quest 2 (7) — Image courtesy Facebook

Facebook’s Bosworth: Quest 2 Has Outsold All Oculus Headsets Combined

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Mar 30, 2021

During an interview with Bloomberg this week, Facebook Reality Labs VP, Andrew Bosworth, said that Quest 2 has outsold all Oculus headsets combined, a significant milestone for a headset which has only been available for five and a half months.

Andrew Bosworth | Image courtesy Facebook

Adding to a handful of Quest 2 milestones that Facebook has reported in recent months, this week Facebook Reality Labs VP, Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, told Bloomberg reporter Emily Change that he believes Quest 2 is beginning to go beyond an early adopter audience and into the mainstream.

In response to Chang’s question about when VR will begin to see mainstream traction, Bosworth said:

“If you look a little closely, I think it’s starting to happen right now. The fact that Oculus Quest 2—in just a few months on the market—has outsold not just its predecessor, but all of its predecessors combined, is a tremendous indicator that we are now at that point where we have broken through from the early adopter crowd to an increasingly mainstream crowd.”

This is indeed a significant milestone, especially considering that Quest 2 has only been on the market for five and a half months, while the company’s first headset launched five years ago. Here’s a quick timeline of Oculus headsets:

Rift – March 2016
Go – May 2018
Quest & Rift S – May 2019
Quest 2 – October 2020

We’re guessing that Facebook is not including in the calculation Samsung Gear VR—which was an early smartphone-based Samsung VR headset made in collaboration with Oculus—though we’ve reached out to the company for comment.

Meta & Microsoft Partner to Bring Quest Automatic Pairing with Windows 11 PCs Soon, Just Like Vision Pro

Speaking to Bloomberg, Bosworth said that Quest 2’s price point was a significant factor in its growing traction; he said the company’s first VR headset, Rift, had an all-in cost of nearly $2,000 if you count the Touch controllers (which were sold separately for some time) and the PC required to power the headset.

Bosworth also spoke of the wrist-worn XR input device that Facebook is prototyping, saying that the company believes it will be a key input device for future headsets.

Guest

Totally bogus numbers, generated largely from self-purchases with dirty money they got from the last election!
MichelineStewart

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c

This is it folks. The beginning of the inflection point on the exponential curve. As someone who has been on this crazy ride since 2016, I am kind of going to miss VR being niche. But were past the point of no return – as soon as I donned the Vive I never doubted that VR would take off eventually and it is about to happen.

I always thought the name “road to vr” was a reference to the fact that they knew VR would not be mainstream for quite some time. If so, will they have to change it once we’ve reached the destination, and VR headsets begin to outsell gaming monitors?

It’s been real folks – enjoy cozying up to your Indie developers because soon they will all be bought up or hired by major game companies.
- 3872Orcs
  
  Yes the snowball is getting bigger. And I think we’ll see it really increasing in popularity once Apple and Sony release their next headsets.
  
  On the PC side I hope we’ll see a new consumer headset from Valve in the next couple of years.
  
  And all the new headsets need to be wireless from this point on and preferably include eye tracking. It’s time to move on from the first generation of technology and into the next with some brand new features.
  - jimmy
    
    I wish valve could release a 4K per eye vr headset I would like something with human eye resolution, I doubt apple vr headset will work on pc
- jimmy
  
  I agree I too will miss the early era of vr, but I’m happy I was there
  - Martha Guy
    
    Get $193 per h from Google!…~a1436~ Yes this can be best since I simply got my initial payroll check of $24413 and this was just of one week…I am aslo purchased my Mclaren P1 right after this payment…~a1436~ it is really best job I have even had and you will not for~give yourself if you not check it >>>> https://zilo.app/rWUqs ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
- kristofe868
  
  Google officially is currently paying an incredible installment of 179/hour and best thing is every week pay-out…….3247438 No uncommon specifications old enough constraint or specific PC aptitudes with the goal that you may attempt too. You can check your qualification through this.
  
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TechPassion

Use TOR for daily browsing. Let fckrs don’t know you like BMW or search for a new house or you are sick and look for remedy. I think all people should use TOR, to end Big companies stealing your data.
AnneLove

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Amni3D

Sounds about right.

I do want to note, “Rift, had an all-in cost of nearly $2,000” is a total 180 to what they said 3 years ago. They were championing that “you can run the Rift on a budget PC!”, having bundles at half the mentioned price.

Even so, it’s kind of the ideal point in time for them to release. Most consoles do well at launch, it’s all about keeping the momentum with software.
- MeowMix
  
  I do want to note, “Rift, had an all-in cost of nearly $2,000” is a total 180 to what they said 3 years ago. They were championing that “you can run the Rift on a budget PC!”, having bundles at half the mentioned price.
  
  Both are true.
  
  At launch, the Rift package was over $800 (headset $600, Touch $200, 3rd sensor ? $80 + USB cable extensions). And the cost of a VR ready PC in 2016 was $700+. I bought my Rift headset at the end of 2016 when Amazon had a Black Friday 50% off deal ($300); but the full package was too rich for me.
  
  However, during the Summer of Rift (2018), they dropped the full package cost (2 sensor) to $400. And by 2018, ASW matured enough to lower the GPU requirements (GTX 960, RX 470) – min spec VR PC ~$500.
Holdup

Bad news for rift 2, there won’t be a rift 2 or a oculus headset on the pc side, mobile and affordable is the money maker.
- tatazeuz
  
  We already knew that though. As soon as the Quest 2 launched, Oculus said it was over for the Rift line.
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  Oculus already outsourced the Rift S and it was already clear back then Oculus would not be going PC-only headset anymore.. But then again, I’ll bet the Quest 3 has even better PC-VR support than the 2 already has, so less and less need for a PC-only headset (still a shame it didn’t have DP over USB-C). Once you go wireless you don’t want to have the wire anymore..
  - Holdup
    
    Quest only headset will only slow the progress of vr development, now we got to wait till mobile chips are powerful as pc chips for us to get the cutting edge vr features, like foveated rendering, High Fov, eye tracking and good graphic games.
    - Andrew Jakobs
      
      No it won’t slow progress of vr development, it will only increase it, as wireless headset IS the future, and a mobile headset is capable of also functioning as a PC-VR headset. And even mainstream PC’s don’t have the power to fully power even the Quest.
      Yeah you might have a 3080 or something equivalent, but a lot of people don’t, they are hard to come by and way to expensive. And even those have a hard time powering an HP Reverb G2 at full resolution at full 90hz (or 120hz which is ofcourse the next goal). So don’t even think about High FOV, and even eye tracking and foveated rendering aren’t the holy grail.
      Those features will come, but it will take a couple of years before the GPU power is ready to drive it for mainstream.
      Quest mobile headsets will be the headsets to get VR into the mainstream, the sooner you’ll accept that, the less you’ll get annoyed. There will always be ‘highend’ VR, but those headsets will costs a lot of money, and then “you” will also begin to bitch because you want it for $600-$900 max, not $2000+..
      The reason for slow progress is all due to GPU-power and the way too small group of people who would buy a highend headset of $1000+ making it not really interesting for most companies to invest in it.
      - Holdup
        
        I’m not saying they should get rid of the quest line, it’s a great product I got one the same day it came out, what I’m saying is they shouldn’t scrap the high end rift line, they should keep building high end vr for vr enthusiast, with built better strap, ipd adjustment, Fov rendering, higher refresh rate, eye tracking and bigger Fov stuff like that, yea it would be more expensive to produce but there’s still a market for it.
        
        For example song got the pa vita line which is cheaper and mobile but they still have the PlayStation console line for people that want the high end stuff, know what I mean. I don’t have a problem with companies scaling down game graphics to make it work on the quest but when a company purposely make a game low quality from the beginning for mobile chips exclusively stuff like that slow vr progress.
      - Holdup
        
        Bmw got cheap entry level cars for the mainstream, but they also have the high end bmw i8 for the sport car enthusiast that can afford it.
    - MeowMix
      
      Quest only headset will only slow the progress of vr development, now we got to wait till mobile chips are powerful as pc chips for us to get the cutting edge vr features, like foveated rendering, High Fov, eye tracking and good graphic games.
      
      You’re right, PC gaming won’t put pressure on bringing those features to a new Oculus headset; since many of the VR enthusiasts that want these feature buy the majority of their games on STEAM (so no incentive for FB).
      
      However, I do believe we will still get eye tracking, foveated rendering, wireless PC streaming, because of enterprise/business demands and because of competition from Apple (it’s rumored the Apple VR headset will feature rudimentary eye tracking support).
      
      Thus, I’m actually MORE excited for the above scenario since this means VR will go beyond just gaming (which is what many of us want). I’m still very excited for the Infinite Office tools that FRL plans to release for Quest headsets.
- MeowMix
  
  I too used to be angered by them dropping the Rift line, considering I’m an Oculus user since 2016.
  
  But Quest2 + the Link 2.0 updates (500 mbps bitrate, 90hz, 120hz (soon?)), far surpasses the experience the Rift CV1 and RiftS offered me. Since a ‘Link compatible cable’ is not proprietary, a replacement cable is $20-$30, and you don’t have to worry about cables going out of stock (or being discontinued).
  
  I too was a Link skeptic (and for Quest1 it still is very lacking), but the improvements they made for Link on Quest2 shows FB/Oculus is going in the correct direction.
immersion mechanics

Interesting story here about past 5 years

https://tech.fb.com/five-years-of-vr-an-oral-history-from-oculus-rift-to-quest-2/
Kenneth Smith

Earth2 anybody? You have 300,000ish people invested in a thing headed for VR that don’t fit the typical gamer mold. I personally know a dozen individuals invested in the project that had never considered VR beforehand, but y’all still sleepin on it…
Papias

IOI has won the contest. There goes the Oasis.
- jimmy
  
  No affordable vr = no oasis…
  
  I remember in read player one, even unemployed mobile home people could afford standalone vr headset, that won’t happen with 2000$ valve vr kits
Tommy

You’d be surprised how many of us don’t use social platforms.
- Elite-Force_Cinema
  
  http://disq.us/p/2grhzw6
  
  Then what do you want Facebook to do if they end up stopping doing exclusives for the rest of your sad and pathetic life? For them to apologize for their misconduct? For them to go out of business for good? Ahahahahaha kill yourself bro!!! Your kind and rudeness is not welcomed here!!!!
  - Tommy
    
    Lol, who pissed in your Cornflakes?
    Telling people to kill themselves and calling people rude for no reason is, well, rude.
    I want them to make games that are available to a wider audience like the rest of VR devs and ecosystems.
    I don’t want an apology either, not even sure where that came from.
    While we are on the subject of people that are welcome here, maybe you should read the rules of conuct for Disqus and R2VR’s commenting rules.
guest

Yeah, tiktok is worse than Facebook if you knew what they do on your cellphone, but at least they were not using your profile to help gerrymander wicked people into office. They have been selling voter preference profiles to the highest bidders for years. YouTube is much less evil!