With the revelation of Quest 2, Facebook has quietly knocked down the entry price for its business-focused version of the headset.

Facebook only just made its Oculus for Business program openly available back in May, which basically let anyone buy a business-focused 128GB version of the original Quest for $1,000. That’s double the price of the consumer version, but that comes along with specialized software, licenses, and support for enterprises.

Now less than four months later, Facebook has brought the entry price down to $800, which now includes the 256GB version of Quest 2—again, at double the price of the same storage option available to consumers.

Like with the original $1,000 Quest for Business, this comes along with the need to sign up for a subscription to the company’s enterprise-grade software and support, which is renewable annually for $180 per year—first year included with purchase. That includes backend management software so a company can manage a fleet of Quest headsets with things such as deploying and updating apps, managing settings, and monitoring headset status.

In addition to the new hardware, Facebook has assembled a fleet of independent software vendors (ISVs) specializing in areas such as 3D modeling, product design, employee training, data visualization, and remote work applications—all of the sort of fields enterprises may look to address with an immersive headset.

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Facebook Lays Out the Future of Work and Productivity on Quest

It seems with the entry of Quest 2, Facebook is renewing focus on the platform’s potential use as a work and productivity tool. The company announced the release of Infinite Office, a collection of software tools which may make working in VR easier and more natural, with things such as variable Passthrough and support for a mixed reality keyboard of sorts, which lets you see and type normally while in VR.

Whether Infinite Office makes its way to the Business (with a capital ‘B’) version of the headset or not, it’s clear Facebook is pursuing enterprise applications for its platform with a hardened resolve that, if its competition doesn’t watch out, may make a Facebook-built headset the only logical choice for companies looking for a VR solution in the near term.

Thanks to Antony Vitillo of VR/AR publication Skarred Ghost for pointing us to the news.

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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.
  • Jan Ciger

    Um, just came from a meeting where a very large client (35k staff worldwide) has decided to abandon their Quest project and switch to Pico Neo 2.

    1000 bucks + annual subscription for each HMD + mandatory Facebook being involved in any capacity is simply a NO GO for companies.

    Companies aren’t stupid and if vendors keep treating them like milking cows and charging inflated prices for things that are either of no interest or simply because “enterprise”, they are going to have hard time to sell.

    Lowering the price to $800 really isn’t going to fix that.

    • Totally agree: Pico and HTC are still better in the enterprise stage. But I’m curious to see the Oculus For Business evolutions in the upcoming months…

      • Joey Sfb

        When Quest 2 becomes an overwhelming success especially the infinite office. Microsoft will be kicking themselves and spending billons to play catch up again.

        Microsoft VR/AR Office anyone.

        Facebook putting an XR2 chip then selling it for $299 show the levels of loss they are willing to take to break into the mass market.

        • indi01

          That’s what I thought as well. It seems the only ones that have a platform remotely reminiscent of what facebook is trying to do is them. Such a shame they seem to have almost 0 commitment.

    • Master E

      I love what FB is doing for VR

      EXCEPT

      That it’s Facebook

      And my #1 problem with getting a quest 2 is the tie ins to FB. I just can’t stand that level of social media and their blatant invasiveness and privacy hiccups. I personally play games to escape the social side of things because that’s all I do every day. Don’t want to be forced into it in any aspect. Especially a company that’s had obvious issues with privacy.

      I can only hope a competitor busts out an equally impressive stand alone headset with hopefully a 120* + fov.

    • Yup, this. My company is a 30 year-old industrial training company that’s been doing VR training for about 4 years, using exclusively Oculus equipment (Rift CV1 and Go, specifically) but their new business practices have made them too toxic for us, and we’re dropping all Oculus products to go with the Vive Focus +. Now I’m a tech guy, and I hate all the business bureaucratic bullshit. I love my Quest and the new one is a wonder. It pisses me off that we’re completely changing our development path and using a VASTLY inferior product because of that. F#%king annoying.

  • Yay, thanks for the mention, Scott!

  • SKD007

    So now business are ready to be spied by Facebook on how they do business and all their critical details.. lol man business owners are heartless but I don’t think they are brainless too..

    • Lucidfeuer

      They’re not, well not all of them: first of, VR/AR Headsets investment is just a tech detax fraud scheme (a legal one so you can call that “financial optimisation”), they don’t actually use if not for fun at first before they end at home and on dusty shelves.

      But I’ll put something in very simple terms that I don’t think I had heard of before: the IQ of people working in companies if cascading down. The more time goes the more companies are hiring dumber and dumber people under the guise that they have the right network/entry, references as in name-dropping, etiquette or ethnic/color/name.

      So it’s very possible that as we speak, you really have lots of start-up, medium-sie companie and corporations that are giving away their private contractual, strategic, legal or technological data to other companies for free without even realising it or worse…even having a problem with it.

  • Rupert Jung

    Wish they would release a Pro version with a PSVR-style halo strap and integrated off-ear audio along with a counterweight-battery.