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Galaxy XR: The first Android XR headset

(blog.google)
169 points thelastgallon | 1 comments | 22 Oct 25 16:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.357s | source
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bsimpson ◴[22 Oct 25 18:37 UTC] No.45673332[source]▶
I wonder what the preferred ecosystem for VR will end up being.

Seems like there are now ~4 places to buy content (Oculus, Steam, Google Play, Apple App Store).

If you buy on Steam, your catalog is reasonably portable over time - you can buy another vendor's headset and still access your catalog. The cost is that you have to bring a separate device with you to host the catalog (unless/until the rumored Steam Frame comes out).

Oculus and Play are both based on Android. I suspect there will be e.g. guides on Reddit to sideload one vendor's catalog onto the other vendor's device.

I can imagine a world where someone prefers to buy content in one of these stores, to have everything in one place for portability to future devices. You're already seeing this in computer gaming with Steam (and Epic, Xbox, etc.).

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Spunkie ◴[22 Oct 25 19:25 UTC] No.45673950[source]▶
I feel like Steam is the only legitimate option of the 4, the rest are walled gardens.

I would have been very excited about this Galaxy XR development a year ago but today I don't care to even scroll down the page. Google's recent Android bullshit(walled garden, killing roms) makes this a non-starter.

In fact I wonder if Android/Galaxy XR is secretly responsible for these horrible changes to stock android. No chance of a XR/real life adblocker ever becoming a thing if you can't install your own software and/or the largest advertiser in the world needs to OK it's existence.

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1. PaulHoule ◴[22 Oct 25 22:56 UTC] No.45676203[source]▶
The Meta Quest 3 has inside-out tracking and no cables so it has a lot of appeal for experiences where you walk around the room, particularly fitness games. I can view complex virtual worlds from my PC with the link cable and it is is practical to carefully move around the living room if I move the furniture but then I have to play in the living room.