Owlchemy Labs, the Google-owned XR studio, released a new mixed reality title exclusively for Android XR which expands the Job Simulator universe.
The News
Owlchemy Labs, the studio behind VR games Job Simulator (2016) and Vacation Simulator (2019), released both games on Android XR’s first officially supported headset, Samsung Galaxy XR.
Alongside it comes a free mixed reality experience, called Inside[JOB], which the studio says in a blogpost offers up the “same blend of chaos, humor, and hands-on interaction that helped define modern VR, as well as a first look at our next evolution in spatial experiences.”
As an Android XR platform exclusive, Inside Job isn’t a full title as such, but rather what Owlchemy calls an “interactive XR playground,” which puts the series robotic protagonist ‘JobBot’ in the spotlight as he discovers your reality.
In Inside Job, users tweak system settings, fish for data, and repair PCs in VR, blending passthrough MR with full VR segments set in the Job Simulator universe. The studio says Inside Job isn’t a sequel as such, but rather “a chance to experiment with our latest hand-tracking tech while solving a series of lighthearted repairs.”
The game launched alongside Samsung Galaxy XR this week, priced at $1,800, which is currently the only Android XR headset on the market. You can find Inside Job for free over on the Playstore here.
My Take
I think it’s pretty clear that Galaxy XR’s high price tag basically excludes it from being a viable outlet for large-format, system-selling exclusives, which is why gamers probably shouldn’t wring their hands and yell into the heavens with full-on FOMO just yet. Basically, it’s a Vision Pro, but cheaper, and with access to Android apps and maybe a few Quest ports. That’s very cool for XR obsessed people like you and me, and also companies looking to build enterprise apps, but not many others right now.
The real question on my mind is “what’s really next for Owlchemy Labs?” I suspect the answer to that question won’t materialize so quickly. As a reminder, Owlchemy Labs has developed some of the best-selling games in the medium, so they’re probably hoping to jump in at the right moment—but it’s difficult to intuit when that might be.
Olwchemy Labs says in a recent blogpost that porting their games to Android XR has allowed them to “experiment with new layers of immersion through native support for hand, eye, and face tracking.” I can bet other established XR studios are interested in mobilizing those hardware features too, if only in service of deepening user immersion, but I’m skeptical of whether will be enough.
I’ll admit it: the next XR headset wave may well come when consumers can eventually choose between a cheap and cheerful Android XR headset, a next-gen Quest, and possibly even Valve’s rumored Steam Frame (aka ‘Deckard’). But I have a hard time believing face and eye-tracking alone will be additive enough to the glut of consumers. Yes, future headsets will probably have higher resolutions, more processing power, and hopefully be lighter and more comfortable than they are now. But at risk of belaboring the point, all of it needs to hit a real consumer price point to move the needle.
Notably, there are a few consumer headsets on the market with face and eye-tracking currently: VIVE XR Elite, Pico 4 Pro, and Apple Vision Pro, the latter of which just launched its M5 hardware refresh for $3,500. None of those have garnered the incumbent consumer support to make them de facto competitors to Meta’s Quest 3/3S platform though. As an aside, Quest 3 is essentially a Quest Pro without face and eye-tracking—or the $1,500 price tag—which was eventually reduced to $1,000 to flush stock before it was discontinued earlier this year. Meta learned that lesson early on, it seems.
Assuming the studio wants to continue pushing the boundaries of immersive design at scale like it did with Job Simulator in 2016, I’d imagine they’re doing what most developers are at this point: i.e. using these prosumer headsets as ad hoc developer kits in preparation for the next big consumer headset generation yet to come. When that will be, I just can’t say.