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Galaxy XR: The first Android XR headset

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169 points thelastgallon | 1 comments | 22 Oct 25 16:50 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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. makeitdouble ◴[22 Oct 25 23:25 UTC] No.45676437[source]▶
Steam is the only future proof option at this point, yet it can't be the way forward except:

- A - if we get crazy low client/server latency between the headset and a remote server with the game running. Basically Google Stadia but 100x more reliable while higher bandwidth.

- B - Steam comes to VR headsets as a native store running locally on the MQ or Vision Pro for instance.

- B' - we get a competitive headset with an open source OS, or a VR Steam Deck where Steam provides local native apps.

I'm not holding my breath on any of these options. But still hope.

Perhaps XR should suck Google and Samsung's money as the next walled garden, to get smacked down by some internation court as uncompetitive and forced to open up to third party stores and apps. But that would also take around a decade ?