I do think these kinds of "virtual presence" apps are possible and exciting - and also I think there are huge new challenges that come with the Vision Pro's better spatial computing. If you are in a video game (like fortnight) you easily forgive a lot of jank - your brain isn't expecting it. On the flip side, people will not like someone jumping around "in space" right next to them. Same goes for reproducing movements in avatars.

You can always choose a lower fidelity co-presence, but again if you are doing that why are you wearing the heavy goggles? Just get a discord server and watch on there. I think there are very real technical challenges to combining all of the important aspects, but it is also the category of experience I am most excited by.

I think with Shareplay, Spatial Audio, and Personas Apple already has the core pieces to do something like this baked into the OS.

Given that they have that in Fortnite, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it wouldn't be too difficult.

Those have existed pretty much since the start of VR multiplayer games. VR chat has them, RecRoom has them I think, there are dedicated apps for this, and many "screen mirroring" apps also have multi-user and presence.

They aren't used that much because it's a silly gimmick and nothing more. People don't roleplay nearly as much in actual VR experiences. Real life isn't Ready Player One, and real people may say they want this, but then they try it and never do it again.

It was neat to socialize with strangers in VR during covid lockdowns. It was instantly less neat when I could socialize with my real friends again. I don't have any friends from that period, and I was hanging out with VR strangers for tens of hours a weekend. There's just too many real, physical drawbacks to doing anything in VR that means unless you specifically crave the experience that ONLY VR can provide, like a driving simulator game, you don't really do it.

I've gone clubbing in VR. It's just not that special.

All the talk about AVP is full of people who seem to have zero understanding of what has existed for almost a decade in the VR space, don't seem very familiar with VR, and haven't tried to get friends and family to try VR. They all think Ready Player One, or The Matrix is right around the corner. Reality isn't magic.

For reference, VR is literally a game changer for Sim Racing, and even there most people don't care about it. Even then, it's only brought out occasionally, or for specific reasons. Headsets just suck, blocking your eyes with some form of screen will always suck for a social species like humans.

It's so easy there are probably a dozen apps that do it on Quest and other platforms. I sat in a theatre with 15 other people the other day and watched Jurassic Park in 3D the other day on my Quest 3. It was cool.

So why isn't it happening with Vision Pro? Because Apple hasn't shipped proper co-presence features. Vision Pro lacks a proper Avatar system like every other platform has, so they can't have apps like this, ergo they are left entirely with trying to convince people that solo experiences are a valid value proposition, all the while attempting to sell their headset as non-isolating.