When Facebook bought Oculus in 2014, it seemed like the latest in a string of shrewd acquisitions destined to control the future of online life. It goes without saying that, over half a decade later, the virtual reality platform has not come close to achieving the prevalence of use as other Facebook properties, like Instagram and WhatsApp.
As if this wasn’t already clear, Facebook announced this week that it was discontinuing the Oculus Go, the company’s first standalone VR headset.
Now, this alone does not foretell the doom of Facebook’s virtual reality efforts. After all, just a year ago, the company released the Oculus Quest, a technological advancement that boasts six degrees of freedom (6DoF) as opposed to the Go’s 3DoF. The Oculus Quest has received deservedly positive reviews. (One reviewer on Amazon calls it the “PlayStation/XBox killer). However, one daunting question still lingers: Who are all these VR headsets actually for?
In an interview with CNET, Mark Zuckerberg said about VR and AR (augmented reality): “I don’t think it’s a 2020 thing. But hopefully it’s not a 2030 thing.” That seems to imply that Zuck expects the popularity of virtual reality to take off relatively soon. One would have thought this would have been the perfect time for people to get into VR. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, everyone is stuck inside their homes looking for ways to stay entertained. Fortnite is hosting popular concerts by performers like Travis Scott.
If people are forced to “enter” the make-believe worlds of video games to “attend” concerts in a way that ultimately comes down to watching them on a computer screen, wouldn’t you think there would be some market for a platform in which you could actually “submerge” yourself into said visual world?
This feels like it should be VR’s moment, but it is just not rising to the occasion. Cost doesn’t appear to be much of a factor, when you compare the Oculus Quest’s $500 price tag with that of the traditional consoles. Whatever the reason, it can count the Oculus Go among its casualties. We’ll have to wait and see if the Quest is next in line.
