Tag: Oculus

UPDATED! Editorial: Facebook Announces That It Will Require All Oculus VR Headset Users to Have Facebook Accounts (and Why I Have Bought a Valve Index as My Next VR Headset)

I am angry. Make that furious. Let me tell you exactly why I am so angry.

Facebook dropped a bombshell announcement today:

Today, we’re announcing some important updates to how people log into Oculus devices, while still keeping their VR profile. Starting in October 2020:

■ Everyone using an Oculus device for the first time will need to log in with a Facebook account.

■ If you’re an existing user and already have an Oculus account, you’ll have the option to log in with Facebook and merge your Oculus and Facebook accounts.

■ If you’re an existing user and choose not to merge your accounts, you can continue using your Oculus account for two years.

After January 1, 2023, we will end support for Oculus accounts. If you choose not to merge your accounts at that time, you can continue using your device, but full functionality will require a Facebook account. We will take steps to allow you to keep using content you have purchased, though we expect some games and apps may no longer work. This could be because they include features that require a Facebook account or because a developer has chosen to no longer support the app or game you purchased. All future unreleased Oculus devices will require a Facebook account, even if you already have an Oculus account.

I have written on this blog, at length, about why I distrust Facebook and the reasons I first left the Facebook social network (here, here, here, and here). I would strongly suggest you reread them because I do not intend to rehash all my arguments here, again.

I only begrudgingly rejoined Facebook when it became clear that I would need a Facebook account to be able to use their forthcoming social VR platform, Facebook Horizon. At that time, I still naively felt that it was somehow important to include Facebook Horizon in what I hoped was going to be my continuing, comprehensive coverage of all social VR platforms on this blog.

But you know what? After today’s announcement by Facebook, I no longer feel the need to write about Facebook/Oculus products and services—and certainly not if it means letting Facebook strip-mine even more of my personal data than it already has to date. Enough is enough.

And so I have posted the following short update to my little-used, soon-to-be-deleted Facebook profile:

Today, Facebook announced that it will require *all* users of Oculus VR headsets (Rift, Quest) to create an account on the Facebook social network in order to use them. (Previous to this, you only had to create a Facebook account if you were using a few of their apps, such as Oculus Venues, or the upcoming Facebook Horizon social VR platform.)

Many of you already know that I quit Facebook (and asked them to delete all of the data it had collected on me) as my New Years resolution in December 2019. I only returned because I wanted to be able to write about Facebook Horizon, Facebook’s new social VR platform, when it launches later this year—and THAT required a Facebook account. So I rejoined, even though I have successfully broken my Facebook addiction and I rarely log in anymore.

Given today’s announcement, I have now changed my mind. I will be deleting my Facebook account again later this week, and I will no longer be buying any more VR apps from the Oculus Store. From now on, I will no longer be buying any Oculus VR headsets (my next VR headset will probably be a Valve Index).

I have had enough. This time, I am not coming back to Facebook. You can find me on Twitter (my handle is quiplash).

In addition, I will no longer be covering Facebook products and services on this blog. I now have zero intention of writing about Facebook Horizon, since after deleting my Facebook account, I will not be able to visit their social VR platform. Frankly, I no longer have any desire to see or participate in whatever Facebook is planning.

Also, I will no longer be purchasing any more VR apps from the Oculus Store, instead choosing to buy them from Steam (or directly from the developer, if possible).

I am currently the owner of an original Oculus Rift tethered VR headset (which I bought in January 2017), and an Oculus Quest standalone VR headset (which I bought as soon as they became available in May 2019). They’re well-made devices, which have not given me problems. But I can no longer in good conscience continue to support, in any way, the company that makes and sells them, from this day forward.

As Facebook has stated in their news release:

If you’re an existing user and choose not to merge your [Oculus and Facebook] accounts, you can continue using your Oculus account for two years.

And I intend to use that two-year window to sell or give away my Rift and Quest, and purchase only non-Oculus VR headset(s) from now on. At the moment, I am leaning towards the Valve Index, but we’ll see. I have time; a lot can change in two years. But I have checked and my computer is already powerful enough to run an Index:

My computer is already Valve Index ready!

UPDATE August 19th, 2020: Today, I put my money where my mouth is. I went and placed an online order for the complete Valve Index VR Kit. I am told that it will take eight or more weeks to get to me, because of coronavirus-related delays in production. That’s fine. I can wait. And I’m not going anywhere.

I will be boycotting Facebook hardware and software from this point forward. It’s time for me to kick the Facebook habit, once and for all.

UPDATE August 20th, 2020: I just wanted to update this blogpost to say that, instead of not writing about Facebook and Oculus products and services on the RyanSchultz.com blog, I will still be writing about them in future—just not from a first-person perspective, obviously. I still have lots of opinions about Facebook Inc. and their approach to business and privacy.

And I steadfastly refuse to give Facebook any more of my business, and that means I refuse to join Facebook Horizon.

The Coronavirus Pandemic Continues to Impact Supplies of Virtual Reality Headsets

If you are looking for my blogposts about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, please click here. 

The virtual reality news website UploadVR has reported:

Valve warned us that supplies for its Index VR headset would be limited when it went back up on sale this week. And it wasn’t kidding.

Within less than an hour of going back online, the full Index kit is backed up to shipping after eight weeks. In fact, people on Twitter report that that was the case around 30 minutes in to them going back on sale. Some users also had trouble completing their orders, which may have lost them an early unit. The headset on its own ships between eight to ten weeks and Index controllers are scheduled between three to five weeks. Base stations by themselves are totally sold out, too.

…

Meanwhile, Facebook’s Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S also remain heavily backordered. In quite an unprecedented situation for VR, it’s now practically impossible to buy an Oculus or Valve VR headset through an official online retailer…

Basically, if you are waiting to purchase an Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift S, or Valve Index, you’re going to be waiting for several more months. The only VR headset that has not been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic is the HTC Vive, which is manufactured in Taiwan. In fact, this global public health crisis might actually lead to more business for HTC.

HTC Vive Logo

UPDATED! Editorial: Why Facebook Horizon Will Be Delayed

Facebook was originally planning to launch their social VR platform, called Facebook Horizon, in a closed beta test early this year. Many people were expecting an announcement at their annual Facebook F8 Developer Conference, or perhaps at the Game Developers Conference.

Well, on February 27th, TechCrunch reported that Facebook was cancelling its F8 conference, citing coronavirus concerns:

Facebook  has confirmed that it has canceled its annual F8 developers conference over growing concerns about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

More specifically, the company says it’s canceling the “in-person component,” which would have been held in San Jose, Calif. There may still be video presentations, along with live-streamed and local events, under the F8 umbrella.

“Celebrating our global developer community at F8 each year is incredibly important to us at Facebook, but we won’t sacrifice the health and safety of our community to do so,” said Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook’s director of developer platforms and programs, in a statement. “Out of concerns around COVID-19, we’re cancelling the in-person component of F8, but we look forward to connecting with our developer partners through local events, video and live streamed content.”

And more recently, it was announced that the Game Developers Conference, which was supposed to take place this month, would be postponed until later this summer. UploadVR reports:

The organizers of the Game Developers Conference postponed the event after sponsors, attendees, journalists, and developers decided not to come due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus.

In recent days some of the event’s biggest supporters including Epic, Unity, Facebook, Sony, Amazon, and many more, along with a large number of journalists and developers, pulled out of attendance at the event. Many companies encouraged their employees not to travel to the March event in San Francisco.

Here’s the statement from organizers:

After close consultation with our partners in the game development industry and community around the world, we’ve made the difficult decision to postpone the Game Developers Conference this March.

Having spent the past year preparing for the show with our advisory boards, speakers, exhibitors, and event partners, we’re genuinely upset and disappointed not to be able to host you at this time .

We want to thank all our customers and partners for their support, open discussions and encouragement. As everyone has been reminding us, great things happen when the community comes together and connects at GDC. For this reason, we fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer. We will be working with our partners to finalize the details and will share more information about our plans in the coming weeks.

The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and resulting travel restrictions has led to dozens of conferences around the world being cancelled or postponed. Many major corporations such as Amazon, Facebook and Google are also restricting or outright cancelling employee travel.

I think all this means that Facebook will likely postpone the launch of Facebook Horizon, since they won’t have any suitable venue at which to make a splashy announcement. And let’s face it, with the world being so preoccupied with this expanding global public health emergency, any platform launch would likely be muted, sidelined, and overlooked. People have other, much more pressing, priorities at the moment, like trying to find supplies of Purell hand sanitizer and 3M face masks.

Another complicating factor, as I have reported before, is that supplies of both Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S VR headsets are simply unavailable in most markets, due to the coronavirus shutting down many Chinese factories. Apparently, production of the Valve Index VR headset is also being negatively impacted. The HTC Vive headset is manufactured in Taiwan, and so far does not appear to have been impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. (Here’s a February 28th article from IGN on how SARS-CoV-2 is impacting the manufacture and sales of VR headsets.)

Of course, Facebook may just decide to launch Facebook Horizon in closed beta anyway, using livestreamed video and other not-in-person means, but I think they will choose to hold back. A company that makes billions of dollars in profit from advertising knows full well the benefit of a well-timed product launch, with an all-out advertising push. The timing is just plain wrong.

P.S. I am curious though; has anybody been invited yet to take part in the closed beta test for Facebook Horizon? I haven’t (but then, given how critical I have been of Facebook on this blog, I wasn’t expecting to be invited). Any anonymous tipsters want to whisper in my ear? 😉

UPDATE March 3rd: I’ve heard through the grapevine that Facebook will be launching a closed (invitation-only) alpha of Facebook Horizon this spring.

The Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak Impacts the Manufacture and Delivery of New Oculus Quest VR Headsets: Facebook Announces That the Quest Is Now Unavailable In Most Countries

Thanks to the Wuhan coronavirus, the Oculus Quest is unavailable

For the past two weeks—since January 25th, 2020, when there were only 1,438 cases—I have been trying to balance my coverage of “social VR, virtual worlds, and metaverse” (as the tagline of my blog states) with coverage of the rapidly-evolving global health crisis that is the Wuhan coronavirus (more formally known as 2019-nCoV, at least until the authorities give it a proper name or acronym).

There have been many reports in the mainstream news media that the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in China will negatively impact the manufacture and delivery of everything from pharmaceutical ingredients to automotive parts. Yesterday, the Road to VR website published a news report that illustrates the growing impact that the 2019-nCoV situation is having on the manufacture of VR technology. (Yes, this story is about both virtual reality and the coronavirus. It was bound to happen eventually!)

Titled Facebook Expects Coronavirus Will Have “Additional Impact” on Oculus Quest Availability, the article says:

After being back-ordered by weeks in many regions, Oculus Quest is now “unavailable” from Oculus in 17 out of 23 regions where the unit is sold, including the United States, Canada, and much of Europe. Facebook says the Coronavirus outbreak is to blame.

Responding to a Road to VR inquiry about Oculus Quest becoming “unavailable” in many regions, a Facebook spokesperson shared the following statement:

“Oculus Quest has been selling out in some regions due to high demand. That said, like other companies we’re expecting some additional impact to our hardware production due to the Coronavirus. We’re taking precautions to ensure the safety of our employees, manufacturing partners and customers, and are monitoring the situation closely.”

At the time of writing, the Oculus Quest is now unavailable in the following 17 regions: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.

Facebook gave no indication of when it expects the Oculus Quest to be once again available. Given the severe impact that the coronavirus is having on China’s economy, it seems unlikely that we will see any new stock of Oculus Quest VR headsets available anytime soon. How this might impact other Facebook plans for 2020—including the impending beta launch of their social VR platform, Horizon—remains to be seen. (But you can expect resellers on eBay and other places to take advantage of the situation and start selling Oculus Quests at a premium to those people still eager to get their hands on one.)