GAFAM NewsEssay

Can XR make a comeback? Where VR, AR and mixed reality stand today

From Google Glass to Vision Pro, Quest and Android XR: a look back at a decade of XR and whether it could become the next interface.

First published in Japanese: May 16, 2025
English edition: November 2, 2026

Read the Japanese original on note「巻き返しなるか！？XRの現在地」

Google Glass arrived in 2013. It made a huge splash as a product that felt like the future, but between privacy concerns and spec limitations, it never really saw the light of day. Some say it was simply ahead of its time.

More than ten years later, the fields known as AR, VR, MR and now XR have come a long way, both technically and as markets. With Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest series, experiences that were once a dream are gradually becoming practical. Still, some people feel the technology has evolved as promised, while others look on coolly and say it’s not there yet.

For the past few years, the spotlight has tended to shift to AI, but in 2025, XR has started picking up steam again. In May and June especially, GAFAM companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft are holding their developer conferences one after another, and a stream of XR announcements is expected.

With that in mind, I 🦉 want to take stock of where XR stands today: looking back over the past decade or so at the main products and companies that blazed the trail, then trying to read where things are heading.

Defining XR

First, let’s pin down the terms, since they’re easy to mix up.

VR (Virtual Reality): Immersion in a virtual space built entirely from digital content.

AR (Augmented Reality): Digital information overlaid on the real world.

MR (Mixed Reality): A blend in which the real and the virtual interact and affect each other in real time.

XR (Extended Reality): The umbrella term covering VR, AR and MR.

2013–2016: laying the foundations of VR and AR

VR and AR products existed before this, of course, but it’s no exaggeration to say that Google Glass, which Google unveiled in 2013, set off the new wave. It drew enormous attention but flopped on the consumer market, and Google later pivoted it toward businesses.[1]

In 2014, Facebook (now Meta) bought Oculus for $2 billion, making a serious entry into the VR market.[2] The following year, 2015, Microsoft announced HoloLens and opened up a new category called MR.[3]

In 2016, high-performance PC VR headsets such as the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift arrived. Sony also launched PlayStation VR, and by tying VR to the home game console, it began bringing VR experiences into ordinary households.[4]

Then, as the symbol of AR going mainstream, Pokémon GO became a worldwide craze and suddenly put smartphone AR on the map.[5]

2017–2019: standalone VR and the AR cloud arrive

The big change in this period was the arrival of standalone VR headsets that didn’t depend on a PC or smartphone.

The Oculus Go came out in 2018, and in 2019 the Oculus Quest refined the idea further and broadened adoption.[6]

Magic Leap One also appeared, but its price and immature technology kept it from catching on.[7] Microsoft announced HoloLens 2, with a wider field of view and easier controls.[8]

2020–2022: the metaverse and XR goes commercial

This was the period when, with a push from the pandemic, using virtual spaces started to look realistic.

The Oculus Quest 2, announced in 2020, struck an excellent balance between price and performance and became many people’s first VR device.[9] Apple released iPhones with a LiDAR scanner, greatly improving the accuracy and expressiveness of AR experiences.[10]

In 2021, Facebook renamed itself Meta, and its VR world “Facebook Horizon” relaunched as “Horizon Worlds,” as the company went all in on its metaverse strategy.[11] Snap also showed a prototype of its AR glasses with Spectacles 4, though they were limited to developers.[12]

Then in 2022, high-end devices such as the Meta Quest Pro and Magic Leap 2 arrived, moving the enterprise MR market further forward. Sony announced PlayStation VR2 as well, and XR kept advancing in gaming too.[13]

2023–2025: the age of spatial computing and AI × XR

In 2023, Apple announced Vision Pro and proposed a new category: the “spatial computer.” Its price works out to nearly ¥600,000 in yen, but its high-resolution displays and spatial awareness took the XR user experience (UX) a big leap forward.[14]

Meta announced the Quest 3 that same year and followed it in 2024 with the cheaper Quest 3S,[15] widening its reach to entry-level users. Meanwhile, the sunglasses-style smart glasses from its joint project with Ray-Ban, underway since 2021, have steadily improved, and are said to have achieved a degree of commercial success in Europe and the US.[16] In 2025, Meta also announced “Aria Gen 2,” a model for researchers, as it keeps pushing into smart glasses.[17]

On top of that, Snap, XREAL (formerly Nreal), Samsung, Google and others are developing lightweight AR glasses meant to be worn every day.

Google announced a new OS called “Android XR” and released a demo of voice control linked to its own generative AI model, Gemini.[18] A world where AI understands images and language and enables intuitive interaction inside XR spaces is finally starting to feel real.

What’s next: will XR become the next interface?

The things to watch from here are lightweight AR glasses going mainstream and a deeper fusion with AI. Prototypes designed to be worn all the time, such as Meta’s Orion [19] and Google’s Android XR glasses, have already appeared.

Microsoft and Meta strengthening virtual workspaces and remote collaboration, along with Apple’s Mac virtualization features,[20] are also pushing XR forward in business.

XR device shipments are forecast to top 80 million units in 2030,[21] which even hints that XR could succeed the smartphone. Challenges remain, but as Vision Pro and Quest 3 show, XR may already be on its way to becoming “the next big thing.”

My owl eyes 👀 are sharp enough already, but I can’t help getting my hopes up for the new experiences XR will bring.