Meta plans price hikes for VR devices, internal memo shows

Executive summary

Welcome to your weekly briefing on the metaverse and spatial computing. Here are your snippets to sound smarter in meetings this week:

• Top stories: Meta plans price hikes for VR devices, internal memo shows (more below).

• Event: We are hosting an event on 15 January in London, based around VR films! Come along if you wish.

• This week’s stories: BBC Research & Development has created an augmented reality experience for Children in Need that uses volumetric capture to present a 3D Pudsey Bear delivering a personalised thank-you message to donors via a mobile AR experience (more below).

Top stories

Meta plans price hikes for VR devices, internal memo shows.

• What does it say? According to Business Insider, the intention is to “make a shift in its business model to ensure long-term sustainability.”

• Quote: "Our devices will be more premium in price going forward, but we'll have a healthier business to anchor on and free ourselves from feeling existential about any singular device's success."

This week’s stories

• BBC Research & Development has created an augmented reality experience for Children in Need that uses volumetric capture to present a 3D Pudsey Bear delivering a personalised thank-you message to donors via a mobile AR experience.

• Google’s Android XR chief Juston Payne said a hands-on experience with Android XR smart glasses, including using Gemini-powered navigation on a family trip in Rome, convinced him that AI-driven smart glasses represent a fundamentally new and powerful shift in wearable computing.

• Louis Vuitton has launched an immersive exhibition in Paris that uses Snapchat’s augmented reality lenses to overlay digital content onto its archival pieces, allowing visitors to explore heritage trunks and motifs through geolocated AR experiences without dedicated hardware.

• Sony Pictures Virtual Reality and Brazilian studio Arvore have announced The Boys: Trigger Warning, a new VR game for Meta Quest 3 and PlayStation VR2 that features an original storyline set in the universe of the TV series The Boys.

• XPANCEO has unveiled a space-ready smart contact lens prototype at United XR 2025, demonstrating how its holographic display lens can integrate with a spacesuit helmet to deliver visual information directly to astronauts’ eyes without obstructive hardware or manual controls.

Note: The Immersive Wire is run by Tom Ffiske, who also works at Accenture. The contents of the newsletter should not be regarded as Accenture’s views.

All spelling mistakes are deliberate, actually.