MyOpinion

Rivian posted total fourth-quarter revenue of $1.73 billion, easily topping Wall St expectations of $1.4 billion. Total automotive revenue was $1.52 billion, primarily from the 14,183 vehicles Rivian sold in the quarter. Rivian also generated $299 million from the sale of regulatory credits and $484 million from software and services. Rivian Q4 2024 Revenue: $1.73 billion vs $1.4 billion expected Rivian Q4 EPS loss: 0.46 loss per share vs 0.68 loss per share expected CEO RJ Scaringe said, “This quarter, we achieved positive gross profit and removed $31,000 in automotive cost of goods sold per vehicle delivered in Q4 2024 relative to Q4 2023.” Rivian generated $110 million in automotive gross profit in the quarter compared to a loss of $611 million in Q4 2023. For the full year, Rivian generated a negative automotive gross profit of $7 million, an improvement from the $12 million loss in 2023.

This is very good news!

"I think were going to get to a point where things like TV you’ll no longer need a physical TV, you'll get $1 app that you can watch a screen on and it will just interesting exercise to see how many of the things that we have that are physical things don't actually need to be physical in that world."

This quote is from Mark Zuckerberg. He said it on an earnings call with shareholders on May 3, 2017.

As you can see, the vision that VR headsets and AR glasses will make physical screens obsolete is anything but new. Almost eight years have passed since that pitch was made to shareholders, and such devices are still a niche market, even though the technology has come a long way since then. The best example of this is the Apple Vision Pro, which is already being used as a viable monitor replacement by a small group of early adopters thanks to its high-resolution displays.

For virtual screens to become more widely accepted, the technology will have to overcome many more technical hurdles than just the display resolution. VR headsets and AR glasses need to be able to communicate with each other, regardless of manufacturer, so that we can see the same virtual screens in the same place in the room. And the technology itself needs to be miniaturized to the point where it fades into the background and looks good when worn. The biggest problem with VR headsets and AR glasses will always be that they are headsets and glasses. You have to wear them on your face. This sounds obvious, but it is something that the enthusiasts tend to ignore.

MIXED founder Matthias Bastian posed an interesting thought experiment in this context: What if VR headsets and AR glasses had been invented first and had been around for decades, and we were currently experiencing the advent of physical screens? We would probably celebrate it as a technological revolution. After all, you don't have to wear anything on your face, and you can share the same content without any fuss.

Physical screens have their purpose and use cases, as do VR headsets and AR glasses, and I don't think one category will completely replace the other anytime soon. The latter class of devices has the advantage that you can carry one or more large screens in your pocket and place them anywhere in the room, and that the content is private, which can be very useful. Whether these advantages can outweigh wearing a heavy headset or ugly glasses in public is another question.

I expect that as technology advances, we will increasingly look at virtual screens rather than physical ones. But I think this evolution will take a long time, as Zuckerberg's 2017 quote shows.

Following its debut last year, the VR Games Showcase is back with “major reveals and updates on anticipated games.” Initially announced last month, it's now been confirmed that the upcoming spring 2025 edition will be headlined by Hitman: World of Assassination on PlayStation VR2, while Flat2VR Studios will provide updates on Roboquest VR, Wrath: Aeon of Ruin, and more.

Embracer Group, the media conglomerate behind a host of game studios, announced in a recent financial report that Metro Awakening (2024) “underperformed” financial expectations.

Developed by Embracer Group’s Vertigo Games, Metro Awakening brought the storied post-apocalyptic shooter franchise to VR for the first time, serving as the latest ‘AAA’ quality VR game to target all major headsets, including Quest 2 and above, SteamVR headsets, and PSVR 2.

Now, in an October – December 2024 financial report, the company detailed revenue generated by its various properties, which included Let’s Sing 2025, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1-2 Remastered, Goat Simulator Remastered, and Metro Awakening.

“Metro Awakening had a positive reception from critics, winning the Steam VR Game of the Year award, but underperformed management financial expectations,” the Embracer Group report states.

The company says revenue for Q3 2024 was led by those releases mentioned above, amounting to SEK 235 million (~$22 million USD), marking a decrease of -50% year-over-year for the same period in the year prior.

Over eight years since its initial launch, multiplayer shooter Onward will now receive “its biggest update ever” this year. Meta confirmed this will introduce a “massive” graphical overhaul across weapons and utilities, new map content, and a new Operator system with over 20 new characters being introduced. Further details will be shared on this “very soon.”

MoonHood’s upcoming adventure game The Midnight Walk is officially headed to PSVR 2 and PC VR headsets on May 8th, 2025.

The new release date trailer shows off some of the first extended gameplay we’ve seen of The Midnight Walk, including some interesting-looking object interactions and shooter mechanics.

In The Midnight Walk, you become ‘The Burnt One’, who befriends a lost lantern creature named Potboy, using his flame to light your way.

The following games added:

Civilization VII - VR
Dreams of Another
Elsewhere Electric
Farming Simulator VR
The Smurfs - Flower Defense

Trailer updated:

Aces of Thunder
Five Nights at Freddy's: Secret of the Mimic
The Midnight Walk

Release dates added:

Five Nights at Freddy's: Secret of the Mimic
The Midnight Walk

While Survios aims to bring the tension and atmosphere familiar to fans of the beloved franchise, the mobile release features several disappointments. After playing the game to completion on both PC and PlayStation VR2 for our full review last year, being back in this world again on Quest points to the numerous compromises made to get it onto the hardware.

Sony first demonstrated hand tracking on Playstation VR 2 two months ago. Waltz of the Wizard is the first VR game to be updated with the technology, so you can try it out for yourself.

Originally launched in 2022, Shores of Loci developer MikeTeevee confirmed the next chapter offers a “brand-new horizon to explore” across other dimensions with new challenges and worlds. Though it's initially launching on Quest on February 12, the studio confirmed that the Steam edition will also receive this update “shortly after.”

“SkyHaven ushers players into a harmonious future filled with your favorite familiar little characters and their now evolving civilizations. In harmony with nature, their castle in the sky harnesses the sun and wind to foster sustainability, leaving space for permaculture farmland and cinematic horizons,” described the studio in a press release.

Pricing for the upcoming chapter is currently unconfirmed. However, touching upon the recent Southern California wildfires, Executive Producer Ellen Utrecht confirmed that the Los Angeles-based studio will donate 1% of proceedings to support recovery efforts. “As our studio’s roots in Los Angeles make the city’s recovery personal for us, we never imagined how timely SkyHaven’s themes of rebuilding and community would become. We hope this new chapter can offer both a momentary escape and inspiration for reimagining our communities,” said Utrecht in a prepared statement.

It begins by acknowledging the problem. Head-mountable displays (HMDs) are developed to be comfortably worn for extended periods of time. The ever increasing desire to improve performance, functionality, and battery life of HMDs results in a device that includes several electrical components, each of which add weight to the system. There is a constant balance between maximizing user comfort while maintaining or excelling the performance and functionality of the device. Unbalanced weight distribution experienced by a user while wearing the headmountable display, particularly weight distributed in front of the user’s face, can negatively impact the user’s experience. Thus, there is a need for a light-weight HMD assembly that does not sacrifice performance or functionality. Apple also admits the heat issue, stating that there needs to be a way to more efficiently dissipate heat. The company already keeps the weight down somewhat by using a tethered battery, and the patent document says it could also incorporate the processing power into this puck, which Apple refers to as a cartridge. A cartridge can include a housing, a processor positioned within the housing to provide video output to a display unit of a head-mounted display (HMD), and an attachment interface to removably attach the cartridge to the display unit. One option Apple describes is to have the processing unit in a removable unit that could be inserted into the headset or into the tethered casing. A head-mountable assembly can include a processor and a display unit defining a slot to receive the processor. In a first mode, the processor can be positioned within the slot to provide image data to the display unit. In a second mode, the processor can be removed from the slot and provide image data to the display unit.

The history of virtual reality goes back a long way, and I wouldn't be writing this today if there hadn't been a technological revolution in VR about 15 years ago that made headsets compelling and affordable for a much larger number of people than in the decades before.

At the time, Palmer Luckey was working on his first VR headset prototypes, which offered an exceptionally wide field of view and high image quality at a relatively low price. This has been made possible by the widespread availability of low-cost smartphone displays that combine small size with high pixel density.

There were many other factors and inventions that helped virtual reality become a consumer product, but it was this technological revolution that got the ball rolling. A second major step was arguably standalone virtual reality, which was also made possible by existing smartphone technology. Without efficient mobile chipsets, devices like Meta Quest and the millions of VR headsets in use would be unthinkable.

Reflecting on these past leaps raises an interesting question about the future: Is virtual reality on the verge of another technological revolution of this magnitude, and what might it look like?

Will it be standard eye tracking and OLED microdisplays, integrated body tracking, or virtual reality streamed from the cloud? Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth pondered last year what a Meta Quest might look like in 2031. It could have near retinal resolution and be much lighter. Mirror Lake, Meta's futuristic research concept that combines a holographic and varifocal display in a compact, lightweight, and energy-efficient headset, also offers intriguing hints at possible future VR developments (the article image shows a rendering of what Mirror Lake might look like).

VR technology has so much room for improvement in terms of features and quality that it is fair to say that we are still witnessing its early days.

But back to your question: I think the third major revolution will be another display revolution, just like the first. Not because it will significantly improve image quality, but because it will allow headsets to be much thinner and lighter. The third revolution will be a form factor revolution and potentially the next big leap in the adoption of VR by the masses.

With the Holocake 2 prototype, Meta has shown where the journey could go, but it is unclear when this technology could find its way into products. My guess is that it will not happen in the next five years. Therefore, I don't see an immediate technological revolution coming, but rather evolutionary steps.