Facebook will stop selling Oculus Go this year as the company sharpens its focus on fully positionally tracked VR headsets like Oculus Quest.
Oculus Go entered the market in 2018 as Facebook’s first standalone VR headset. Priced at $199 and pitched as a media viewer, Go transitioned VR developers supporting Facebook’s products from the earlier Gear VR phone-powered headsets to the more robust (and more expensive) Oculus Quest which started shipping in 2019.
Ending The 3DOF Era
While Oculus Go combined the benefits of standalone VR with one of the lowest prices for an all-in system we’ve ever seen — dropping to $149 this year before its retirement — the headset also severely limited input options and could only track the rotation of your head, aka 3DOF. Both Oculus Quest and the PC-powered Rift fully track head position, aka 6DOF. While Quest sells for $399 and is heavier than Go, the addition of 6DOF tracking for both head and hand movement is a considerable upgrade for both comfort and overall experience. The feature is necessary to play VR’s most popular titles, including those from Beat Games, Sanzaru Games and Ready At Dawn — the first three VR-focused game studios Facebook acquired over the last few months.
“You’ve told us loud and clear that 6DOF feels like the future of VR,” a prepared statement from Facebook explains. “That’s why we’re going all-in, and 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.”
Facebook removed Go from its business program in January and an editorial we published last month suggested Facebook’s next Quest should try to combine the lower weight of Go with the feature set of Quest and the visuals of a high-end Rift. Late last year, Facebook retired its Rooms social service for Go while only announcing support for its upcoming Horizon social networking service on the Rift and Quest.
With the latest confirmation today, Facebook says it will stop accepting new Oculus Go apps and app updates for its store on December 4, 2020, and won’t add any more new apps to the store after December 18, 2020.
“If you own an Oculus Go headset, you’ll still be able to use it even after sales of Oculus Go end. We’ll also continue to maintain the system software with bug fixes and security patches through 2022,” a statement from Facebook explains.
