Meta’s Former Head of VR: Oculus Go Was His “biggest product failure” & Why it Matters for Vision Pro
Meta’s Former Head of VR: Oculus Go Was His “biggest product failure” & Why it Matters for Vision Pro
Barra notes that poor retention for Oculus Go had to do with a few common factors, including user comfort, friction in starting a session when not already wearing the headset, and the social isolation of watching content alone—all of which is true for Vision Pro as well.
Barra concludes that, at least as far as Oculus Go went, traditional media consumption was “not a core ‘daily driver’ pillar but more an ancillary use case that adds some value to other core pillars (such as productivity or gaming).”
Granted Barra says Vision Pro brings more to the table […] but those same challenges that Oculus Go contended with basically remain.
I received a Quest 2 as a gift. It is fun playing games, but ends up being very much a solo activity. It used to be possible to use Chromecast functionality to share what the user is seeing with other people, but that hasn’t worked for me in a long time and that seems to be the case for others. That was useful when letting others try the device, but without that VR can be a pretty isolated activity. It would be interesting to try something with other people with headsets, but we’re not paying a couple hundred dollars for additional Quests, never mind thousands of dollars on a Vision Pro.
I think they’re reworking the Chromecast sharing as it was never working great. An alternative is to use the phone to share the screen and put that on the TV if I remember correctly (or use a laptop or just the phone).
There’s also a few asymmetrical games, where one player plays in VR and the other one flat (there’s probably more):
- Acron: Attack of the Squirrels
- Keep talking and nobody explodes
- Carly and the reaperman
- Demeo (can be played flat or VR)
Regarding isolation: that’s definitely true. But I’d argue most players (flat or VR) play games alone in a room anyways and VR multiplayer games have a bigger social component. But playing with friends and family is definitely more fun.