TL;DR
- Samsung’s newest earnings report confirms plans for “XR units” in 2025.
- The corporate has already expressed curiosity in an XR headset, and this implies it’s nonetheless a precedence.
- Individually, an outdated patent utility is inspiring hypothesis about how this new {hardware} would possibly take form.
Are we within the early days of an AR/VR/MR renaissance, or simply watching the newest makes an attempt of firms making an attempt and failing to make their varied prolonged actuality (XR) efforts stick? On one hand, now we have rumors about Apple shutting down Imaginative and prescient Professional manufacturing, and on the opposite we’ve received Meta bringing high-quality VR to the plenty with the brand new Quest 3S. A crossroads like this is usually a huge alternative for gamers able to benefit from it, and proper now Samsung’s trying prefer it could be in simply the precise spot.
Samsung flirted with VR early on with the Gear VR, even partnering with Oculus, earlier than abandoning these efforts on the flip of the last decade. However earlier this yr, it appeared that the spark had retuned, and we began listening to severe chatter about Samsung’s renewed curiosity in XR. With even the Play Retailer preparing for XR apps, our greatest query has been after we would possibly see this new {hardware} land, and that’s trying increasingly more firmly like “someday subsequent yr.”
Corporations all over the place are sharing their newest quarterly figures with traders proper now, and Samsung isn’t any completely different. This week in its Q3 report, Samsung expresses one in every of its 2025 targets for its cellular enterprise as, “Enhance connectivity amongst merchandise, together with upcoming XR units, to additional elevate consumer experiences within the Galaxy ecosystem,” (by way of Gizmodo).
Whereas that’s nonetheless a reasonably huge window, it’s nonetheless very reassuring for any XR fanatics to listen to the corporate speaking about these plans as one thing it intends to deal with within the very close to future, quite than talking extra vaguely about its intent, or with some nebulous, far-off date.
We can also’t assist however discover the usage of “units,” plural, there. The corporate has just lately talked about mixed-reality good glasses, however might we additionally get one thing a bit of extra immersive? If there are a number of merchandise within the works, that feels more and more doubtless.
So Samsung’s new XR resolution is coming, and shortly — nice. However what type is it going to take? Right here, the data we’re is sort of a bit shakier, however nonetheless fairly attention-grabbing. Simply be sure to take a second to understand the context this arrives in:
Two years in the past, Samsung submitted a patent utility in South Korea for a pair of cellular controllers that connect to a central charging dock — and blessedly, that paperwork features a photograph of the {hardware} in query. SamMobile resurfaced that submitting this week, and now we have to confess: These actually do seem like they might be the controllers you employ with an XR headset. The translated textual content even identifies this as a “Metaverse Controller.”
However as a result of it is a patent, an enormous quantity of warning is warranted. A patent is way from a assure that an concept will likely be became a industrial product — and even when Samsung does intend to construct and promote this, we nonetheless can’t say with any certainty if this could be part of its 2025 XR plans. It’s attention-grabbing to consider, although, isn’t it?
