I’m calling it now, exactly one month before Christmas: this year’s hottest gifts will be Baby Yoda toys and the Oculus Quest.
The Baby Yoda thing is patently obvious (I mean, look at him!), but the Quest? Why do I think this?
Because with the release of the Oculus Link software, the Oculus Quest can now be used both as a standalone VR headset, and as a VR headset connected to a gaming PC to run Oculus Rift titles and apps.
Although I have said that I prefer my Oculus Rift to the Quest/Link setup, and (to be honest) if I were starting over again completely from scratch, I would probably buy the more powerful Valve Index, I do think that the Oculus Quest is going to be the first truly successful consumer VR hardware in 2020.
It’s very attractively priced, and Facebook has already reported that they are selling Quests as fast as they can make them. The company is slowly but steadily expanding the number of apps on their Oculus Quest store. When Facebook loosens their tight curatorial control on the Quest store, and make it easier for developers to submit apps (which I expect to happen next year), we can expect sales of the Quest to boom.
And it will become a virtuous circle: the more popular the Quest becomes, the more developers will create apps for it. The more apps available, the more Quests Facebook will sell.
Mark my words: 2020 will be the Year of the Quest.
