to conquer career mode, or enjoy both. My muscles may be sore from playing this sequel, but I’m not complaining there. This game can eventually be an all-timer with some improvements, just like the first installment is.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.

Stop sleeping on Granblue Fantasy: Relink

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Fans of colorful plastic lights should check out this new indie game out now on PC

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From director Kenichiro Akimoto, the animated movie tells the story from Rita’s perspective

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When UploadVR visited Valve headquarters to try Steam Frame, we heard comments echoing the strategies at Google and Apple.

There’s an APK for that in Galaxy XR and thousands of iPad apps available day one on Apple Vision Pro. Meanwhile, the verified program for Steam Frame is poised to bring the value of Steam to your face wherever it is. Today, the only constant companion for most VR headsets is a Windows PC, but the time is coming when a Steam Deck, iPhone, iPad or Nintendo Switch may become an even more useful companion in VR.

Valve’s trade-offs in Steam Frame’s modular design have many prospective buyers fretting over the details. Developers are still reeling from the shift from Quest to Horizon – as Meta shifts strategies yet again – releasing games like Civilization VII and Vampire Survivors in VR along the way. Developers exploring Android XR and visionOS are figuring out what they can build in the space between fully immersive VR apps and traditional flatscreen content.

When it comes to Valve, we asked them about ideas like “spatial computing” and “mixed reality” being pursued elsewhere. Neither concept is really present in Valve’s initial Steam Frame with black and white passthrough, though there’s a lot of potential for sensing add-ons through the nose port.

Here’s how Valve’s Jeremy Selan replied about the focus of their first headset to carry the Steam name:

“As a strong Index user, someone who worked on it and has spent major portions of my adult life working on that and the Vive, when I think about playing VR, I have to make an intentional choice. So I’ll be like, you know what? I want to go do VR. So I go to the room that has my PC and has my base stations installed. And I start playing that. But then sometimes, if I’m in another room and I’m like, well, maybe I should just take out my Deck and I start playing those games. And that choice I personally think is one of the highest friction bits remaining.”

“Sure you can expect that when you put it on because it’s SteamOS you hit the power button and you’re fast into your game without the base station setup. Yeah, you can do [that] in any environment, but the ability to put on the headset and to see your Steam catalog in front of you where you can just choose a VR game or choose a non-VR game – it makes me play VR more. And it really reduces the impediment or the friction of even having to think about that distinction.”

“We see the lines between VR and non-VR content really being blurred because they should just be games and you should be able to have devices that let you enjoy them. And this is our first stab at that.”

We expect to have a review of Steam Frame in 2026 and will always bring you the latest. For more, you can dive into our nearly three-hour discussion from the day of the headset’s announcement.