Facebook today announced that a prototype version of OpenXR, the royalty-free open standard from The Khronos Group, will be available to Oculus Quest and Rift developers in an update coming later this month.

OpenXR is a work-in-progress standard that aims to unify the underlying connections between VR and AR hardware, game engines, and content, making for a more interoperable ecosystem.

This essentially means that any app created for one OpenXR headset should technically be able to run on an entirely different OpenXR headset with zero changes to the underlying code.

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Oculus Rift and Rift S developers have already had preliminary access to OpenXR since late last year via that platform’s Public Test Channel, UploadVR notes.

Bringing Quest into the fold via prototype support for OpenXR potentially opens up that platform to a greater number of games, apps, and experiences, provided they can not only squeeze onto the standalone headset’s modest Snapdraon 835 chipset and make it past Oculus’ strict content selection process.

Facebook has published a developer blog post, noting that both the Oculus PC and Mobile SDKs will include the resources necessary to use the Prototype OpenXR API for native C/C++ development of Oculus Rift Platform apps and Android apps for Oculus Quest respectively.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Adrian Meredith

    Its great to see oculus slowly roll back their initial closed market approach

    • MeowMix

      Yes; Oculus has probably been the biggest proponent for OpenXR, considering the OpenXR project is based on donated Oculus software.
      Now we just need Valve to also release their finalized OpenXR tools to developers.

      • DonMac

        Interested to hear what donated Oculus software you are referring to? As I was under the impression that it was ‘from the ground up’ framework in collaboration with all the Khronos group.
        Do you have any links or sources ?

        • MeowMix

          The Khronos OpenXR GDC talks/videos. I believe the 2019 talks make reference (the 2018 talks might). I would provide the YouTube link, but you can’t do links on Disqus.
          I believe the reasoning it was chosen over others was because the Oculus software is coded for both PC and mobile (android).

          • DonMac

            Thank you, I’ll have a look. I really do believe that open frameworks and standards drive progress and end user choice.
            Less friction for devs means more distribution at lower dev costs.
            Then as Kontis said it’s just getting past the politics and bull$hit.

      • kontis

        Embrace, extend, and extinguish

    • kontis

      Don’t be naive.
      This is for making development of games easier. it’s more dev oriented than consumer oriented move. They can still lock everything like before.

      This decision to join OpenXR also happened when Rift CV1 was still a bit too expensive and was selling 2x fewer units than Vive. It was the worst selling VR platform (PSVR was no 1), which was a huge wake up call for Facebook (they thought Oculus would be initially unrivaled due to a huge word of mouth and DK1/2 being super viral with great community).
      In other words: good thing Valve kicked their a**es in the early days of consumer VR or they would probably never join this initiative. This is better than nothing.

      Palmer was heavily pushing to allow Vive and other headsets to Oculus Store and it was a serious project, but then he was fired, so… don’t expect this to ever happen.

    • James Cobalt

      @kontis:disqus said it all – this has nothing to do with market approach; it merely makes it easier for developers. Now devs only have to get their game engines in accordance with the OpenXR spec rather than each individual manufacturer’s spec. There is nothing in the OpenXR specification to prevent content lock-in. OpenXR solves an efficiency problem facing developers, not the fractured ecosystem problem facing consumers.

      That said, consumers may benefit in a trickle-down manner since it becomes a bit easier for devs to support multiple platforms – if they choose… or are allowed…