VR is here to stay.
Governments could dissolve Facebook and stop selling its VR hardware. Virtual reality would exist well beyond the research labs and hacker communities where it existed before Oculus was founded in 2012. Widely supported efforts like OpenXR, the openness of the PC as a computing platform, and the success of companies like STRIVR Training Employees with VR ensure that virtual reality should always flourish to an extent well beyond the 90s and 00s.
But what if Facebook doesn’t hit a roadblock? Facebook still hasn’t said how many Quest headsets it has sold, but according to VR-focused investor and advisor Tipatat Chennavasin, around 20% of the titles sold in the standalone space already have sales in excess of 1 million US dollars achieved.
“I track over 44 titles that are making over $ 1 million and I believe there are ~ 220 titles in the Quest store,” Chennavasin wrote in a direct message.
The world cannot see the moment of VR here yet. Since 2014, billions of dollars and the deaths of Gear VR, Oculus Go, and Rift for Facebook have helped achieve this level of revenue for VR developers. These false starts mean that VR is generally still viewed as a phone holder or a hard-to-set-up wired accessory for a PlayStation or gaming PC.
However, with every Oculus Quest sold, the perception of VR catches up with its reality. These developers’ sales in standalone VR show how compelling VR can be when it’s wireless, self-contained, and free to use as an accessory to your devices nearby. Quest 2 is still an awkward facebrick for sure, but it’s compelling in some ways that previous efforts weren’t.
Facebook’s next goals are likely to be full-color AR passthrough, truly usable, tax-free hand tracking, and the ability to do real work in VR. I don’t think Facebook will take the time to bring Quest 3 or Quest 4 to the world. There is too much reason for Facebook to lose by not speeding up its efforts in VR and AR in every way.
I don’t owe Facebook and its Oculus efforts to bring VR into the mainstream. This credit should go to the combined efforts of the staff at Valve, Sony, Microsoft, Epic, Unity and, yes, Facebook, who have all worked hand in hand with the developers to create the tools necessary to create compelling virtual worlds required are. But I owe Facebook that it’s the first company to prove that VR can stand on its own.
Below is a quote from Hrafn Thorisson, CEO of Aldin Dynamics. The studio makes Waltz of The Wizard – an early room-scale VR game that was one of the first to support Oculus Quest’s hand tracking throughout the title:
“I think the industry should celebrate the excellent progress we’ve made over the past two years. I believe there is a long and exciting road ahead of us – this is still the birth of a new and very expansive computing paradigm. This is more like the beginning of personal computing than the beginning of mobile computing. What the current hardware and software landscape looks like now is likely to change completely in 10 or 20 years. As with the PC, there are still decades of exciting times ahead and there are so many opportunities and industrial leaps to look forward to. “
“Right now it’s important to continue to focus on delivering the highest quality VR to a wider audience in a sustainable manner. This increases overall interest in VR content across all categories of experiences. It empowers the industry in a way that encompasses more competition in space, larger production budgets, and larger volume and quality content for PC and standalone alike. “
“Oculus is great at figuring out what a VR platform looks like to the mainstream. In addition, they are on the verge of making Quest an affordable full spectrum VR / AR headset with good AR passthrough and improved functionality as a generic computing platform. They reduce friction and provide a platform with broad appeal and content that builds a foundation for high quality experiences. For me, this is a very exciting point in the development of VR and AR so far. “
“I am excited to see further advances in delivering a VR / AR platform with a user experience and content choice that people keep getting excited about.”
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