Bad news for Oculus Go owners. Facebook is dropping support for the VR headset.
The company is preparing to halt sales of the Oculus Go—its $149 entry-level product—in order to focus on developing more powerful VR headsets.
In a Tuesday blog post, Facebook cited the growing success of the Oculus Quest, a $399 standalone VR headset it launched last year. The product features built-in tracking and six degrees of freedom (6DOF), enabling you to fully walk around and immerse yourself in the VR environment.
“The community response has been overwhelmingly positive, and you’ve told us loud and clear that 6DOF feels like the future of VR,” the company wrote.
The Oculus Go, on the other hand, only offers three degrees of freedom (3DOF). You can look up and down, and left to right, enabling you to view 360-degree panoramic images or videos. However, the VR experience keeps you largely tied down to one stationary position.
Facebook described the upcoming change as “going all in” on 6DOF, but it’ll come at the cost of Oculus Go. “We won’t be shipping any more 3DOF VR products. We’ll end sales of Oculus Go headsets this year as we double down on improving our offerings for Quest and Rift,” the company added.
Facebook is promising to maintain the software on the Oculus Go through 2022 with fixes and security updates. However, the company will no longer introduce new features to the product, nor will it publish new third-party apps for the Oculus Go after Dec. 18, 2020.
Further Reading
- Software Developer Thinks VR Caused His Eyesight to Degrade
- Report: Facebook Developing Smaller, Lighter, Wireless Oculus VR Headset
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- Magic Leap Lays Off 1,000 Employees as Funding Dries Up
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