Pico was set to debut its next flagship standalone XR headset early next month, however now the ByteDance subsidiary says it’s postponing the reveal and release date of its long-awaited Apple Vision Pro competitor.
The News
Initially teased earlier this year as ‘Project Swan’, Pico announced last week it was putting on a big product launch event for the newly-named Pico Space Pro, which was set to take place in Beijing on September 2nd.
There, we expected Pico to fill in the gaps of the headset’s spec sheet, global release plans, and pricing for what is surely one of the company’s most expensive XR headset’s to date.
Now Pico says it’s adjusting the product release date to sometime in Q4 2026, citing the need for more time to push a “major upgrade” to the software experience.
Here’s Pico’s announcement below, machine translated below from the original Chinese, courtesy Antony ‘Skarred Ghost’ Vitillo:
PICO Space Pro Release Date Adjusted
Hello everyone, to allow PICO Space Pro to be presented to you in a more complete state, we have decided to adjust the product release date to the fourth quarter of this year. Over the past period, the hardware and software of PICO Space Pro have reached a high level of completion, but during the final stage of experience verification, we saw an exciting new opportunity and wanted to bring it to everyone in the initial release. Therefore, we decided to spend more time on a major upgrade to the software experience. We hope these investments will ultimately lead to a better product experience and look forward to bringing you some new surprises. We sincerely apologize for this adjustment to the release date and for the wait it has caused, and thank you for your continued attention and patience. In the coming months, we will expand our Pioneer Experience Program, inviting more users to experience PICO Space Pro early and work with us to refine the product.
In the meantime, Pico is expanding its ‘Global Early Access Program’ closed beta test, which includes sending pre-production units and software to applicants for external testing.
As the company’s next flagship, Pico Space Pro is the slated to arrive with microOLED displays boasting 4,000 pixels per inch (PPI), an average ~40 pixels per degree (PPD), and a dual-chip architecture: a custom XR silicon for perception and imaging (claimed ~12 ms perception latency) and separate flagship SoC with “more than 2× CPU and GPU performance vs XR2 Gen 2.”
Pico Space Pro is set to not only compete against Apple Vision Pro, but also Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset which released late last year as the first to run Google’s Android XR processing system, both of which largely appeal to prosumers and enterprise.
My Take
While Pico is undoubtedly going to focus on the Chinese domestic market with Space Pro, the device is also launching globally. I’ve always thought of it primarily as a Vision Pro/Galaxy XR competitor, but it’s also set to be a direct competitor to Steam Frame across a number of regions too. That’s not a comfortable spot to be in if you can’t go toe-to-toe in the software department, which Valve has in spades, as it’s delivering a native Steam user experience on standalone for the first time.
That said, I don’t know if I entirely buy the company’s supposed launch day software woes as the full reasoning behind the delay, as Pico could simply release updates post-launch to literally no one’s surprise.
I think it has more to due with actively avoiding the very present risk of being upset by Steam Frame’s launch, which is due any day now. Imports of literal tons of units into the US, FCC certification, a constant influx of the best Frame-compatible games via Valve’s ‘Great on Frame’ page, and now a number of leaked Steam Frame unboxing and user setup videos all point to Valve’s long-awaited reveal of both the release date and price of one of the most-anticipated VR headsets in recent memory.
And at least from the limited spec sheet mentioned above, Pico Space Pro sounds like it will be a very capable device. Still, it’s competing against Valve, which has more good will stored up among consumers than almost any other company in the space right now. Stepping aside and regrouping as the market digests Steam Frame (for good or ill) may just be the best move Pico can make right now.
