Tiny Brains

Over the past two weeks, I travelled across China and Japan attending VRAR Expo in Shanghai, BitSummit in Kyoto, and a number of meetings and industry events in Tokyo. With a perspective coming from VR marketing, I spend a lot of time looking at where the industry is heading; how audiences are changing, and what companies are prioritising next. Going into this trip, I expected to hear a lot of concern around the current state of XR. Instead, I came away feeling surprisingly optimistic. Not because the challenges facing the industry have disappeared, but because the level of experimentation, creativity, and momentum I saw across both countries felt very real.

China’s XR Industry is Thinking Beyond Traditional VR

One of the biggest takeaways from Shanghai was just how prominent smartglasses continue to be within China’s XR conversations.

Even without products like the Meta Ray-Bans officially available, there’s significant momentum around lightweight wearable devices and the idea that smartglasses could become the first true mainstream XR category.

At the same time, VR itself feels deeply connected to social and location-based entertainment culture.

VR arcades remain incredibly popular, ranging from large-scale free-roaming experiences to smaller installations offering the kind of gameplay many Western audiences primarily associate with home VR.

What stood out to me is that VR in China often feels less like an isolated enthusiast product and more like another form of social entertainment, closer to cinemas, karaoke, or arcades.

That creates a very different ecosystem and audience expectation compared to much of the West.

Japan Continues to Lean into Gaming and Creativity

While China’s XR focus felt heavily tied to wearable technology and location-based entertainment, Japan’s ecosystem felt much more closely connected to gaming culture and home VR.

Attending BitSummit reinforced how creatively experimental the Japanese indie scene continues to be, especially within immersive media.

One of the highlights of the trip was attending STYLY’s 10th Anniversary celebration in Tokyo. Being surrounded by creators, artists, and developers who have spent the past decade building immersive experiences was a reminder of how much passion still exists within this industry.

Another standout moment came from a VR hackathon showcased during BitSummit, where developers demonstrated rapid prototypes and experimental concepts that captured the same creative energy that originally drew many of us into XR years ago.

It felt less focused on chasing trends and more focused on exploring what immersive experiences can uniquely do.

The Industry is Still Concerned, But Optimistic

That’s not to say difficult conversations weren’t happening.

Across meetings and discussions, the current state of the Meta Store came up repeatedly, particularly around discoverability, audience behaviour, and the long-term balance between home VR and location-based entertainment.

These are clearly global concerns right now.

But what surprised me was that, despite the uncertainty, there was still a strong sense of optimism about where XR is heading next.

Interestingly, while AI was present throughout discussions and demos, it didn’t dominate every conversation in the way it currently does in many Western tech circles. The focus remained much more grounded in practical XR experiences, ecosystem growth, hardware direction, and audience development.

Cross-Border Opportunities May Define the Next Phase of XR

If there’s one major takeaway I left with, it’s that the future of XR may depend far more on cross-border collaboration than many people realise.

There are enormous opportunities for Western developers and publishers to bring their titles into Asian markets, while companies across China and Japan also have exciting opportunities to reach Western audiences.

Different regions are prioritising different strengths:

• China is heavily exploring smartglasses and social entertainment experiences.
• Japan continues to foster highly creative gaming-focused VR development.
• Western markets remain heavily tied to home VR ecosystems and platform-driven distribution.

Rather than competing approaches, these may end up becoming complementary parts of a much larger XR ecosystem.

Why I’m Leaving More Optimistic Than I Arrived

The broader XR industry is clearly in a transitional period.

But after two weeks of conversations, demos, conferences, and meetings across Shanghai, Tokyo, and Kyoto, I came away feeling far more optimistic about the future of immersive technology than I did before the trip.

Not because the challenges are gone.

But because the creativity, experimentation, and ambition behind XR absolutely still exists. And in many places, it’s accelerating.