John Carmack says Facebook is working on a social VR experience for the Home environment on Oculus Quest.
Carmack confirmed as much in a tweet posted late last month that’s only just been noticed. He explained that the company originally planned to develop multiplayer interactions in the Oculus Rooms app, which launched on Gear VR and let friends play minigames and watch content together. Those designs would then “roll back” into Home, but Carmack said “we messed up in various ways.”
“The social home experience is being worked on again now,” the developer assured.
Facebook already has its own social VR apps on Quest, including Venues, and has more to come, like Horizons. But the key Home environment, where users shop for new titles, remains a solitary experience. Meanwhile on Oculus Rift, users can fully customize virtual Home environments, invite others to meet them there and play some basic minigames like shooting targets. Quest’s environments aren’t customizable and you can’t even move around them, though you can switch out locations.
Carmack didn’t stamp a timeframe on when a multiplayer Home solution might arrive. That said, Quest is getting major new features fairly regularly – yesterday’s announcement of the v29 software update brought with it plenty of updates.
Would you want multiplayer Home environments on Oculus Quest? Let us know in the comments below.
