Roblox has done very well on Quest. When it launched on the standalone VR platform back in July, it managed to break one million downloads in its first five days, essentially making the online game the hottest social VR platform currently available on Quest. Now Roblox has also showered attendees at its annual developer conference this past weekend with free Quest Pros.
Despite being in direct competition with Meta’s Horizon Worlds social VR platform, there doesn’t seem to be any bad blood over the explosive growth of Roblox on Quest.
A message was sent to attendees at RDC23 this past weekend, stating that Meta is footing the bill to provide a heap of free Quest Pros, its $1,000 mixed reality standalone.
“The news is out! We want to give a special thanks to our partner meta. They have offered to provide all RDC23 attendees with Meta Quest Pro headsets to help you create the best Roblox experiences for VR,” the message reads.
Developers didn’t have to wait long, as they collected their free Quest Pros on site at RDC23.
During the RDC 2023 keynote, Baszucki also revealed that Roblox now features “over 50,000 experiences that are ready right now on Meta Quest.”
Roblox is currently available on the Quest platform via App Lab, however the company says it’s set for its “full” release on Quest sometime in September. Baszucki didn’t specify when, although it’s a good bet that the popular social platform will be a launch day title on Quest 3, which could come as early as September 27th during Connect, Meta’s annual developer conference.
The company also announced Roblox is headed to PlayStation in October, however it’s not clear if that will include PSVR or PSVR 2 support as well.
Apple is going all-in with hand-tracking for its upcoming Vision Pro, but can hand-tracking really replace proper VR controllers? Meta, Apple’s main competitor in the space, isn’t going so far as to make that particular claim, however the company says Quest’s recent hand-tracking improvements are now “almost as responsive as controllers” thanks to its recent v56 software update.
First announced in late July, the company’s Hands 2.2 tracking improvements are introducing what Meta says is better hand responsiveness and a few new experimental features that we’ll probably see in Quest 3.
Now rolling out to Quest headsets, Meta says users should notice hand-tracking latency reduced “up to 40%” in regular use, and “up to 75%” during fast movement. Meta says those dramatic gains in fast movement latency are thanks to the introduction of a new Fast Motion Mode (FMM) for more frenetic games, like fitness and rhythm games that require you to punch incoming objects.
Here’s a look at controllers relative to the new Hands 2.2 release:
v56 is also rolling out to Quest Pro, which includes two new experimental features: simultaneous hands and controllers (Multimodal) tracking, and controller-driven hand pose (Capsense Hands).
Multimodal tracking is said to unlock a number of mixed input style, including Hand+controller gameplay, instant transitions between hands and controllers, and improved social presence when using one controller. It’s only available on Quest Pro for experimentation, although Meta plans to add support for additional devices later.
On the other hand, Capsense Hands lets developers show a natural hand model visualization on top of, or instead of, a user’s controller. Check out both in action in the video below:
“Hand Tracking gives your app’s users the ability to engage with their VR or mixed reality environment in a way that is natural and intuitive,” Meta says in a developer blogpost. “These interactions deepen the immersive experience and help people feel more connected to what’s going on around them in-headset. Hands can also provide a faster on ramp for users new to VR. By integrating Hand Tracking in your existing apps, you can give your users more flexibility to tailor their experience and find what works best for them—and thanks to Hands 2.2, you can feel confident knowing your app’s users will enjoy a great experience regardless of whether they play with hands or controllers.”
Meta says we should hear more about its hand-tracking upgrades in the near future, as the company is hosting its annual Meta Connect developer conference on September 27th, which ought to include an info dump (and likely release date) for its upcoming Quest 3 headset, which is bringing much of the functionality of Quest Pro to the consumer price point of $500.
According to a recent report from The Information, Meta is allegedly spinning down Quest Pro alongside a broader move to cancel the future ‘Pro’ line of XR hardware altogether. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth says however, “don’t believe everything you read.”
Meta has reportedly stopped ordering new components for the Quest Pro from its suppliers, The Information maintains. While it’s thought Meta will continue selling its $1,000 Pro-branded mixed reality headset as long as there is enough stock, the report alleges the entire Pro line has been suspended, putting a second-generation Quest Pro distinctly out of the question.
Speaking in an Instagram Stories post yesterday, Bosworth rebukes the claim that a potential Quest Pro 2 has officially been cancelled for good, saying that his team is developing multiple prototypes in parallel for all of its projects. Notably, he doesn’t address whether it’s spinning down the current version of Quest Pro, however he implies that the report of Quest Pro 2’s demise was the result of a disgruntled employee whose project was cut.
Here’s Bosworth’s statement in full:
“I have to explain this every year. There is no Quest Pro 2 headset until we decide there is. What I mean by that is there are lots of prototype headsets—lots of them—all in development in parallel. Some of them, we say, “that’s not the right one,” and we shut it down. Some of them, we say, “that’s the right one,” and we spin it up. What you need to understand is, until it goes out the door, it doesn’t get the name. So, there might be a Quest Pro 2, there might not be. I’m not really telling you, but I will say don’t believe everything you read about what’s been stopped or started. A lot of times it comes from someone who’s unhappy their particular project got cut when there are other projects that did not get cut.”
Still, it’s clear there’s been some turbulence in how Quest Pro was handled from the get-go. Originally launched for $1,500 in October 2022, Meta decided only a few months later it would slash Quest Pro by $500, putting at its $1,000 price tag today. Meanwhile, Quest 2 has seen multiple price changes, ranging from $300 to $400 for the same 128GB variant.
Fluctuating prices aside, Quest Pro’s raison d’être has never really been clearly defined, as the company has nebulously pitched it to professionals as a would-be workstation. In practice, Quest Pro has been more of a developer kit for studios hoping to build consumer apps for the cheaper Quest 3, coming in Fall 2023 at $500. Meanwhile, Quest Pro users have reported a host of usability issues since launch, decidedly making it feel a little less ready for prime time than the company probably hoped.
Whatever the case, Quest Pro 2 would need a much clearer value proposition—provided whatever prototypes Meta has waiting in the wings also don’t also get cut.
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 says it’s has begun pushing out a software update which will bring some pretty profound performance boosts to both Quest 2 & Quest Pro.
Update (June 21st, 2023): Meta says Quest update v55 is now starting to roll out to Quest 2 & Quest Pro users. The company is promising the update will deliver a significant boost to the devices’ performance which should make the VR experience smoother overall while allowing apps to render at somewhat higher resolutions.
Update v55 also includes a standalone Messenger app and a revamped ‘Explore’ tab (which now shows Reels from Instagram and Facebook, if your accounts are connected). The update also adds multi-touch capability to the in-headset browser for hands-on zooming of web pages.
And last but not least, users will find two new home environments for their headset. The first is ‘Futurescape’, which was the backdrop of this year’s Quest Gaming Showcase; the second is ‘The Great Sand Sea’, which is exclusively available to users who have pre-ordered Asgard’s Wrath 2.
As ever, Meta advises that these updates roll out gradually to the population of headset users, so if you don’t see it right away you might need to wait a little longer.
The original article, which covered the update’s performance improvements, continues below.
Original Article (June 1st, 2023): Meta unveiled Quest 3 today, its next consumer-focused headset slated to launch in fall starting at $500. Quest 3 is going to be more powerful than Quest 2 by a good margin; the company says it has “more than twice the graphical performance as the previous generation Snapdragon GPU in Quest 2.”
Now the company says it’s tossing out a software update to both Quest 2 and Quest Pro chipsets that will provide up to 26% CPU performance increase for both. As for the headsets’ GPUS, we’re told to expect up to 19% GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro.
“As developers take advantage of these changes, you can expect smoother gameplay, a more responsive UI, and richer content on both headsets,” the company says in a blogpost. “And we’re enabling Dynamic Resolution Scaling for both Quest 2 and Quest Pro, so games and apps can take advantage of increased pixel density without dropping frames.”
The company hasn’t said just when to expect the update, but we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled on Meta blog and social channels in the coming days. In the meantime, check out all of our Quest 3 coverage so far which has come right ahead of the big Quest Gaming Showcase kicking off today:
The latest software update for Meta Quest, version v54, is now rolling out, bringing with it a few new quality-of-life features, such as new customization options for Home environments, in-headset app notifications, and better tracking for Quest Pro’s controller.
Customizable skyboxes let you change the sky above your head in your Home space, so you can choose from a number of presets, or even upload your own skybox to get the perfect atmosphere. Meta says its goal is to make Home Environments more personalized and customizable in the future.
The update also introduces in-headset notifications for 2D apps, such as Messenger, letting users interact with these apps without leaving their current game or app.
Meta says you’ll also be able to consolidate messages from the same source to streamline your notification feed, toggle a ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode, or disable notifications entirely for specific 2D apps. App notification are an opt-in feature that should prompt the first time you open a compatible app, so you won’t just start randomly receiving stuff, which is reassuring.
Additionally, Meta says v54 has improved Quest Touch Pro controller to enhance positional accuracy. Meta says these updates are gradually rolling out to all headsets.
Meta today announced it’s lowering the price of the 256GB version of Quest 2 as well as its more recent enthusiast-grade standalone, Meta Quest Pro.
Meta initially launched a 64GB and 256GB variants of Quest 2 in late 2020 for $300 and $400 respectively. A 128GB version was introduced in 2021, which replaced the 64GB version. To stave off rising costs, the company announced in July 2022 that it was raising the price of Quest 2 128GB and 256GB variants to $400 and $500 respectively.
Starting March 5th, Meta is now again restructuring its Quest 2 pricing by bringing the 256GB Meta Quest 2 from its current price of $500 to $430. Notably, the 128GB version of Quest 2 is staying at the same $400 price point.
Quest 2 (left), Quest Pro (right) | Photo by Road to VR
Meta Quest Pro is also seeing a price reduction on March 5th, bringing it from its $1,500 launch price to $1,000.
Meta says in a blogpost that pricing changes to Meta Quest 2 (256GB) will also update across Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the UK.
Quest Pro’s price will take effect US and Canada on March 5th, and March 15th in all of the other countries mentioned above.
The news of the Quest 2 and Quest Pro price change comes days after a report dropped from The Verge citing an internal memo on the company’s future roadmap.
A Quest Pro successor is also planned, but may come “way out in the future” after Ventura is released in 2024, the report maintained. Meanwhile, the company has sold 20 million Quest 2 headsets, however user retention has been a battle.
Provided the report is true, it seems the company is shaking up its pricing tiers to better entice Quest 2-owning enthusiasts into Quest Pro before it drops the more powerful Quest 3 later this year. Making the Quest 2 more accessible now will also make the “slightly more expensive” Quest 3 appear more attractive to users looking to upgrade then, and not now to the Quest Pro.
What are your thoughts on the new pricing strategy? Let us know in the comments below!
Meta released the v50 update for Quest 2, bringing to the standalone some new experimental features that not only aim to make hand-tracked UI navigation a little more natural, but also bring 2D app multitasking to Quest 2 for the first time.
One of the headlining features of v50 is something Meta is calling ‘Direct Touch’, which lets you tap and swipe through the Home UI. Simply ‘touch’ the tile and manipulate the menu like you would on a phone or tablet, Meta says, something that sounds a little more natural than pinching tiles from a distance in mid-air.
Meta says in a blog post that Direct Touch brings Quest “closer to that more intuitive hands-on future” that it hoped to bring when it first integrated optical hand tracking in 2019. Check out how it works in the gif below:
“We’ve reworked the Meta Quest UI so that—once you enable Direct Touch—you can tap buttons with your index finger to adjust your Settings or select a game from your library, quickly type out messages on the virtual keyboard, and more,” Meta says.
You can opt-in by navigating to the ‘Experimental Settings’ tab in-headset and turning on the ‘Direct Touch’ toggle, of course provided v50 has already rolled out to your device.
Meta’s v50 update also includes a new Quest 2 feature previously exclusive to Quest Pro: in-game multitasking. This lets you navigate to 2D apps, such as a browser, without closing the VR app you currently have open. Effectively, this means you can stay in-headset while you browse game walkthroughs, check your email, or whatever else you can do in a 2D app, all while still in-game.
As for Quest Pro, Meta says v50 has also reduced the amount of time it takes for tracking to initialize on the Meta Quest Touch Pro controllers—something oft lamented by early adopters due to the controllers’ inside-out tracking capabilities, which need to find their bearings in the room first.
Meanwhile, v50 marks the last time Meta is shipping new features to Quest 1. The company says in the release notes that while Quest 1 owners will be able to use their headsets beyond 2024, users will no longer be able to create or join a party; Quest 1 users who currently have access to Meta Horizon Home social features will lose access to these features on March 5, 2023—which means you also won’t be able to invite others to your Home or visit someone else’s Home.
With Quest 1 seemingly in the dustbin, Meta appears to be focusing on unifying some of the feature sets between Quest 2 and Quest Pro while polishing the software experience before the release of its next headset, Quest 3.
Earlier this month, Meta affirmed plans to release a Quest 3 headset at some point this year, something the company calls a mixed reality headset, inviting comparisons to Quest Pro—albeit without the face-tracking of the latter due to its relative cost, Meta says.
It’s only been three months since Meta launched Quest Pro, pitching its next-gen mixed reality standalone to enterprise and prosumers with the hefty price tag of $1,500. In an unusual move by the company, Meta has quietly slashed the price of Quest Pro for a limited time, putting it more directly in competition with HTC’s recently revealed Vive XR Elite standalone headset.
Update (11AM ET): Sale timing has been revealed; the price drop is in effect for one week only in the US, and two weeks in the UK (dropping to £1,300). We’ve included this in the body of the article below.
Released in late October, Quest Pro essentially set the tone of the next generation of standalone VR hardware. Typically, Meta is consumer-forward, pricing its headsets below (or close to) $500, but Quest Pro represents a pivotal shift in Meta’s strategy.
Starting with Quest Pro, the company is using mixed reality as “a key part of the journey toward full augmented reality devices,” Chief Technology Officer and Reality Labs Chief Andrew Bosworth described in a year-end blogpost.
Quest Pro | Image courtesy Meta
With the sale, it seems the company is quietly gunning to retain its share of the budding MR headset marketplace by knocking the price of Quest Pro to match its largest competitor, Vive XR Elite, which HTC revealed earlier this month, couching it as its long-awaited return to the consumer VR space.
Vive XR Elite | Image courtesy HTC
Now, Meta’s Quest Pro is priced at $1,100, or $400 below its previous MSRP, challenging Vive XR Elite’s unique selling points in the process. According to CNET, the sale is happening for one week only in the US, and two weeks in the UK (dropping to £1,300).
Notably, these aren’t entirely analogous devices; some hardware quirks might act as key differentiators, although the undeniable overlap now puts them squarely in direct competition. Still, it’s pretty close.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the headset specs side-by-side:
Feature
Vive XR Elite
Quest Pro
Inside-out tracking
wide FOV cameras (4), depth sensor (1)
wide FOV cameras (4), no depth sensor
Passthrough
single 16 MP RGB camera
single RGB (MP?) camera
Resolution
1,920 × 1,920 per eye (LCD)
1,800 × 1,920 per eye (LCD)
Display Refresh
90 Hz
90 Hz
Eye-tracking
Additional module required
Onboard eye-tracking
Face-tracking
Additional module required
Onboard face-tracking
Chipset
Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2
Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+
Storage & Memory
128 GB / 12 GB
256 GB / 12 GB
FOV
up to 110-degrees diagonal
up to 96-degrees diagonal
Optics
Pancake lens
Pancake lens
IPD Adjustment
manual, 54–73 mm range
manual, 55-75 mm
Audio
built-in open-ear audio
built-in open-ear audio, 3.5mm audio port
Weight
625g (including battery), 273g in ‘glasses’ mode
722 g (including battery)
Controllers
6DOF motion controllers (2), hand-tracking
6DOF motion controllers (2), hand-tracking
Playtime on battery
~2 hours
~2 hours
Retail Price
$1,099
$1,099 (MSRP $1,499)
A raw spec sheet doesn’t exactly tell the full story, although it’s clear HTC will need to play catchup if it intends on remaining competitive with Meta now that both headsets have achieved price parity, albeit temporarily. Vive XR Elite is still in pre-order, with a late February shipping window, while Quest Pro is available today, direct from Meta.
In Vive XR Elite’s favor is its convertibility: the traditional battery headstrap can be replaced with a glasses arm piece, which allows it to be used with an external powerbank for more casual content viewing, like watching a film in your own private theater whilst on a plane or train.
It’s a unique selling point, although the lack of 3.5mm sours this somewhat, as you’ll need to use Bluetooth headphones to watch anything if you want complete privacy in a public space. Still, the focus on every day, on-the-go use sets it apart from Quest Pro. On the flipside, Quest Pro however features both eye and face-tracking out of the box, something Vive XR Elite will gain in the future with the release of separate modules.
Hardware aside, Meta undoubtedly has a leg up with its content ecosystem, as all games designed for Quest 2 automatically support Quest Pro—that’s a lot of content out of the box in addition to the admittedly smallish drip of mixed reality experiences already on the Quest Store.
Meanwhile, HTC is still amassing games for its growing content library, which currently doesn’t boast any truly notable exclusives that might make you choose one headset over the other. Notably, HTC also openly refutes it will sell personal user data since it’s not a social media company—a clear shot across the bow at Meta’s spotty track record in user privacy and security.
“What’s the cost of your personal data? We’re not a social media company. Our business model doesn’t rely on advertising revenue, so it’s not something we’re doing. We want to build good hardware.” – @shen
The list of differences doesn’t end there. If you want to learn more about Quest Pro and Vive XR Elite, check out our in-depth hands-on articles with both headsets.
Meta hasn’t rolled out colocation services for the entire Quest platform yet—meaning a pair of Quest 2 headsets can’t automatically ‘see’ each other in the same physical playspace—although that’s not entirely true for its latest headset, Quest Pro.
Meta published a quick explainer video recently showing off how local multiplayer works between two Quest Pros. Here’s the gist, although you can catch the explanation in the video below as well:
To track the room and superimpose virtual imagery over your physical environment in mixed reality, Quest Pro generates point clouds which can be shared with other Quest Pros. Users can decide whether they share point cloud data, Meta says in the informational clip, although it’s notably done by using Meta’s servers as a middleman.
This is a fairly substantial change from how local multiplayer works on Quest 2—or doesn’t work—as games typically require some shared room marker that is used to calibrate the relative positions of players within a pre-defined space. This sort of ad hoc local multiplayer can provide variable results in terms of overall ‘avatar-to-person’ tracking fidelity, but by being able to sync up point clouds, you should (in practice) have the highest level of positional accuracy between two players.
Meta (vis-a-vis Facebook) has been talking about colocation on Quest for a while now. Starting in 2018, the company showed off an arena-scale multiplayer prototype based on VR shooter Dead & Buried, which we hoped would eventually lead to the company opening up colocation services for the Quest platform. Around one year later, the company published code in the Oculus Unity Integration pointing to a colocation API for Quest, although we still seem no closer to colocation on Quest 2.
It’s interesting to see the company is only allowing colocation on Quest Pro for now, its $1,500 mixed reality headset launched in late October. Meta still seems to be refining its value proposition of Quest Pro, and it seems colocation services are very much a ‘pro’ feature.
Meta’s v47 software update for the Quest platform is packed with quality-of-life features that look to improve the user experience across Quest Pro and Quest 2, offering things like better media sync, an avatar mirror, and the ability to directly gift apps from your wishlist to friends and family. More importantly, Quest Pro is finally getting mixed reality passthrough recording in v47, and unlocking Quest Pro controller support for Quest 2.
First, here’s a look at the Quest Pro specific stuff, followed by updates affecting the whole Quest platform.
Quest Pro Updates
Meta is looking to make good use of the extra horsepower in Quest Pro, as it’s set to gradually rollout background audio playback as an experimental feature, which will let you listen to music and podcasts Browser as well as Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), which include things like 2D apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Spike, but also WebXR-based stuff too.
Not being able to record mixed reality footage was a bit of a letdown when Quest Pro launched back in late October, but now Meta says v47 will soon (again, gradual rollout) let you capture photos and videos while using mixed reality in passthrough mode. Here’s a look at how you can easily transition from VR to passthrough MR during the same recording:
Quest-wide Updates
Speaking of video capture, Meta is making it easier to capture video and images on Quest with the addition of capture controller shortcuts. Once you have v47 in-hand, you’ll be able to capture images by holding the Oculus button down and pulling the right controller trigger. To record video, hold the Oculus button and long-hold the right controller trigger.
And syncing media is supposed to be a better experience too, as Meta says it’s improving how you view, edit and share your photos and videos you capture in VR. We’re hoping the new syncing method is faster and more reliable than the previous, which promised to automatically sync to the Oculus app, but often times left us waiting for days for images and video to show up.
Meta is also unlocking Quest Pro Touch controller compatibility with Quest 2 in v47. Quest Pro’s controller is the company’s first inside-out tracked controllers due to the inclusion of its own camera sensors. That means a wider range of motion in-game since you don’t need direct line of sight between the headset and controllers.
Quest 2 Controller (top), Quest Pro Controller (bottom) | Photo by Road to VR
Many social VR apps have mirrors for easier avatar management, and now Quest will too. The v47 update lets you view and edit your avatar with a new mirror added to Home. This is set to roll out gradually and will be initially available in four environments: Desert Terrace, Space Station, Winter Lodge, and Cascadia.
Here’s a couple more goodies being added in v47:
Universal Menu Customization – You can start, find, and jump into a multiplayer session with your friends directly from the home screen. You’ll be able to pin and unpin apps from your library to your Universal Menu for quicker access to apps.
Revamped device management screen – Makes it easier to know when your headset needs to be charged.
Shareable Wishlists – Make your app wishlist public and send a link to friends and family. Modify your wishlist from the Store tab on your headset or the Meta Quest mobile app. Friends and family will be able to directly gift apps from your wishlist.
Meta Quest Digital Gift Cards – Redeemable for any app or game in the Meta Quest Store.
Over the past two years Meta hasn’t sold its VR headsets in Germany due to an ongoing antitrust suit in that country that alleges the forced linkage between its virtual reality products and Facebook was an anticompetitive practice. Now it seems that’s about to change, as regulators have intimated that Meta may be free and clear soon to resume sales in Germany.
As reported by German VR publication MIXED, residents of Europe’s largest economy will soon be able to order Quest 2 and Quest Pro, which are both set to be available in-country by the end of this year.
After the sales halt in September 2020, Germany-based customers had to import Meta VR devices, which was typically done by buying from online retailers based in neighboring European countries, such as France’s Amazon.fr or Italy’s Amazon.it.
Resuming sales in Germany is directly linked to Meta’s backtracking on forced Facebook logins in August. Andreas Mundt, President of Germany’s Federal Cartel Office which is tasked with antitrust enforcement in that country, calls this a “welcome development,” although the process is still not concluded.
Here’s Mundt’s full statement, translated to English:
With Meta’s digital ecosystem created with a very large number of users, the company is the key player in the social media space. Meta also has a significant position in the growing VR market. If the use of VR glasses were only possible for Facebook or Instagram members, this could severely affect competition in both areas. Meta has responded to our concerns and offered a solution by setting up a separate Meta account to use the Quest glasses. Despite this welcome development, we are not concluding the process today. First of all, we want to continue to accompany the actual design of the options for users as well as topics of the merging and processing of user data from the various meta-services.
Although a Meta spokesperson tells MIXED that both Quest 2 and the new Quest Pro will be available in-country at some point this year, the exact date is unclear.
Thanks to our reader Blaexe for pointing out that it wasn’t a block, but an anticipatory halt on Meta’s part during the ongoing antitrust suit. We’ve changed wording to reflect this.
