Update: The v23 update for Quest is rolling out now with a 90Hz mode included and a gifting feature launching soon. Original article follows.
Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, Vice President of Augmented and Virtual Reality at Facebook did another Instagram AMA this week, hinting that Quest 2 users will soon be able to gift games to friends and enable 90Hz mode across the entire headset.
Only a few weeks ago, Boz did a similar Instagram AMA where he responded to the issue of account suspensions on Quest 2, saying that users should make sure their Facebook accounts are in ‘good standing’ before buying a headset. A month later, Boz has given some equally interesting tidbits in a new Instagram AMA.
One user asked Boz when we can expect full 90Hz mode for Quest 2, to which he simply responded “sooner than you think.” Currently, Quest 2 only supports 90Hz as an experimental mode for certain areas like the Quest home environment, and not games. However, there is a workaround to enable it for games right now if you want to. That being said, it doesn’t sound like we’ll be waiting too long for the official update to drop anyway.
He also had a similar response to a user who asked why they can’t gift Oculus Store games to their Oculus friends — “stay tuned, also sooner than you think.” One of the biggest criticisms of the Oculus Store recently has been the inability to buy gift cards for others, or to purchase giftable games that can be sent to people on your friends list. We have reached out to Facebook for any further details on game gifting, and will update this post if we hear back.
Boz also said talked about a wireless version of Oculus Link, which “is something we want to get to for sure, [but] we want to get it right though. We want it to be good quality. But in the meantime, if you want to get a little early access, go download Virtual Desktop and get on SideQuest and you can give it a shot right away.” Of course, Boz is referring to the patched version of Virtual Desktop that can be sideloaded onto a Quest from SideQuest, allowing you to play wireless PC VR content on a Quest 2 when connected to a VR-ready PC. If you’re interested, check out our how to guide on the topic.
In regards to Passthrough API availability, Boz also had quite a bit to say. “I am super excited about Passthrough and the promise it has to let us move beyond virtual reality into a more mixed reality scenario. But it’s also a very tricky set of work to get right, and to fit it into the compute envelopes that we have, so it’s a little slow right now.”
You can watch the full AMA over on Boz’s Instagram profile, @boztank.
