Quest 3 can run flatscreen VR Chat while you’re in VR VRChat

it is getting easier to check in on VRChat or another flat-screen Android app while waiting for something to happen in a completely different immersive world.

I ran a VRChat-ception experiment through a total of four instances of the app on my Quest 3:Horizon OSVirtual Desktop streaming fully immersive PC VRChat running on an NVIDIA RTX 2080.

Quest-native fully immersive VRChat.

• A flat panel app of PC VRChat running on a Steam Deck and streaming through the 2D Android Steam Link app side loaded on the headset.
• Mobile VRChat .apk running as a 2D flat-panel Android app directly on Quest 3.
• Here is a short video demonstrating Quest 3 running VRChat in standalone fully immersive mode with the VRChat mobile app running simultaneously.
• That VRChat worked in all these scenarios is a testament to the platform’s ubiquity as well as the qualified openness of Valve and Meta. At the same time, the roundabout routes these packages take to their functionality point to the opportunities ahead for Apple, Google, and Valve in smoothing out what Meta’s approach here has made more difficult than it should be.

Flat2VR & VR2Flat

VRChat just laid off

with its founders saying “we need an extended runway” to achieve “rocket-ship levels of success” in the next two to five years.

In virtual reality, windows and apps can be portals to places. In my VRChat experiment, I used a window to control an android while inside VRChat. This was ridiculous – an Android app became an actual android in VR. But it’s also evidence that VRChat is a sprawling landscape with borders too big for existing platforms built by Meta, Valve Apple and Google. It’s not only ridiculous, but it also shows that VRChat’s borders are too large to fit within the existing platforms from Meta, Valve and Apple.