Meta announced the high-flying superhero game Marvel’s Iron Man VR (2020) has a new permanent price, bringing it to $30.
Once a PSVR exclusive, Iron Man VR on Quest 2 and Quest Pro lets you suit up as Tony Stark and take to the sky to fight evil. The action-adventure game is now available at a new price of $30, or 25% off the original $40 purchase price.
When it launched on PSVR in July 2020, we gave it a rating of ‘Great’ in our full review, calling it VR’s “first great superhero game.” We liked it so much at the time, we later awarded it with the PSVR Game of the Year in 2020.
What makes Iron Man VR so great? It’s packed with unique mechanics and a full course of fun and engaging content—not to mention an actually worthwhile story.
Here’s how developers Camoflaj describe it:
Tap into your inner Super Hero as you step into Iron Man’s armor and blast into the skies. Explore Tony’s garage to customize and upgrade an arsenal of gear, gadgets, and weapons. Hit the afterburners and feel the rush of flying hundreds of miles an hour. Use all of Tony Stark’s resources to find the mysterious villain Ghost and her army of hacked Stark drones. Experience this action-packed immersive Iron Man adventure now.
Meta today announced a new VR game subscription service that will give you access to two hand-picked Quest games per month, priced at $8 per month, or $60 annually.
Called Meta Quest+, the subscription service will be available to Quest 2, Quest Pro and eventually Quest 3 users.
Similar to PlayStation’s PS Plus service, Meta is offering up two specific redeemable titles on the first of each month which you can download and keep for as long as you’re a paid member.
Meta says members can cancel at any time, which would mean you’d lose access to each game you redeemed, although the company says rejoining allows you to gain access to those previously redeemed titles.
The service is kicking off in July with Cloudhead Games’ physical action-rhythm FPS Pistol Whip and the nostalgia-fueled arcade adventure Pixel Ripped 1995 from ARVORE Immersive Experiences.
August is set to have Mighty Coconut’s highly-rated Walkabout Mini Golf and FPS roguelite MOTHERGUNSHIP: FORGE from Terrible Posture Games.
Meta Quest+ is set to cost $8 per month, or billed for $60 annually, a 37% savings over the monthly charge. You can learn more and also sign up here.
Meta says Quest+ titles are eligible for App Sharing across accounts, although if you happen to already own any of the games on offer monthly, you’ll just have to stick around to see whether something comes up that you don’t already own.
To sweeten the pot, the company is doing a deal for July that reduces the first month’s charge to $1, which is then followed by the regular $8 per month. That specific offer ends July 31st, 2023.
While Quest+ has been the subject of rumors for the past few months, it wasn’t clear which route the company would go—whether it would be a Viveport-style affair that allows you to pick from a pool of eligible games, or what they revealed today, a highly curated system like PS Plus. It’s an interesting route which could signal they’re expecting a substantial raise in new users in the coming months, as the company is set to launch its $500 Quest 3 headset September 27th, 2023, which has come along with a price reduction of Quest 2 to the original $300 price point.
Meta announced it’s reducing age requirements for Quest users, bringing the previous 13+ minimum down to 10+. The company says the policy change will come alongside new parent-managed accounts for Quest 2 and the upcoming Quest 3, which the company says will help keep preteens safe.
As anyone who has dipped their toes into social VR apps such as Rec Room or VRChat can probably attest, young kids are broadly already using VR headsets. Now Meta is introducing a scheme that will allow 10, 11 and 12-year-olds to have their own parent-managed accounts for the first time.
Slated to launch later this year, Meta says in a blogpost that its new parent-managed Meta accounts will require preteens to get their parent’s approval to set up an account, giving adults control over what apps their preteens can download from the Meta app store.
Image courtesy Meta
These parent-managed accounts will include controls to manage things like screen time limits, privacy and safety settings, and access to specific types of content, which will specify whether apps have a social component.
Additionally, Meta says preteens won’t be served ads, and parents will be able to choose whether their child’s usage data will be shared with Meta. Parents will also be able to delete profiles, including all of the data associated with it, the company says.
That’s a fairly strong policy reversal. At the time of this writing, Meta’s Safety Center portal maintains that Meta VR headsets “are not toys” and that younger children have “greater risks of injury and adverse effects than older users.”
Notably, Meta’s own social VR app Meta Horizon Worlds is also retaining its 13+ age requirement in the US and Canada (18+ in Europe).
Meta has undeniably been the lone looming Goliath in a field of smaller Davids in the XR scene for years now. With Apple finally making its entrance into the market, Meta won’t be able to go at its own pace.
Apple’s new headset might be an absurd $3,500, putting it in a completely different class than Meta’s upcoming Quest 3 at $500, let alone the Quest 2 now at $300. But the pressure will still be on as comparisons are made between the experience Apple has crafted and what Meta offers.
After all, there’s no denying that while the Vision Pro is packed full of hardware, and has the benefit of Apple’s proprietary and powerful M2 chips, so much of what the headset is doing right is about the software experience rather than the fidelity that’s unlocked with the hardware.
Great Hardware, Struggling Software
The thing is, Meta’s headsets are plenty capable. Quest 2 is still a solid product that is in many ways still best in class and Quest 3 only promises to up the ante later this year with more power, higher resolution, improved lenses, and better passthrough AR. Meta’s hardware has always been quite impressive, even as far back as the original Oculus Rift CV1.
But on the software side the company has seriously struggled to make usability a priority. For all the lessons the company learned about the power of reducing friction in VR—by building a standalone headset that doesn’t need a computer or external tracking beacons—there has been seemingly little emphasis on making the same reduction in friction by creating a cohesive interface between Quest’s system interface, and Meta’s own first-party apps; let alone providing a set of clear and useful guidelines so that developers and users alike can benefit from a common user experience.
Lean on Me
Meta has leaned substantially on third-party developers to make using its headsets worthwhile to use. Game developers have done the painstaking work of refining how users should control their apps and interact with their worlds in entertaining ways. When you’re inside of a VR game, the developer is fully controlling the experience to make it cohesive and enjoyable, while sussing out the pitfalls that would turn off users—like bugs, convoluted menus, and inconsistent interactions.
If Meta’s headsets didn’t have games—but still did everything else they’re capable of—they would be dead in the water because of how painful it can be to use the headset outside of carefully crafted game experiences designed to entertain. On the other hand, Apple Vision Pro has a minimal emphasis on gaming (at least at the outset), but is spending significant effort to make everything else the headset does easy and consistent. By doing so, Apple is ensuring that the headset will be great for more than just gaming.
Despite the price difference between Vision Pro and Quest headsets, Meta is still going to have to stare this thing in the face and come to grips with what it could be doing better—for users, developers, and itself. The good news, at least, is that much of the room for improvement is in the software side of things.
The Vacuum
Until now, Meta has had no serious competition in this space. Its headsets—despite the criticisms I’ve laid out here—have consistently offered the best value in their class, with great hardware and a great game library, all at a very attractive price that others have largely been unable to match.
That’s made it hard for other headset makers to compete and left Meta little need to respond even if other companies do something better or innovative. It’s also meant that developers and users have very little leverage over what Meta decides to do—after all, where else are they going to go if they want an affordable standalone headset with the best library of content?
Meta has been able to create a vacuum in the consumer VR space which on the surface might look like success… but in reality, it has left Meta unfocused on what it needs to do to make its headsets appeal to a broader audience.
Better for Everyone
Now we have Apple in the game, ready to challenge Meta on hardware and the software experience. Price advantage is clearly in Meta’s favor, but it’s going to need to up its game, otherwise it risks losing not just customers, but more importantly developers, who might see greener grass on the other side—especially if they’re looking forward to a future where Apple’s headset comes down in price.
Apple’s entrance into the market might seem like a threat, but ultimately Meta now gets to sit back and examine all the hard work Apple has done over the years, then choose the best ideas to incorporate into its own offerings, while ignoring what it sees as missteps by Apple.
In the end, Apple’s headset is going to force Meta’s headsets to get better, faster. And that’s good for everyone, including Meta.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t been shy about addressing the elephant in the room: with Apple Vision Pro, the Cupertino tech giant is officially entering a market that, up until now, Meta has basically owned. In a meeting with Meta employees, Zuckerberg thinks that while Apple Vision Pro “could be the vision of the future of computing […] it’s not the one that I want”
As reported by The Verge, Zuckerberg seems very confident in the company’s XR offerings, and is less impressed with Apple’s design tradeoffs. During a companywide meeting, Zuckerberg said that with Vision Pro, Appe has “no kind of magical solutions” and that they haven’t bypassed “any of the constraints on laws of physics that our teams haven’t already explored and thought of.” He calls that “the good news.”
Largely, Zuckerberg says Apple is making some telling design tradeoffs, as its higher resolution displays, advanced software, and external battery comes alongside a $3,500 price tag—or seven times more than Meta’s upcoming Quest 3 mixed reality standalone.
Photo by Road to VR
But it’s also about ethos. Zuckerberg says the companies’ respective headsets represent a divide in company philosophy, as Apple products are typically developed to appeal to high income consumers. “We innovate to make sure that our products are as accessible and affordable to everyone as possible, and that is a core part of what we do. And we have sold tens of millions of Quests,” he said.
“More importantly, our vision for the metaverse and presence is fundamentally social. It’s about people interacting in new ways and feeling closer in new ways,” Zuckerberg continued. “Our device is also about being active and doing things. By contrast, every demo that they showed was a person sitting on a couch by themself. I mean, that could be the vision of the future of computing, but like, it’s not the one that I want.”
The Meta chief echoed some of these statements on the Lex Fridman podcast where he spoke about his opinions on Apple Vision Pro, noting that Apple’s mixed reality headset offers a “certain level of validation for the category.” Because Vision Pro will cost so much though, Zuckerberg maintains Quest 3 will overall benefit as people inevitably gravitate to towards the cheaper, more consumer-friendly option.
Here’s Zuckerberg’s full statement, sourced from the companywide address:
Apple finally announced their headset, so I want to talk about that for a second. I was really curious to see what they were gonna ship. And obviously I haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll learn more as we get to play with it and see what happens and how people use it.
From what I’ve seen initially, I’d say the good news is that there’s no kind of magical solutions that they have to any of the constraints on laws of physics that our teams haven’t already explored and thought of. They went with a higher resolution display, and between that and all the technology they put in there to power it, it costs seven times more and now requires so much energy that now you need a battery and a wire attached to it to use it. They made that design trade-off and it might make sense for the cases that they’re going for.
But look, I think that their announcement really showcases the difference in the values and the vision that our companies bring to this in a way that I think is really important. We innovate to make sure that our products are as accessible and affordable to everyone as possible, and that is a core part of what we do. And we have sold tens of millions of Quests.
More importantly, our vision for the metaverse and presence is fundamentally social. It’s about people interacting in new ways and feeling closer in new ways. Our device is also about being active and doing things. By contrast, every demo that they showed was a person sitting on a couch by themself. I mean, that could be the vision of the future of computing, but like, it’s not the one that I want. There’s a real philosophical difference in terms of how we’re approaching this. And seeing what they put out there and how they’re going to compete just made me even more excited and in a lot of ways optimistic that what we’re doing matters and is going to succeed. But it’s going to be a fun journey.
The last, third day of AWE USA 2023 took place on Friday, June 2. The first day of AWE is largely dominated by keynotes. A lot of air on the second day is taken up by the expo floor opening. By the third day, the keynotes are done, the expo floor starts to get packed away, and panel discussions and developer talks rule the day. And Apple ruled a lot of those talks.
Bracing for Impact From Apple
A big shift is expected this week as Apple is expected to announce its entrance into the XR market. The writing has been on the wall for a long time.
Rumors have probably been circulating for longer than many readers have even been watching XR. ARPost started speculating in 2018 on a 2019 release. Five years of radio silence later and we had reports that the product would be delayed indefinitely.
The rumor mill is back in operation with an expected launch this week (Apple’s WWDC23 starts today) – with many suggesting that Meta’s sudden announcement of the Quest 3 is a harbinger. Whether an Apple entrance is real this time or not, AWE is bracing itself.
Suspicion on Standards
Let’s take a step back and look at a conversation that happened on AWE USA 2023 Day Two, but is very pertinent to the emerging Apple narrative.
The “Building Open Standards for the Metaverse” panel moderated by Moor Insights and Strategy Senior Analyst Anshel Sag brought together XR Safety Initiative (XRSI) founder and CEO Kavya Pearlman, XRSI Advisor Elizabeth Rothman, and Khronos Group President Neil Trevett.
Apple’s tendency to operate outside of standards was discussed. Even prior to their entrance into the market, this has caused problems for XR app developers – Apple devices even have a different way of sensing depth than Android devices. XR glasses tend to come out first or only on Android in part because of Android’s more open ecosystem.
“Apple currently holds so much power that they could say ‘This is the way we’re going to go.’ and the Metaverse Standards Forum could stand up and say ‘No.’,” said Pearlman, expressing concern over accessibility of “the next generation of the internet”.
Trevett expressed a different approach, saying that standards should present the best option, not the only option. While standards are more useful the more groups use them, competition is helpful and shows diversity in the industry. And diversity in the industry is what sets Apple apart.
“If Apple does announce something, they’ll do a lot of education … it will progress how people use the tech whether they use open standards or not,” said Trevett. “If you don’t have a competitor on the proprietary end of the spectrum, that’s when you should start to worry because it means that no one cares enough about what you’re doing.”
Hope for New Displays
On Day Three, KGOn Tech LLC’s resident optics expert Karl Guttag presented an early morning developer session on “Optical Versus Passthrough Mixed Reality.” Guttag has been justifiably critical of Meta Quest Pro’s passthrough in particular. Even for optical XR, he expressed skepticism about a screen replacement, which is what the Apple headset is largely rumored to be.
Karl Guttag
“One of our biggest issues in the market is expectations vs. reality,” said Guttag. “What is hard in optical AR is easy in passthrough and vice versa. I see very little overlap in applications … there is also very little overlap in device requirements.”
A New Generation of Interaction
“The Quest 3 has finally been announced, which is great for everyone in the industry,” 3lbXR and 3lb Games CEO Robin Moulder said in her talk “Expand Your Reach: Ditch the Controllers and Jump into Mixed Reality.” “Next week is going to be a whole new level when Apple announces something – hopefully.”
Robin Moulder
Moulder presented the next round of headsets as the first of a generation that will hopefully be user-friendly enough to increase adoption and deployment bringing more users and creators into the XR ecosystem.
“By the time we have the Apple headset and the new Quest 3, everybody is going to be freaking out about how great hand tracking is and moving into this new world of possibilities,” said Moulder.
More on AI
AI isn’t distracting anyone from XR and Apple isn’t distracting anyone from AI. Apple appearing as a conference theme doesn’t mean that anyone was done talking about AI. If you’re sick of reading about AI, at least read the first section below.
Lucid Realities: A Glimpse Into the Current State of Generative AI
After two full days of people talking about how AI is a magical world generator that’s going to take the task of content creation off of the shoulders of builders, Microsoft Research Engineer Jasmine Roberts set the record straight.
Jasmine Roberts
“We’ve passed through this techno-optimist state into dystopia and neither of those are good,” said Roberts. “When people think that [AI] can replace writers, it’s not really meant to do that. You still need human supervisors.”
AI not being able to do everything that a lot of people think it can isn’t the end of the world. A lot of the things that people want AI to do is already possible through other less glamorous tools.
“A lot of what people want from generative AI, they can actually get from procedural generation,” said Roberts. “There are some situations where you need bespoke assets so generative AI wouldn’t really cut it.”
Roberts isn’t against AI – her presentation was simply illustrating that it doesn’t work the way that some industry outsiders are being led to believe. That isn’t the same as saying that it doesn’t work. In fact, she brought a demo of an upcoming AI-powered Clippy. (You remember Clippy, right?)
Augmented Ecologies
Roberts was talking about the limitations of AI. The “Augmented Ecologies” panel moderated by AWE co-founder Tish Shute, saw Three Dog Labs founder Sean White, Morpheus XR CTO Anselm Hook, and Croquet founder and CTO David A. Smith talking about what happens when AI is the new dominant life form on planet Earth.
From left to right: Tish Shute, Sean White, Anselm Hook, and David Smith
“We’re kind of moving to a probabilistic model, it’s less deterministic, which is much more in line with ecological models,” said White.
This talk presented the scenario in which developers are no longer the ones running the show. AI takes on a life of its own, and that life is more capable than ours.
“In an ecology, we’re not necessarily at the center, we’re part of the system,” said Hook. “We’re not necessarily able to dominate the technologies that are out there anymore.”
This might scare you, but it doesn’t scare Smith. Smith described a future in which AI becomes the legacy that can live in environments that humans never can, like the reaches of space.
“The metaverse and AI are going to redefine what it means to be human,” said Smith. “Ecosystems are not healthy if they are not evolving.”
“No Longer the Apex”
On the morning of Day Two, the Virtual World Society and the VR/AR Association hosted a very special breakfast. Invited were some of the most influential leaders in the immersive technology space. The goal was to discuss the health and future of the XR industry.
The findings will be presented in a report, but some of the concepts were also presented at “Spatial Computing for All” – a fireside chat with Virtual World Society Founder Tom Furness, HTC China President Alvin Graylin, and moderated by technology consultant Linda Ricci.
The major takeaway was that the industry insiders aren’t particularly worried about the next few years. After that, the way in which we do work might start to change and that might have to change the ways that we think about ourselves and value our identities in a changing society.
AWE Is Changing Too
During the show wrap-up, Ori Inbar had some big news. “AWE is leveling up to LA.” This was the fourteenth AWE. Every AWE, except for one year when the entire conference was virtual because of the COVID-19 pandemic, has been in Santa Clara. But, the conference has grown so much that it’s time to move.
“I think we realized this year that we were kind of busting at the seams,” said Inbar. “We need a lot more space.”
The conference, which will take place from June 18-20 will be in Long Beach, with “super, super early bird tickets” available for the next few weeks.
Yes, There’s Still More
Most of the Auggie Awards and the winners of Inbar’s climate challenge were announced during a ceremony on the evening of Day Two. During the event wrap-up, the final three Auggies were awarded. We didn’t forget, we just didn’t have room for them in our coverage.
So, there is one final piece of AWE coverage just on the Auggies. Keep an eye out. Spoiler alert, Apple wasn’t nominated in any of the categories.
We expected Beat Saber as a day-one title on PSVR 2 when the headset launched in February, but it seems Meta had different ideas. Better late than never though, as everyone’s favorite block-slashing rhythm game is now available on PSVR 2 as a free upgrade from the PSVR version, coming alongside a paid music pack featuring the ever-iconic band Queen.
The Queen music pack is available across all supported platforms, including Quest, PSVR/2, and PC VR headsets, priced at $14.
It includes the 11 tracks listed below:
“Another One Bites the Dust”
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love”
“Don’t Stop Me Now”
“I Want It All”
“Killer Queen”
“One Vision”
“Somebody to Love”
“Stone Cold Crazy”
“We Are The Champions”
“We Will Rock You”
If you already own Beat Saber on PSVR, you can upgrade to the PSVR 2 version for free. This will also allow you to transfer any music packs previously purchased on PSVR at no extra cost.
A report from the Financial Timesmaintains Meta is currently in talks with AR headset creator Magic Leap to strike a multiyear deal, which could include intellectual property licensing and contract manufacturing of AR headsets in North America.
The AR unicorn is said to possess valuable IP regarding custom components, including its optics, waveguides, and software.
It’s said a potential deal may also allow Meta to lessen its reliance on China for component manufacturing. In 2019, Magic Leap partnered with manufacturing solutions company Jabil to create a Guadalajara, Mexico plant which the report maintains can assemble headsets in “the tens of thousands a year.”
Magic Leap 2 | Photo by Road to VR
Citing people with knowledge of the talks, the report maintains however a specific joint Meta-Magic Leap headset isn’t expected.
While both companies didn’t comment on a potential partnership, Magic Leap said this to the Financial Times:
“Given the complexities of developing true augmented reality technologies and the intricacies involved with manufacturing these optics, as well as the issues many companies experience with overseas supply chain dependencies, we have entered into several non-exclusive IP licensing and manufacturing partnerships with companies looking to enter the AR market or expand their current position.”
Since it exited stealth in 2014, Magic Leap has released two AR headsets, Magic Leap 1 and Magic Leap 2, which have been compared in functionality to Microsoft’s HoloLens AR headsets.
The company has raised over $4 billion, with minority investors including Google, Alibaba, Qualcomm, AT&T, and Axel Springer. Its majority stakeholder is Saudi Arabia’s state-owned sovereign wealth fund.
In addition to Quest Pro mixed reality headset, Meta has confirmed it’s currently working on its next iteration of Quest, likely Quest 3, as well as its own AR glasses. Meta started real-world testing of Project Aria in 2020, a platform for training its AR perception systems and asses public perception of the technology.
Meta announced its third annual Quest Gaming Showcase is arriving next month, coming only a few days before Apple’s rumored XR headset announcement at Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
Meta is livestreaming the Quest Gaming Showcase on June 1st, a bit unusual for the company, as it traditionally holds the annual event in late April.
Calling it their “biggest celebration of the depth and breadth of content across the Meta Quest Platform yet,” Meta is slated to share over 40 minutes of content, including a brand-new pre-show covering game updates and debut trailers, starting 15 minutes before the show begins.
Meta says to expect new game announcements, gameplay first-looks, updates to existing games, and more. There’s also set to be a post-show developer roundtable, which will feature conversation around upcoming games.
There could be at least one clue to what’s in store, as we get a brief glimpse at a horned helmet in the showcase’s promo video, which seems very much like Loki’s helmet from Rift exclusive Asgard’s Wrath (2019). Maybe Meta’s Sanzaru Games has slimmed down the Norse-inspired RPG?
Meanwhile, previous reports maintain Apple is finally set to unveil its long rumored mixed reality headset during the company’s WWDC keynote, taking place on Monday, June 5th.
Provided Apple indeed plans to announce its headset at WWDC, Meta could be looking to generate so called ‘strategic noise’ to better manage market reactions, and potentially offset any negative sentiment prior to Apple’s expected announcement—undoubtedly slated to be a pivotal moment for the entire XR industry.
Meta recently released its Q1 2023 earnings report, showing a consistent investment of around $4 billion per quarter into its XR division Reality Labs. With Apple rumored to be unveiling their own XR headset and a host of apps, reportedly set to include everything from fitness to VR/AR gaming, Meta may want to showcase where some of that investment is going.
Who knows? We may even hear more about Meta’s promised Quest 3 at the gaming showcase, which the company has confirmed will “fire up enthusiasts” when its released at some point this year, notably targeting a higher price point than its Quest 2 headset.
Meta announced its latest quarterly results, revealing that the company’s Reality Labs metaverse division is again reporting a loss of nearly $4 billion. The bright side? Meta’s still investing billions into XR, and it’s not showing any signs of stopping.
Meta revealed in its Q1 2023 financial results that its family of apps is now being used by over 3 billion people, an increase of 5% year-over-year, but its metaverse investments are still operating at heavy losses.
Reality Labs is responsible for R&D for its most forward-looking projects, including the Quest virtual reality headset platform, and its work in augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has warned shareholders in the past that Meta’s XR investments may not flourish until 2030.
Here’s a look at the related income losses and revenue for Reality Labs since it was formed as a distinct entity in Q4 2020:
Image created by Road to VR using data courtesy Meta
Meta reports Reality Labs generated $339 million in revenue during its first quarter of the year, a small fraction of the company’s 28.65 billion quarterly revenue. The bulk of that was generated from its family of apps—Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
While the $3.99 billion loss may show the company is tightening its belt in contrast to Q4 2022, which was at an eye-watering $4.28 billion, Meta says we should still expect those losses to continue to increase year-over-year in 2023.
This follows the company’s second big round of layoffs, the most recent of which this month has affected VR teams at Reality Labs, Downpour Interactive (Onward) and Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo, Echo VR). The company says a third round is due to come in May, which will affect the company’s business groups.
Dubbed by Zuckerberg as the company’s “year of efficiency,” the Meta founder and chief said this during the earning call regarding the company’s layoffs:
“This has been a difficult process. But after this is done, I think we’re going to have a much more stable environment for our employees. For the rest of the year, I expect us to focus on improving our distributed work model, delivering AI tools to improve productivity, and removing unnecessary processes across the company.”
Beyond its investment in AI, Zuckerberg says the recent characterization claiming the company has somehow moved away from focusing on the metaverse is “not accurate.”
“We’ve been focusing on both AI and the metaverse for years now, and we will continue to focus on both,” Zuckerberg says, noting that breakthroughs in both areas are essentially shared, such as computer vision, procedurally generated virtual worlds, and its work on AR glasses.
Notably, Zuckerberg says the number of titles in the Quest store with at least $25 million in revenue has doubled since last year, with more than half of Quest daily actives now spend more than an hour using their device.
The company previously confirmed a Quest 3 headset is set to release this year, which is said to be slightly pricier than the $400 Quest 2 headset with features “designed to appeal to VR enthusiasts.”
A Wall Street Journal report maintains Meta’s Quest platform had 6.37 million monthly active users as of October 2022.
The report doesn’t include a breakdown of which headset is seeing the most engagement, however it’s likely a majority of those users come from Quest 2. The original Quest, which was released in 2019, is currently on its way out. The company’s enthusiast-grade headset Quest Pro costs $1,000, a $500 drop from its original $1,500 launch price.
Meta hasn’t officially detailed just how many Quest headsets it’s sold since the company released the standalone in 2019, or its Quest 2 follow-up a year later for that matter, however a report by The Verge last month alleged the company has sold nearly 20 million Quest headsets. Although not confirmed, this figure likely includes all Quest headsets.
It’s nowhere near what traditional game consoles have achieved, however for VR it’s fairly impressive. For scale, Sony has shipped over 32 million PlayStation 5 units and over 117 million PS4 units to date; the PlayStation platform as a whole garnered 112 million monthly active users in Q3 2022.
For the still-nascent industry, Meta is far and ahead the leader of the space. Of its 500+ titles on the Meta Quest Store, 40 have grossed over $10 million in revenue. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Quest platform has now seen more than 200 apps make over $1 million as of February 2023, an increase of 44% from the previous year.
This comes alongside the news that Meta’s best-performing app, the block-slashing rhythm game Beat Saber, has generated over a quarter billion dollars in sales since launch in 2018.
Meta is the midst of a second large round of layoffs, and this time a number of employees in its internal VR studios have been affected.
Business Insider reported earlier this week that Meta was increasing its focus on gaming-related projects within its Reality Labs division. As other teams were expected to be dissolved in layoffs, the report held that gaming-focused teams would be safe.
However that report is now being rebuffed by a number of self-reported layoffs which have affecting Meta’s VR teams, including Ready at Dawn, known for the Lone Echo series, and Onward studio Downpour Interactive.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in March that 10,000 employees would be laid off. At the time, Zuckerberg said that, in addition to a hiring freeze, the April round of layoffs would affect tech roles, while a third in late May will affect business roles—all of it in service of what Zuckerberg dubbed the company’s “year of efficiency.”
As mentioned by MIXED, Ready at Dawn Senior Engine Programmer Thomas Griebel tweeted that around 40 people, or around a third of the studio, were laid off. This also included studio head Mark Almeida, who has been with Ready at Dawn since August 2016.
Acquired by Meta in 2020, Ready at Dawn announced in January it planned to shut down its popular free-to-play multiplayer game Echo VR, with plans to turn off severs come August 1st. At the time, the studio said the decision to shut down the game was “made for many good reasons and chief among them is the studio coming together to focus on our next project.”
Downpour Interactive, the studio behind VR mil-sim shooter Onward, is also seeing wide-ranging layoffs. We haven’t found a precise count of Downpour employees affected by the layoff round, however Producer Kaspar Nahuijsen called losing his colleagues to the purge “the toughest day” of his career.
Founded by Dante Buckley in 2015, and then acquired by Meta in 2021, Downpour Interactive’s latest claim to fame was porting the previously PC VR-only title to Quest and Quest 2. As a part of a wider transition by Meta to sunset the original 2019 Quest, Downpour announced Onward would no longer be playable on Quest 1 in any capacity after the July 31st, 2023.
As noted by UploadVR, founder and CEO Dante Buckely left Downpour/Meta last month.
The Guardian reports the latest round of Meta layoffs are affecting 4,000 employees immediately, which is a part of the 10,000 previously announced in March.
