In Meta’s most recent quarterly earnings call the company shared the latest revenue figures of Reality Labs, the company’s XR division. In the third quarter of the year the division hit new milestones… unfortunately not the kind investors like to see.

Meta has been clear about its plan to spend aggressively on its XR initiatives over the next several years. So while it isn’t a surprise to see the company’s latest operating costs for Reality Labs reaching an all-time high, seeing that record in the face of an all-time low revenue record for the quarter isn’t a great look.

Meta has only been sharing its Reality Labs revenue and operating cost figures since Q4 2020, so while it’s certain that prior periods had less revenue and potentially even more spending, these new milestones shared for the third quarter of 2022 are as far back as Meta has shared the data (roughly the last two years).

The likely reasons for the lower revenue and higher spending may have to do with timing more than anything. As of Q3 2022, Meta hasn’t launched a new headset in two years. That’s probably meant slowing sales of Quest 2, especially considering the company confirmed work on its next headset a year ago, which may also have slowed sales. Not to mention that the company raised the price of Quest 2 earlier this year. While on its face that should mean more revenue, it also may have reduced demand for the headset.

It won’t be until the Q4 earnings call that we see the impact Quest Pro will have on the Reality Labs bottom line.

SEE ALSO
Quest 2 and Quest Pro are Being Discontinued, Encouraging Wider Adoption of Mixed Reality

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has warned shareholders that the company’s XR investments may not flourish until 2030, but the company still needs to tread carefully to maintain faith among its investors.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
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    I hope “Meta” crashes and burns. I’m tired of this industry being obsessives versus everyone else on earth.

    • ViRGiN

      I hope you fall of the stairs.
      I’m tired of pro-valve shilling, especially from people proven to shill steamvr crap games for months. Your name was XOXOXOXO or something alike, where you shilled every single type of game trying to prove that PCVR is thriving, only to be proven by time that valve does not give a single shit about VR other than selling everything to everyone and charging 30%, which you shamefully admitted before departing Reddit.

      • Disagree about Valve not caring about VR.
        Tyler McVicker also makes that same mistake.
        But you being a very smart guy, you’re much better than that.
        And I’m being sincere: no sarcasm or smokeblowing.

        Valve very much cares about it: Newell has said on more than occasion
        that Valve does now and will continue to invest HEAVILY in virtual reality.
        Plus of course, Deckard …. lol

        • ViRGiN

          i don’t care what anyone says. i care about what they do.
          valve has done literally nothing other han hosting files on their store.
          they recently breached 30 million concurrent users on steam.

          imagine what they could have done with revenue made through steam in 24 hours back to developers.
          they don’t.
          deckard is to many what pimax was to early adopter elitists.

          • Cless

            Jesus man, you are making me agree with @CaryMGVR:disqus , you know how WEIRD that feels!?

          • ViRGiN

            so you agree with carymgvr “Disagree about Valve not caring about VR” with zero evidence regarding it outside of some nerds reading between lines in tiniest steamvr update and some random patents? That’s the evidence that valve is working on vr and care about it?
            That’s crazy. And so is carymgvr complete respect for valve of their vr efforts.

          • Cless

            I mean… A company that doesn’t care about VR doesn’t make a VR headset and VR game to go with it… Could they be doing better and more? Sure, but this is Valve, they are like, the most obscure company. If you want to even call them that, they don’t work like any regular company, they are like a bunch of separated independent teams that work in separated stuff under the same umbrella, and without a clear boss.
            So most likely they are spending a lot of time and man hours into VR, but not all RND produces products or visible stuff, just like we have no clue of what the Quest 3 will be or what crazy stuff Meta is working in their RND labs…

          • ViRGiN

            > A company that doesn’t care about VR doesn’t make a VR headset and VR game to go with it
            Let’s extrapolate it further.

            Nintendo cares about VR. First the Virtual Boy, then Labo. Bunch of games made for the headsets. Doesn’t matter that it was years ago. They care.

            The working at valve style is overglorified series of rumours and half truths. Is that like supposed to justify why and what they are doing

          • Cless

            I mean, nintendo is not currently selling a VR headset, while Valve is… Nintendo does care more about VR than they let the public know though, not commenting further there @-@
            And I brought up the workings of valve precisely to specify how messed up their communication is. Sometimes one team will be working on something and be 100% out of sync with another team working with something that is supposed to come out together to it.
            So again, they are spending lots of money into it, don’t doubt that. How much will that reach us eventually? Well, we will see about that later.

          • ViRGiN

            Excuse me?
            Being able to use existing extremely successfull and highly popular handheld console that can double as a VR headset is a big win-win for everyone. How is that a bad thing? You can play such smash-hits like Super Mario Odyssey, Zelda Breath of the Wild, Super Smash Bros, or the innovative Captain Toad. Games universally loved and highly rated. Triple AAA one might say for their genres. And somehow that is a bad thing?

            Does Nintendo sell directly to customers? I dont see an option to buy Switch itself on official website. Labo is available in bunch of big retail stores and online shops. Even Amazon sells it.

            Yeah sorry but if you want to use an example of existence a single headset released over 3 years ago and a single game released over 2.5 years ago as an evidence of valve carrying about VR, then Labo is evidence of Nintendo doing the same, and even beeing way more innovative with how people can interact in VR, and having a solid quality library (more than one) of games. Could they have done more? Yeah, why couldn’t?

            Who knows? Maybe Valve will go Nintendo route and make a headset that you can use your highly successfull and popular Steam Deck? Again doubling the functionality. Hell, I would get such a headset.

          • Cless

            I don’t know why I never got a notification for this message, just happened to see it now!

            Being able to use existing extremely successfull and highly popular handheld console that can double as a VR headset is a big win-win for everyone. How is that a bad thing?

            I never said it was a bad thing though…? I just said that Nintendo seems more interested than it actually shows, which might tell you something about what they might be doing behind closed doors.

            If you want, you can call the Switch a VR headset, since it does have that functionality indeed with its cardboard headmount, but that is the main difference. The Switch is a portable console FIRST, and then happens to have a cardboard addon which makes some VR functions available. Sure, we can call it a VR headset, but then my obscure chinese brand phone from 2012 running Android 4 is also a full-fledged VR developer, because their phone is compatible with Google Cardboard!
            On the other hand, we have Valve, that has been investing money and time into VR since quite early, has helped creating the HTC Vive and its tracking system, and later on went to produce and sell their own specific VR headset, which they still sell in their store and retail stores around the world.

            It really does not matter how much money they are potentially spending behind the scenes. Why would that even matter to me?

            It does, and it should. Since you do the same fucking argument about Facebook investing millions in VR all the goddamn time. So you can’t say Facebook yes, Valve no in this regard mate.

            But that won’t change the fact that until then, they do not care about VR which is seen by their lack of any actions.

            This is such a backwards fucking ridiculous way of thinking. Okay, I guess Sony R&D doesn’t give a flying fuck about the gaming market until they prove 5 or 6 years down the line that the money they spent produced a new Sony product, and then they again start not giving a shit until 5 or 6 years down the line when they do so again.
            Come one dude, this is fucking ridiculous. You don’t have to give credit to Valve about anything that they haven’t done, the problem here is you claiming that they aren’t doing shit, when there are signs that they clearly are, even if its of course, behind closed doors.

            Gabe Newell giving a speech at college to a bunch of random students “confirming” work on new headsetS (!) again means nothing to me.

            I don’t remember you saying the same thing about Zuck when he was talking about the Meta pro… huh… double standards, have you heard of them? And yeah, Gabe saying they are working on something doesn’t fucking equal to announcing a product, who the hell is saying that? Just like we have known about Project Cambria for fucking yeeeears already.

          • ViRGiN

            > Valve, that has been investing money and time into VR since quite early, has helped creating the HTC Vive and its tracking system, and later on went to produce and sell their own specific VR headset, which they still sell in their store and retail stores around the world.
            More pro-valve propaganda? What they have been investing to? Who did they help? They needed HTC, not the other way around. Index was never sold by valve in retail stores around the world. Heck, its not even available on steam in many parts of the world!

            > Since you do the same fucking argument about Facebook investing millions in VR all the goddamn time. So you can’t say Facebook yes, Valve no in this regard mate.
            When did i say that you fucking idiot? Stop projecting again. Meta constantly proves itself with actual products and features. Never have i ever said “wait for XYZ, they spent billions on it”. And yet while diksucking valve, you have zero idea even about their scale of investment. Maybe it was 50’000 dollars. You can’t disprove it.

            I don’t remember being able to develop VR content on valve-branded vr headsets, but sure as hell i remember putting one back in 2012 from oculus, and having it at home in 2013, with new iteration a year later.
            So how early valve was investing money into VR? LOL!

            > This is such a backwards fucking ridiculous way of thinking.
            Holy fuck, you are master of cringe. Sony does actually do something with VR instead of JUST talking about it like valve.
            Holy shit, you are really mental.

            > there are signs that they clearly are
            sadleyitsbradley worshipping much?

            > I don’t remember you saying the same thing about Zuck when he was talking about the Meta pro… huh… double standards, have you heard of them? And yeah, Gabe saying they are working on something doesn’t fucking equal to announcing a product, who the hell is saying that? Just like we have known about Project Cambria for fucking yeeeears already.
            What? You don’t remember, yet you even missed this comment for 10 days. How many other comments have you never read?
            What i was supposed to say about quest pro? LOL. You are getting triggered. We’ve had Oculus DK1, DK2, CV1, GO, Quest 1, Rift S, Quest 2, now Pro. With valve? Nothing, then valve index and again nothing. BUT SURE THEY ARE WORKING, JUST WAIT FOR IT. Might take 2 years, might take 20 years. But in 20 years you will be able to say I TOLD YOU SO!

            It’s been 12,185 days since valve index release. Cope harder!

          • Cless

            More pro-valve propaganda?

            Dude, check your brain, it ain’t right.

            They needed HTC, not the other way around

            True, I wrote that wrong. HTC needed a way to track shit around, and Valve needed someone with the know how of making hardware, since they did (and still kind of) suck at it.

            which they still sell in their store and retail stores around the world.

            Literally the easiest way to get it here in the whole of Japan, is by retail store, more proof that you’re full of shit.

            Never have i ever said “wait for XYZ, they spent billions on it”.

            Shit, really? Apologies in that regard then. You literally say so many insane shit, that it just sounded like something you already said. Probably it was somebody else around here saying it and because it was batshit crazy, I just pinned it on you.

            And yet while diksucking valve, you have zero idea even about their scale of investment. Maybe it was 50’000 dollars. You can’t disprove it.

            Let me tell you a secret, it isn’t 50k, its probably more than you and I together will ever earn in our lifetime ;)

            And again, its funny you keep saying that I’m projecting on you, when I literally I don’t even own an Index, literally have been trashing it since day one, telling people to not buy it because it overpriced, that has shitty LCD displays that aren’t worth it and neither do I have a Steam deck. But yeah, I’m a “Valve fanatic”.
            No dude, I’m just defending them from your ridiculous Facebook Zealotry, because you keep throwing shit arguments that are just flat out untrue.

            I don’t remember being able to develop VR content on valve-branded vr headsets, but sure as hell i remember putting one back in 2012 from oculus, and having it at home in 2013, with new iteration a year later.
            So how early valve was investing money into VR? LOL!

            If I remember properly, their TF2 VR demo came out in early 2013, so since those things take a couple months to do, I would argue since 2012? You can literally google this shit, its not a fucking secret, I’m sure you can find even old articles here about it.
            (Hey, pssst! Check their prototypes, somehow, they looked almost exactly as the HTC Vive… its almost like… the only thing they needed from HTC was some feedback and the actual fabriaction methods for worldwide distribution and fab construction while they were focusing on VR R&D O: )

            So yeah, I would call that early, Facebook wasn’t even in the game yet, not until 2014 at least if memory doesn’t fail me.

            Holy fuck, you are master of cringe. Sony does actually do something with VR instead of JUST talking about it like valve..

            Please, describe the difference. And please, tell me how you know better than literally the people I talk to that made the damn thing, and then developed for it.

            sadleyitsbradley worshipping much?

            Who the fuck is that even?
            The fact that any company invests into VR development, should make you happy, the more money in the industry, the more money comes in. At least that is as long as the market is growing, and VR has decades in front of it to grow.

            What? You don’t remember, yet you even missed this comment for 10 days.

            I missed this comment most likely because we had a different thread on the same fucking article, moron, I started apologizing for it, which is better than half the times you just ditch when you run out of arguments or are proven wrong.

            We’ve had Oculus DK1, DK2, CV1, GO, Quest 1, Rift S, Quest 2, now Pro. With valve? Nothing, then valve index and again nothing. BUT SURE THEY ARE WORKING, JUST WAIT FOR IT. Might take 2 years, might take 20 years. But in 20 years you will be able to say I TOLD YOU SO!

            Uhh… yeah. That’s how this things work. You need to fucking get your shit together man. First of all, Valve has released the HTC Vive and the Index. Second, are you fucking dumb? No, like, seriously. Are you comparing one of the (former) biggest tech companies in the world, to fucking Valve? Of fucking course they can throw more money at it to create more headsets, even if they lose money when doing it.
            Still, its not like it matters anything, because by your own fucking admission, Sony does care about VR, yet their last headset was 6 years ago.
            Damn, that’s half the number of headsets than Valve! Their team is also bigger by an order of magnitude than Valve’s! They must suck so bad and not care about it at all!!

            Again, your arguments are trash man. And again, to answer the last line, I don’t give a shit how long its been, these things take time.

          • ViRGiN

            > Literally the easiest way to get it here in the whole of Japan, is by retail store, more proof that you’re full of shit.
            That’s not official distribution.

            > Let me tell you a secret, it isn’t 50k, its probably more than you and I together will ever earn in our lifetime ;)
            I hope your right! But until they open their mouth, and commit to actually releasing it, again, it means nothing. Nothing.

            > If I remember properly, their TF2 VR demo came out in early 2013, so since those things take a couple months to do, I would argue since 2012? You can literally google this shit, its not a fucking secret, I’m sure you can find even old articles here about it.
            That’s like saying ID Software was working on VR, because John Carmack had Doom 3 working in VR.
            Not being able to play TF2 VR (it wasn’t a demo, it was a full game ported btw) for nearly a decade now, again just shows them not being commited to VR.

            > (Hey, pssst! Check their prototypes, somehow, they looked almost exactly as the HTC Vive… its almost like… the only thing they needed from HTC was some feedback and the actual fabriaction methods for worldwide distribution and fab construction while they were focusing on VR R&D O: )
            Yeah no shit, Newell got batshit jealous when Palmer became a billionaire overnight by selling to Facebook, and that’s when they quickly partnered with HTC, making Vive Pre. Before that, Valve prototypes did not even have a shellcase.
            I also don’t remember HTC Vive having any Valve branding. When I look up the box now, it just says SteamVR powered. That does not make it a Valve product. Just like Samsung Gear VR was powered by Oculus, it wasn’t made by then Oculus itself.

            > Please, describe the difference. And please, tell me how you know better than literally the people I talk to that made the damn thing, and then developed for it.
            For one, we got PSVR1 adapter to use with PS5. So a product supported well past launch date.

            > Who the fuck is that even?
            Some weeb who “leaks” stuff and is wrong 9 out of 10 times. Literally everything “known” on the internet about anything Valve VR “upcoming” projects is thanks to him. So if you believe in Deckard existence, he is the source.

            > The fact that any company invests into VR development, should make you happy, the more money in the industry, the more money comes in. At least that is as long as the market is growing, and VR has decades in front of it to grow.
            Which companies are these? I don’t see any serious commitments.

            > I missed this comment most likely because we had a different thread on the same fucking article, moron, I started apologizing for it, which is better than half the times you just ditch when you run out of arguments or are proven wrong.
            No need to apologize, and pro tip – visit disqus website for all notifications.

            > Uhh… yeah. That’s how this things work. You need to fucking get your shit together man. First of all, Valve has released the HTC Vive and the Index. Second, are you fucking dumb? No, like, seriously. Are you comparing one of the (former) biggest tech companies in the world, to fucking Valve? Of fucking course they can throw more money at it to create more headsets, even if they lose money when doing it.
            HTC released HTC Vive. Again, it says POWERED BY STEAMVR on the box. Oculus Rift S had Oculus branding all over, with small Lenovo logo on the side cause they own the patent to Halo design and they manufactured it apparently. Saying it’s a Lenovo headset would be as wrong as calling HTC Vive a Valve product.

            >Still, its not like it matters anything, because by your own fucking admission, Sony does care about VR, yet their last headset was 6 years ago.
            Other than headset, they released bunch of accessories and sponsored a bunch of games. What did Valve do? Besides this is console ecosystem. Things work differently, you know? If Valve kept sponsoring development (actually started) of games and software, and making their own games outside of tech demo and corridor simulator, I would have no right to say they don’t do anything. But Valve really does not do anything other than selling other people products in their own store.

            > Damn, that’s half the number of headsets than Valve! Their team is also bigger by an order of magnitude than Valve’s! They must suck so bad and not care about it at all!!
            Well, that’s Valve being cheap and having no organization at work.

            > Again, your arguments are trash man. And again, to answer the last line, I don’t give a shit how long its been, these things take time.
            Well, you don’t. But if it takes 20 years, it meant it took 20 years, not that they worked on stuff for 20 years. Who knows, maybe they are struggling to keep the price under 5000 dollars. Maybe they have already shelved everything they did till now and start from scratch.

      • Cless

        Again, how is wanting Meta to crash and burn anywhere related to valve or steamvr? I actually had to check this wasn’t the impostor saying absolute nonsense again man, think twice before writing man.

        • ViRGiN

          maybe if you knew this guy history you would know what he was saying before.
          but yeah if you take this single comment only there is no connection to valve or steamvr.

          but that’s all there is to it. disappointment that his favorite brand is not doing anything for vr, and in his little mind, it’s all because of meta dominance and not valve laziness.

          • Cless

            Oh! I thought it was like a today and yesterday thing, not an ongoing issue, so I though I had read everything he posted

    • ViRGiN

      PS: I know that my IQ goes only as far as my IPD (in inches), I know that I am meaner than a sewer rat, but after all my money disappeared with bitcoin, I invested in Meta, and now it’s worth a third of my investment. So stop saying bad things about them!

      • ViRGiN

        no life impersonator, valve extremist

        • Cless

          I mean, they are impersonating you but… you keep calling them “valve extremist” and I have yet to see them even comment about valve once…?

          • ViRGiN

            i know who that person is.

          • Cless

            Oh shit, I’m curious, who is it? lol

          • ViRGiN

            Who is it ???

          • ViRGiN

            It’s you.

          • ViRGiN

            Wow. Lame. Good boy, here is a dollars and go get some candies, and brush your teeth after!

          • ViRGiN

            Talk to the hand.

    • NL_VR

      why?
      Even if they crash and burn they made people want more VR

      • Ad

        Imagine for a second that other people exist on this planet with other things they care about.

        • ViRGiN

          fall off the stairs already, do humanity a favor

        • NL_VR

          Funny, no answer. im guessing you are an American. And that other people in the world with other things to care about, you find verry exotic.

  • Major stockmarket players should know good & well you gotta play the long game.
    “Pump & Dump”-ers, daytraders, etc., etc. need not apply.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    Corporate Businessman: The shareholders won’t be happy.

    Nolan Sorrento: It’s not our job to make them happy. It’s our job to make them money, but once we launch this little baby, they’re gonna *flip*. We call this Pure O2. This is the first of our planned upgrades. Once we can roll back some of Halliday’s ad restrictions, we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual’s visual field before inducing seizures, so picture this…

    IOI Board Member: All of this implies we win the contest.

    Nolan Sorrento: Indeed, it does.

    The problem with betting the company on the metaverse is that there is no guarantee that you will win that bet. I actually agree with at least parts of Meta’s vision and what they have achieved and still present esp. for low cost consumer devices is impressive. But the adaption of VR happens rather obviously much slower than they anticipated, opening the field to new competitors, as Meta hasn’t managed to capture even a small part of the potential customers. 15mn Quest 2 make them the current undisputed king of the ant hill, but peanuts compared to 200mn iPhones Apple sells each year.

    Worst of all they so far failed to impress in the area where we should expect them to be very strong: social VR. Nobody doubted that this was where Facebook were heading when they bought Oculus in 2014, but eight years later all they have to show for is a series of released and then shut down social meeting spaces, some of which were actually usable and removed without offering the same features somewhere else. So not only did they fail to show and follow a somewhat consistent strategy, they managed to lose a lot of trust among those that actually used their offering. So now we have Horizon World with a few hundred thousand users, still only open to some users, with very unattractive fees for content creators and nowhere as popular as VRChat of Rec Room.

    And the latest rumors say that Apple will release a new version of their popular Messages app alongside their XR HMD in 2023, with iPhones gaining AR features, chat rooms, video clips and a “home view”, and the HMD getting a Messages client fully integrated with the iPhones. iMessage has around 1.2bn monthly users and would provide them with an instant use case for casual users not even interested in VR or gaming to still buy the HMD. Conceptually similar to what Meta is trying, but from a much better start position.

    • Dave

      While the premise of your post is correct. The criticism based on the time period is completely unfair. 15 million Quests sold compared to 200 million iPhones is very impressive. iPhones and smartphones in general have become a nessessity, when they first appeared it was like “all I really need is the phone calling capability” now that’s not true at all. I don’t think VR will ever achieve that demand. Only AR has that potential and as we all know the technology for AR has decades of development to go before it gets close to mainstream but I believe it will get there as the benefits will be obvious when it’s available like the smartphone.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        This wasn’t criticism regarding Meta’s sales talent. The 15mn Quest 2 (~18mn with Quest 1, Go, Rift, Rift S) in comparison to 200mn iPhones per year (~2.2bn total) is relevant for market saturation. Current estimates for global smartphone numbers are around 6bn out of around 7bn mobile phones total, with a lot of people owning more than one. The high market penetration means that it would be harder for someone new to enter the market, as many of the potential buyers already have a device.

        I agree that AR is the technology with market mass appeal and decades away. VR is only of interest for a much smaller group, currently pretty much limited to gaming, and with a rather stable 2% usage share on Steam not even particular popular among gamers. That isn’t Meta’s fault, this is due to the (both current and longterm inherent) limits of the technology. But this leaves the vast amount of the XR market completely untapped, meaning the dominant position Meta currently holds in no way guarantees to give them a significant longterm advantage.

        My post was about the danger that Meta’s metaverse bet will not work out, and for that it isn’t really relevant whether they are the current leader in marketshare for the limited VR part, what counts is their future share in the expected much larger XR market. I’d say that Meta is full aware of that, which is why all their recent moves were less about VR gaming and more about social VR, VR conferencing and productivity, which are more relevant to those potential new users they are trying to reach. And Apple is going for those too from another direction, adding more and more AR features to their 200mn/year iPhones and most likely tightly integrating their upcoming XR HMD with these.

  • What I’m fuzzy on is just WHAT they’ve been spending all of this money on? The advertisements seem lackluster. They haven’t been milling out 1st-party, AAA game titles, which would REALLY help move units. I know there’s a loss on the hardware, but is that 90% of this loss?

    And before you jump in and say “YES!”, what do you really know about the operating expenses? Site your sources!

    I think their advertising has been crap. I think their promotions are mostly wasteful. And the lack effort in acquiring 1st party, AAA titles has been shameful. Like Palmer Luckey said, it’s not the hardware that’s holding VR back, it’s the software.

    If proponents of VR are still rolling out that sad, musical, box smacking game every time they talk about VR, then there’s really nothing to see. Bonelabs is neat, but it’s not really AAA game material. I’ve been playing SpaceFolk City and Zero Caliber. Neither of those are AAA games either.

    • ViRGiN

      You invest billion today, you reap benefits years later down the line.

      Like Palmer Luckey said, VR needs games built from the ground up, not ported. And this is the result. No profit to be made when you have to made games from scratch. And yet it turns out the best VR has to offer are ports of older games. Palmer Luckey was nothing more than a cancer to VR. Glad to see him gone.

      • Sven

        24 of the top 25 games on the Quest store’s Top Selling list were built for VR from the ground up, and 25 of 25 on the Most Popular list.

        • ViRGiN

          Hard not to have games from ground up not be in top selling list, when there are next to no ports from flat gaming.
          And that in return is hugely responsible why so many headsets, Quest or not, are pretty quick to gather dust. Carmack talked about this.

          I’m hearing constantly that Flat2VR community is keeping PCVR on life support lol.

          • Sven

            I like ports from flat gaming but I’d expect the best VR has to offer to be able to make it into the top 25 most popular or top 10 best selling.

            At least PCVR has a ton more of “the best VR has to offer” compared to standalone.

          • ViRGiN

            And Resident Evil 4 is up there in the top seller list. First true really good VR port even though it had it’s quirks. I don’t recall many other ports at all, maybe some puzzle/logic games and that was rather for steamvr.

            Skyrim or Fallout were released early in VR cycle and everyone can agree, not a good experience, especially now, it is outdated, and requires tons of mods which isn’t exactly welcoming to users. And those titles are rather low on the list, I don’t feel like counting since it’s all mixed with games that has VR support and are likely used in extreme small percentage of percentage with VR anyway. Top selling game right now with VR support on Steam is F1 22. Yet it’s not exactly a popular VR title.

          • Sven

            Not in the top 10 though, or the top 25 most popular.

            While it’s true that there are many, many more official VR ports on PC (Skyrim and Fallout are a tiny fraction of them), the other advantage is that many more games have unofficial VR mods. Games like The Outer Wilds VR have better VR implementations than most official ports.

          • ViRGiN

            No, not in top 10 right now. It’s at #11. Who decided what’s top? Why it’s not top 5 or top 25?

            #1 Bonelab – very recent game
            #2 Among Us – isn’t even released yet
            #3 NFL Pro Era – surprises me cause i never hear anything about it
            #4 Blade and Sorcery
            #5 Beat Saber
            #6 Job Simulator
            #7 Superhot
            #8 Contractors
            #9 Walking Dead
            #10 Thrill of the Fight
            #11 Resident Evil 4

            RE4 was the fastest selling game for long time.It’s also not a game for everyone, so naturally it drops in sold copies. It’s #29 in most popular titles. #21 if you exclude free games.

          • Sven

            Which shows ports are the best VR has to offer?

          • ViRGiN

            RE4, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Quake 1/2/3, RTCW, Alien Isolation (but no 6DOF), many people praise the recent Resident Evils.

          • Sven

            While I haven’t tried them myself yet I’ve also heard good things about Resident Evil 7 and 8 and the remakes of RE2 and RE3 with motion controls on PC VR via Praydog’s mods. Hope PSVR2 will bring some good ports in addition to RE4/RE8.

            I agree that VR ports can be great, I just think reality shows there can also be huge benefits in building games for VR from the ground up.

          • ViRGiN

            Yes, of course, games built from the ground up has potential to be superior, but there is a massive difference of crafting everything from the scratch, instead of recycling the old content and just reworking the mechanics. Yeah easier said than done, but all ports were done pretty much by single developers in their free time, for free.

            I can imagine that there are a lot of licensing issues and all sorts of deals where almost everyone involved wouldn’t mind releasing a VR version, but everyone wants their piece of cake too. Voice actors, modellers, musicians etc.

      • Dave

        Palmer Luckey brought us the Oculus CV1, the direction Oculus was going in I fully subscribed to. The demise of AAA PCVR started before it got going when Facebook took over and moved in a different direction. At the time no one did more to champoin VR, he gave a damn when others didn’t.

        • ViRGiN

          ViRGiN a few seconds ago
          btch please. cv1 released as pcvr headset long after facebook acquisition, it was a pcvr only headset and entire company direction and yet you’re telling me they moved in a different one?
          they diversified and supported multiple products at once.
          palmer luckey is a fat racist, with his about billion dollars worth of wealth all he is ever doing is working on killing machines driven by AI. he does not give a damn about VR. he never did. he said himself that facebook acquisition was the best thing to happen to vr, and he said it again years later. you’re just butthurt your pcvr is a boring machine and can’t imagine putting the blame onto real villain here – VALVE/STEAM.

          how can you argue about that? CV1 did not launch with controllers, and had front-facing tracking only. HTC Vive released before Rift, had full room scale and 6DOF controllers. and you’re saying others didn’t give a damn?

          dude you have some serious luckey-fetish and look at the entire history through rose tinted glasses. i’m still waiting for my READY RIFT ONE FREE AUDIO FIX KIT that he promised personally to send to everyone who followed his guide. you had news about it all over the world. he designed it in few hours. haven’t shipped anything for nearly 4 years now! never spoke about it either. that game shall be forever forgotten.

          • Dave

            Your right about Palmer Luckey, he definately had some questionable political motives but I stand by what he did for VR and at the time his passion was there for all to see. I am dissappointed by the direction Facebook/Meta took moving away from PCVR, but I also appreciate what they did was probably correct for mass market adoption. I just can’t get my head around the fact that the Play Station Virtual Reality 2 headset is the premium platform for high fidelity VR when it comes to the number of new titles. PCVR is pretty much dead.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      I know there’s a loss on the hardware, but is that 90% of this loss?

      Obviously not. Most of the 15mn Quest 2 were sold at USD 299. If instead they had given them away for free, this would have decreased revenue by USD ~4.5bn. So to incur a loss of 90%/USD 9bn from hardware alone, each Quest 2 given away would have to have cost USD 600 to produce.

      Since they weren’t given away, the Quest 2 would actually have to cost USD 900 to produce, while estimates point to manufacturing costs closer to USD 350, so the loss from subsidizing the HMD would be more around USD 0.75bn, split over two years, while the USD 10bn were spent in 2021 alone. There are of course some added costs for marketing, service, distribution etc., but all in all the Quest 2 should be responsible for only a small part of the loss.

  • Sven

    I genuinely doubt any commenter on this site has mentioned Valve nearly as many times as you have. Cutting back on that might help to prevent people from getting the wrong impression.

  • Alexander Sears

    ViRGiN’s struggle with their impersonator keeps me comin’ back.
    That and Christian Schildwaechter’s insights.