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Comment by Spunkie | Hacker News Reader

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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I think we have PC gaming and mobile gaming as too relatively independent markets with only occasional overlap, and that's probably the way VR's going to go. Someone is going to win the mobile VR market (probably Meta given their significant head start and lead, unless the Occulus lineup gets sacrificed at the altar of AI), and the Steam VR ecosystem is going to continue to be a thing.

I actually think the Steam VR ecosystem is the most durable looking of the ecosystems at the moment with its few medium size players. The other 3 all have the risk that their parent companies could get bored and do something else, and I mean it's made some money, but not the amount of money that is guaranteed to keep any of them interested.

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 ?

Feels like a Steam Market for Android/iOS is an inevitability.

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.

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