Tag: Oculus Quest

Some Observations from the First Week of Oculus Quest Sales

The Oculus Quest has now been shipping units since May 21st, 2019, for exactly one week, and I have been closely monitoring the Oculus Quest subReddit channel and other news sources to find out how things have been going.

And so far, things have been going like gangbusters! Many stores such as Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy report being completely sold out of the Quest, and some people are posting messages on the Oculus Quest subReddit, desperately searching for a location that can ship the product (or that they can drive to and pick one up) without having to wait weeks. People report making road trips of several hours to find the last store in their area that has a Quest in stock! Right now, Amazon Canada estimates delivery sometime between June 18th and July 11th if you order the model with 64GB memory today. Your best bet might be the Oculus website, which says they will ship by June 7th if you order today. So yes, you can call the launch a resounding success.

Furthermore, many of those early adopters are giving demonstrations of VR to their family, friends, and colleagues, and many of those people are instantly sold on the Oculus Quest, and go out and buy their own device. Virtual reality is one of those things that is best experienced live, and the Oculus Quest is tailor-made to give demos, since it is standalone headset, easy to transport and easy to set up. It’s also a sizable step up from the rather disappointing cellphone-based VR that is all that some people have experienced so far. The Quest is a game-changer.

In my first week, not only have I spent CDN$699 on the Oculus Quest headset with 128GB of memory, I have also spent almost CDN$100 on games and apps for the device:

I understand that Facebook is taking a 30% cut of the sales on the Oculus Store. Some people speculate that Facebook is actually selling the Quest hardware at a loss, just so they can make money on selling games and apps. The astonishing consumer uptake of the Oculus Quest will certainly attract software developers, once they realize that they have a potentially large audience to sell to. Expect a huge increase in the number of apps on the Oculus Store as the year goes on. There’s probably going to be some fantastic Black Friday sales, too! In fact, somebody has already created a website to help you pick out new apps as they are released.

So, what do I think of the Oculus Quest so far? I am absolutely enchanted. The first apps on the Oculus Store appear to be solid. Beat Saber and Dance Central promise to give me a calorie-burning workout at a time when I am already trying to lose weight via Weight Watchers. Wander uses Google Earth 360-degree photography to allow me to wander the world. (I spent some time visiting the pre-fire Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and admiring the view from the Eiffel Tower observation deck yesterday evening.) Nature Treks VR allows me to meditate in beautiful scenery. Tilt Brush (which was free for me, as I already had purchased it for the Oculus Rift) allows me to express my creative side. There’s really no downside to this. This gadget is the new iPhone, the new iPad, the new PlayStation. I’m sold.

The only real problem that I have experienced is that I simply do not have enough big, empty space in my rather small apartment to really experience the boundless freedom of the wireless Oculus Quest. Often, especially when I play Beat Saber or Dance Central, I brush my hand up against the Guardian boundary system that lights up and warns me when I get too close to walls or other physical obstacles. It’s annoying, and I want more space! I’m seriously considering completely redecorating my living room, throwing out my coffee table and some other furniture so I can create a bigger open space in which to play.

Now, I do have an obliging empty patch of grass located just outside my apartment that would do the trick for true “room-scale” VR. While Oculus does not recommend using the device outside (because you can easily damage the lenses in the Quest by direct exposure to bright sunlight), many people have reported being able to use the device around sunset outdoors without problem. (Of course, having my apartment neighbours wonder what the hell the fat man is doing as he flails around outdoors in a wireless headset and hand controllers is another problem entirely.)

So, as I predicted, the Oculus Quest is a hit, and it promises to bring many more consumers into virtual reality. And, if you’re sitting on the fence, I encourage you to demo a friend’s unit for yourself, and see what all the fuss is about.

Dance Central is an Unexpected Social VR App for the Oculus Quest

In talking about the social VR apps that are ready for the Oculus Quest at launch, I had overlooked one new app with a hidden social side: Dance Central! (Dance Central has launched alongside the new Oculus Quest headset, and the app will soon come to the Oculus Rift.)

According to this Reddit comment thread, you can actually interact with other players in Dance Central:

It is a lot of fun. It’s good for adults too if you play online PvP (player versus player) in the lounge room. I was playing til 1:00 a.m. the other night…Yeah, you can have dance offs, pose challenges, group battles, it’s quite a good multiplayer game and I can spend ages just chatting to others while we dance.

Facebook Doesn’t Have a Coherent Social VR Strategy—But They’re Working on Something Big

Ben Lang of the Road to VR website doesn’t mince words in an article titled Facebook Has Four Separate Social VR Apps, and None of Them Are on Quest:

Facebook’s fragmented approach to social VR hasn’t gotten any better with the launch of Quest. The company now has four separate social VR apps, and none of them are currently available on its newest headset.

With Oculus, Facebook has aimed to build the premiere VR ecosystem, but when it comes to allowing users of the company’s different headsets—Go, Quest, and Rift—to actually interact with one another, it has completely dropped the ball.

And, as I blogged about earlier, Oculus Quest users do not have access to any Facebook-branded social VR platforms: no Facebook Spaces, no Oculus Home, no Oculus Rooms, no Oculus Venues. Facebook has basically left social VR to third-party vendors like VRChat and Rec Room, both of which will probably see a jump in user concurrency figures with the launch of the Oculus Quest headset, which I predict will prove very popular with consumers.

Adi Roberston, a senior reporter for The Verge, posted a tweet about Ben Lang’s article, which led to a very interesting response from Infinite Retina, who apparently has heard some industry gossip and is willing to spill some tea:

Infinite Retina said:

We hear Facebook is working on a major VR initiative that will come out in next 15 months. Code named “Metaverse.” They ended Facebook Spaces to get the programmers to work on this new thing.

My first response to this tweet was “Hallelujah! They’re killing Facebook Spaces!“. (My second response was “Holy shit!“.)

As I have said before, Facebook has the potential to be a major disruptive force in social VR, if they could only get their act together. And it sounds as if that is exactly what they are planning to do. All the current players in social VR had better be paying attention, and planning accordingly. They have only a small window to make an impact with their products before Facebook launches their “Metaverse” product, and when they do, it’s gonna be pretty much the only thing that the news media will be talking about (if the oceans of fawning press coverage over every stupid little upgrade to Facebook Spaces is any indication). And Facebook has very deep pockets for things like programmer salaries and advertising budgets.

Fasten your seatbelts! Things are gonna get really interesting!

VRChat Prepares for the Oculus Quest by Redesigning Its Homes and Social Hub

In a recent blogpost, VRChat announced some changes to its platform to accommodate the expected influx of new users when the Oculus Quest begins shipping next week:

In preparation for our launch on the Oculus Quest next week, we’ve created a new VRChat Home and VRChat Hub for both our PC and Quest users! Both of the worlds are cross-platform, and will allow Quest and PC users to interact and chat with each other.

The new VRChat Home includes portals to popular destinations, as well as a new avatar selector next to a mirror. The redesigned social hub brings back the familiar campfire, which many people remember from the early days of VRChat:

The Hub has received quite a makeover. We’ve found that users tend to prefer smaller (but not too small) instances to chat with their friends, with areas that naturally lean into permitting groups to separate out and have conversations. A darker evening lighting scheme tends to be more favorable and provides an “after-hours” feel…The campfire provides a comfortable, natural area to gather up.

The New VRChat Hub

You should see these changes the next time you log in to VRChat.

I predict that VRChat will experience a second boom in use after the Oculus Quest begins to ship to consumers on May 21st. VRChat is one of only three social VR apps to be available for the Quest at launch date, along with Bigscreen and Rec Room.