Anyone with little kids who like to play outside who also happened to own an Oculus already "knew" this (maybe it's just my family): my kids' favorite game on the Oculus is to spray paint the "play area" in the combined B&W 'outside' rendering. They've always demanded to be able to play beat sabers but also to be able to "see the room", so they can see their friends when they play. They don't even care that it's crappy, low-quality B&W; actually, that's kind of a charming feature!

I think what's stopped other companies is that it was too damn hard; not that it wasn't the obviously superior way of doing things. (Obviously superior: render AR onto VR.)

Not just too hard, but also maybe too expensive. Vision is using 12 cameras, LIDAR, and a lot of processing power to deliver it. People thought it was crazy when Apple started trying to get 6+ cameras and using 3+ at once for single photos/videos on a single phone (before they started to emulate them after they achieved that). (In some respects the early critiques of, for instance, the iPhone 13 in retrospect maybe start to look like hints of some of Vision's early planning/testing stages.)

Apple seems to have prioritized AR in a way that Meta didn't and that led them to exploring all the costs to do it right. (You can argue that Microsoft was also paying attention as their Mixed Reality-focused playbook resembles what Apple seems to be playing at. Microsoft just saw the costs as a reason to focus first on Enterprise customers. Apple seems to have the gumption to try to make this a potentially accessible to consumers play from Day One, including involving Disney to signal that. That's an interesting bet that will be curious to watch play out.)

I'll say one of the best moments in VR for me is in the lobby of Star Trek: Bridge Crew just nerding out with a complete stranger while waiting for others to join... I think we even sat around and chatted while we had a the whole crew.

> Apple has managed to combine AR and VR, by simply re-creating the AR inside the VR. The idea is simple but profound.

The Quest Pro does that, just badly.

Also Varjo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23RS3RAg16k

The Quest 2 does it even worse.

That said it seemed to be a major upgrade point on the announced Quest 3, so we’ll see how it compares.

Does the quest 2 do it at all? I was under the impression that it only has low-ish resolution IR (or possibly monochrome) cameras, I don't think it ever pretended to be an AR/MR device. The cameras were for controller detection, and passthrough mode was only added because it could be (and that was better than nothing).

It's monochrome and grainy. Passthrough half-works. It's great to have /something/ but it falls far short of really usable. You can drink from your water bottle or look around to find where the dog is but that's about it. God forbid you walk more than a few feet outside your guardian (boundary you draw) or for more than a minute, if you do it can disconnect you from your game, kill the running app, and/or lose your guardian boundaries even once you walk back.

If I'm playing VR with friends it really sucks if you need to get/refill your drink, go to the bathroom, or take the dog out. I wouldn't try taking the dog out with the headset on but the other two I would (because taking off the headset almost guarantees you will be disconnected and Meta's party-type/game-joining features are absolute shit), it's hit or miss.

"simply"