LG previously partnered with META to advance XR efforts, but after the high-level speech was finished, LG closed its XR product division and confirmed it was focusing on long-term research and development instead.
According to Korean news outlets Bell (via uploadvr), LG is coordinating XR’s efforts. This includes the disbandment of the organization responsible for XR products at the end of last year.
LG confirmed the news Bell In the Korean statement, machines translated from Korean:
“The development organization in the HE Business division has disappeared, but R&D (R&D) is being carried out within the CTO division,” LG said. Bell. “We decided to delay our commercialization plans and focus on R&D.”
Previous reports from May 2024 suggest that LG/Meta trade is already on thin ice, as insiders argued that the South Korean tech giant would not “control the pace” rather than full steam. Later, in June 2024, LG announced that it would shake up its XR product division. This was unusual for the company.
The news comes almost a year after Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited LG’s South Korean headquarters, and the two companies agreed to jointly develop XR products.
At the time, LG said it wanted to bring its own content/service capabilities to Meta’s platform. However, unconfirmed, it was rumored that in 2023, Meta had signed LG to manufacture a Vision Pro competitor.
LG is a minor player for XR and only generated a single XR headset for immersive media viewing for the 2016 smartphone tethered LG 360 VR headset.
Later in 2017, the company announced it was working on a SteamVR PC VR headset, but the project was quietly abandoned.
