Facebook discontinues Oculus Go headset to focus on the Quest
It's 'all-in' on position-tracking VR technology.
Oculus’ entry-level virtual reality headset will soon be no more. Facebook is discontinuing sales of the Oculus Go this year to go ‘all-in’ on upgrades to position-tracking headsets like the Quest and Rift. While software will still be available for the Go, the Oculus Store will stop accepting apps or updates after December 4th, and won’t add those apps to the store after December 18th.
Simply put, the company is responding to feedback. The Quest has been very popular (it’s still hard to find stock) — the public said “loud and clear” that six degrees of freedom movement is the “future of VR,” according to the Oculus team. You won’t see any more three-degree Oculus headsets as a result.
Appropriately, Oculus added that it was introducing a “new way” for developers to distribute Quest apps outside of the official store, but without having to sideload. This won’t be available until early 2021, but the team is mentioning this now in hopes of spurring development for the Quest among creators who don’t want to go through existing channels.
It’s not too hard to see Facebook dropping the Go when it was already out of stock in many places, and this won’t be well-received by those who saw the Go’s $199 price (sometimes lower with sales) as making VR more accessible. At the same time, there’s no doubt that the Quest and Rift offer much more sophisticated VR experiences — the Go represented a sort of dead end.
