![]() There will still be companies making advanced headsets, but they’ll be for specialized use in design, engineering, and medical training in university/industry labs and research centers. The rest of the XR industry will have no choice but to follow Facebook in this regard. ![]() Will there still be PC-based VR? Yes, but only for high-end applications. Tethered VR will still be available via the Oculus Link cable, though even that has a limited future once a wireless Link is worked out. With the significant upgrades coming in the Quest 2, there’s simply no reason to keep the Rift around. The original Quest may not have been the best HMD, but it was just what the mass market wanted – an inexpensive, easy-to-use VR headset, with a passable display and no base stations to wrestle with. While it won’t please everyone in the VR gaming community, it makes sense for Facebook to throw its weight behind standalone VR. And you can take solace from Steam’s Hardware & Software Survey that the Rift S accounted for 23.02% of the headsets on Steam in August (and actually increased by 1.22% that month). If you recently bought a Rift, you’ll still have plenty of time to use it as there was no end-of-support date announced. In fact, we’ve seen significant growth in PC VR via Oculus Link, and the Rift Platform will continue to grow while offering high-end PC VR experiences like Lone Echo II and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond well into the future. That said, the Rift Platform isn’t going anywhere. We’ll no longer pursue PC-only hardware, with sales of Rift S ending in 2021. We’re going to focus on standalone VR headsets moving forward. The news was embedded in the Oculus Quest 2 release, almost like an afterthought: It didn’t even warrant its own announcement of its demise. ![]() Indeed, event at last year’s OC6, people wondered if Facebook had already sealed its fate – along with the Oculus Go – with the release of the original Oculus Quest. It was clear with Quest 2 that the Rift would go. The Oculus Go was a significant breakthrough, but of course, limited to 360 video. It’s a remarkable development when you consider that only a few short years ago, we were struggling to get VR headsets to work when they were connected to a PC. Facebook will discontinue the headset in Spring 2021 and close out its work in PC-only HMDs. With the announcement of a new Oculus Quest 2 at Facebook Connect, the victim this time is the Oculus Rift S. Every technology advance results in something being taken the trash bin.
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