Facebook abandons its Oculus Rift S to focus on its autonomous headsets -

geeko

It's official, the Oculus Rift range is extinct.

This is not surprising, because this model did not correspond to the general public and autonomous aspect of VR that the American firm is considering.⁣ ⁣ The headset was marketed in 2019 at an affordable price compared to its competitors (around 399 euros), but it did not work well.

It had been designed to work with a PC.⁣ é Facebook had already aborted the sale of the Rift 2 in 2018. A decision that recalls this new production stop.

The firm prefers to focus on the range of Oculus Quest headsets, more accessible and general public.

The Oculus Quest 2, released this year and marketed from 299 euros, also allows you to play on PC, but above all, independently.

That is to say, without anything other than the headset and its controllers.

Facebook intends to occupy a place in casual gaming against more efficient, but more expensive competitors.

Facebook abandons its Oculus Rift S to focus on its autonomous headsets - geeko

The Oculus Quest range allows you to play in VR without a computer.

ParThe stand-alone helmet bet

The Oculus Quest 2, released in September 2020, has exceeded in five months all sales of Oculus headsets combined so far.

This observation explains Facebook's desire not to renew the Rift range and to allocate more capacity to the development of autonomous headsets that have a greater commercial and use reach.

Moreover, nearly 20% of Facebook employees work in the field of virtual or augmented reality. Facebook had already launched a 100% autonomous and inexpensive headset in 2019, the Oculus GO.

But the functionality it offers were reduced.

If the Quest 2 still runs on PC, it's a safe bet that similar future models will be fully autonomous.


⁣ ⁣


Thanks to its headsets independent of computers, Facebook also intends to impose its own ecosystem on its users.

It should still be remembered that a large part of the firm's income comes from advertisers.

Cannot connect to a Quest headset without connecting your Facebook account to it.

Consequently, the social network will have access to personal data on your uses.

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