The virtual reality (VR) industry is moving at such a rapid rate that 12 months can seem like an age ago, new hardware appears, gameplay mechanics are improved an so much more. With that in mind, today, Facebook has announced that sales of Oculus Go will now finish, putting an end to 3 degrees-of-freedom (3DoF) products from the company.
The little grey headsets launched a couple of years ago, bridging the gap between the Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Rift. It provided a tidy all-in-one solution for entry level VR gaming, as well as being used by businesses and other organisations who were embracing VR.
But just like the Oculus Go helped kill off Gear VR, when Oculus Quest launched in 2019 that signalled the end of Oculus Go; why have basic 3DoF controls when 6DoF was so much more immersive.
“That’s why we’re going all-in, and we won’t be shipping any more 3DOF VR products,” said Oculus in a blog post. “We’ll end sales of Oculus Go headsets this year as we double down on improving our offerings for Quest and Rift.”
That doesn’t mean to say your Oculus Go is now suddenly dead weight. While you won’t be able to buy the headsets Oculus will: “continue to maintain the system software with bug fixes and security patches through 2022.” But, this year will see the software side being wound down. “We won’t be shipping new features for Oculus Go moving forward, and we’ll no longer accept new Oculus Go apps or app updates into the Store after December 4, 2020,” Oculus notes. “We’ll stop adding new Go apps into the Store after December 18, 2020.”
For most of 2020, stock of any of Oculus’ headsets has been highly erratic due to the coronavirus pandemic. Currently, Oculus’s UK website is completely out of stock of all three and when stock is available it doesn’t last long. So that’s the end of Oculus Go, bringing Facebook’s hardware lineup to two. However, as VRFocus has previously reported, could a smaller, light Oculus Quest be on the way within the next year? For further Oculus hardware and software updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Source: https://www.vrfocus.com/2020/06/oculus-go-sales-to-end-no-new-apps-after-2020/
