Category: Oculus Store

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Meta: $1 Billion Spent In Quest Store, 8 Titles Surpass $20 Million In Revenue

As part of its quarterly earnings call, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that users have spent more than $1 billion on Quest store content.

Zuckerberg announced the amount in connection with his prepared remarks, a transcript of which is available online. Here’s what Zuckerberg said specifically about Quest store content:

On the hardware front, we’re seeing real traction with Quest 2. People have spent more than $1B on Quest store content, helping virtual reality developers grow and sustain their business.

Meta’s Director of Content Ecosystem Chris Pruett shared further details on Twitter as well, noting that eight titles on the Quest store have made over $20 million in gross revenue (one of which we know to be Beat Saber), while 14 have made over $10 million and 17 over $5 million.

Additionally, over 120 titles have generated more than $1 million in revenue on the platform. Around a year ago in January 2021, that number was only 60 titles. In March 2020, it was only 20.

These new content statistics are just one facet of Meta’s quarterly earnings call announcements. For the first time ever, the company broke out its revenue from Reality Labs in this earnings call, revealing more specific revenue and spending numbers for the segment responsible for Meta’s VR/AR efforts.

Overall, Reality Labs revenue totaled almost $2.3 billion for Meta in 2021 and marked Reality Labs’ revenue roughly doubling year-on-year. This was bolstered by particularly strong revenue in Q4 2021, due to strong Quest 2 sales in the holiday season. You can read more here.

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Vermillion Available On Oculus Store For Rift, Cross-Buy With Future Quest Release

The VR oil painting simulator app Vermillion is now available on the Oculus Store for Rift, after releasing last month on Steam.

The Oculus Store release will offer cross-buy with the Oculus Quest release, which is in development and will release in 2022. This means those who buy the app on the Oculus Store for Rift will receive a copy of the app on Quest for free, once available. Users who own a VR-ready PC and an Oculus Quest can use Oculus Link or AirLink to play the title on the Quest until the native standalone version of the game arrives next year.

We spoke with Vermillion developer Thomas van den Berge in our virtual studio space earlier this week, discussing Vermillion’s history and development process. Van den Berge, who is the sole developer, said that the Quest port is his current focus. “That’s the big priority right now, just to make it accessible to as many people as possible because so many people only have the Quest or just prefer being untethered. It’s going to be a big one.”

“I already have a first version running on the Quest, which has pretty much full feature parity,” said van den Berge. “But it’s not yet running at full framerate. So I’ll have to be looking at how much I can optimize. And otherwise, what features do I have to scale down to get it running properly on the Quest? I’m aiming at full feature parity, hopefully it’ll work out.”

Van den Berge confirmed that Vermillion will arrive on App Lab for Quest first, before launching on the Oculus Store for Quest at a later date. We’ve reached out to confirm whether cross-buy support will include the Quest App Lab release,or just the Oculus Store for Quest release, and will update the article if we receive a response.

Vermillion is available on Steam and Oculus Store for PC VR now. Be sure to keep an eye out for our full interview with van den Berge next week.

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FRL VP ‘Doesn’t Have An Issue’ With Quest Store On Other Headsets

Facebook Reality Labs VP Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, doesn’t take issue with the idea of bringing the Oculus Quest store to other headsets.

Bosworth said as much during his most recent AMA session on Instagram. Asked if the Quest’s store could come to other devices, he replied: “I don’t have a fundamental issue with the idea. I think, certainly, we’d love to have more outlets for our developers to make money on their content. Right now there’s just not really a headset to do it with. And I think it’s not been an option just for that reason.”

It’s definitely true that Quest is the only big standalone headset available for consumers in the US and Europe right now, though alternatives do exist in China. Presumably, any such headset would offer a store of its own but, by featuring the Quest store, it could also offer Facebook-published exclusives like Robo Recall: Unplugged.

Still, we’re unlikely to see this happen any time soon – it’s unclear what standalone alternatives to Quest are on the horizon right now, save for rumors about an Apple VR headset. That device isn’t likely to run anything other than Apple’s own operating system. The upcoming PS5 VR headset will also most certainly be limited to the console’s own ecosystem. Could last week’s rumors of a Vive Focus 3 perhaps provide Facebook with an outlet to expand the Quest store onto other devices?

Would you want to see the Oculus Quest store on other standalone headsets? Let us know in the comments below!

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Star Wars Day Sale Sees Discounted Games Across VR Platforms

Several Star Wars VR titles are discounted across a variety of VR platforms to celebrate Star Wars Day, May the 4th.

For those living under a rock, Star Wars Day falls on May the 4th (a play on the classic Star Wars line – may the force be with you) and Star Wars games are discounted across several platforms to celebrate.

You can see a full list of discounts over on the Star Wars blog, but we’ll highlight the VR discounts below.

star wars day bundle

The largest item on the list by far is the Star Wars Day bundle for Oculus Quest. Available on the Oculus Store, the bundle includes all five Star Wars experiences available on Quest – Vader Immortal: Episodes 1-3, Star Wars Pinball VR and Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge.

The bundle goes on sale from May 1 and will be available until May 5. However at the time of writing, the price of the bundle and the associated discount is not visible on the Oculus Store. It does note that the bundle will adopt a dynamic pricing model, adjusting to account for games in the bundle that the user might already own.

Meanwhile PC VR players will be able to get Star Wars Squadrons at a discount of 50% on their platform of choice, with sales across Steam, Epic Games Store and Origin.

Squadrons is also discounted 50% on the PlayStation Store for PS4, so PSVR players will have until May 12th to take advantage of that offer. If space dogfighting isn’t your style, then PSVR players will also be able to grab a bundle of all three episodes of Vader Immortal for 50% off until May 12 as well, as part of PlayStation’s Games Under 20 sale.

What will you be picking up in the sales? Let us know in the comments.

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Quest Now Supports Paid App Subscriptions Directly in Oculus Store

Oculus today announced it is supporting subscriptions via the Quest platform. It’s not only set to streamline a number of fitness and productivity apps which already offer subscriptions hosted outside of the ecosystem, but also make the subscription process easier for users from the get-go.

Oculus says App subscription offerings will differ by title; some will be wholly subscription services, while others may optionally lock certain content and features behind subscriptions.

Subscriptions are live starting today, with the following games offering support for premium content via the Oculus Store for Quest and Quest 2: FitXR, Rec Room (via Rec Room ‘Plus’), Tribe XR, TRIPP, vSpatial, and VZfit.

Native Oculus Store support for app subscriptions ostensibly streamlines billing for the company, but it also makes it possible to know just how much subscriptions will cost each month upfront so there aren’t any inconvenient surprises waiting for you once you’ve downloaded the game for ‘free’.

Oculus is also making it possible for developers to optionally create free trials for subscription-based apps, which is good to hear. Free trials can be cancelled “at any time to avoid being charged for the next billing cycle,” the company says.

The post Quest Now Supports Paid App Subscriptions Directly in Oculus Store appeared first on Road to VR.

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Puzzling Places Moves From App Lab To Official Store Release For Quest

Puzzling Places will release on the Oculus Store for Quest later this year, making it the first announced app to move from App Lab to the official store.

Puzzling Places has had a storied history on Quest. It first released as an app only available through sideloading on SideQuest. Then when App Lab launched earlier this year, Puzzling Places was one of the first apps available on the service. The App Lab launch coincided with a huge update for the game, which added more puzzles to bring the total to 6 available in-game. The puzzles are 3D models of real life locations, captured with photogrammerty and split into pieces for puzzles that range from 20 to 200 pieces in size.

App Lab was launched in February this year, as a method for users to easily install Quest apps that are not available on the official Oculus Store. While this was possible with sideloading and programs like SideQuest, those methods required registering as a developer and a few more setup steps. App Lab content can be installed with a few clicks and is a much easier process for the average user.

With its move from App Lab to full Oculus Store release, Puzzling Places is the first app that has found its way to an official Quest release after initially releasing on App Lab. There’s no set date for the Oculus Store release just yet, though the developers indicated on Twitter that a Fall release is the current target. That being said, it’s quite common for Oculus Store release to move around, so keep an eye out for more news on a release date in the future.

Elsewhere, the game’s also on its way to PSVR in the near future.

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Facebook Won’t Allow Cloud VR Streaming On Oculus Store Or App Lab

A new Oculus policy forbids cloud VR streaming on both the store and App Lab.

Facebook lists its Virtual Reality Check (VRC) requirements on the Oculus developer website. VRC.Quest.Streaming.2 was added last week:

Applications that stream immersive VR content may only do so from a local source, that is, a device that the customer has physical access to. Streaming from virtual devices or cloud sources is not allowed.

The app Virtual Desktop allows streaming from local (or remote) PCs. When the feature launched in 2019 Facebook rejected it, forcing the developer to make it available as an optional patch on alternative store SideQuest.

Last week Facebook reversed that decision, allowing the feature back on the main store.

Shadow VR

Last year cloud PC rental service Shadow VR announced plans to launch an Oculus Quest app for cloud VR streaming, and startup Pluto recently announced a managed service. In out short demo of the PlutoSphere service we asked about distribution plans, and were told it plans to use SideQuest. This means users will have to register with Facebook as developers – a process which is free but requires giving Facebook either your phone number or card details – and the app won’t get automatic updates.

We asked a Facebook representative for comment about the new restriction and received the following statement over email:

“We’ve seen the value that customers are able to get from PC VR titles and we want to enable those sorts of local PC experiences. That said, streaming from a remote device is a significantly different proposal as it could impact comfort. For now, we’re allowing PC VR wireless streaming for local PCs, and hope to learn more about the level of quality it can achieve before we consider cloud-based solutions for interactive VR.”

PlutoSphere

Facebook itself has no announced plans for cloud VR streaming. Last year an executive described the technology as more than five years away.

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Facebook VP: BCIs Will Take Generations Before ‘High Bandwidth’

As part of his latest Instagram AMA, Facebook Vice President of Augmented and Virtual Reality Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth gave his thoughts on the status of brain-computer interfaces.

Bosworth regularly hosts Instagram AMA (ask me anything) sessions where users can submit questions, which Bosworth can choose to reply to via a recorded response. One question took the topic of conversation toward technology that will be able to communicate back and forth directly with the brain. “When do you think brain machine interfaces will become a thing? Is Facebook working on it?”

Here’s a transcription of Bosworth’s full response:

Yeah, last year we acquired a company called CTRL Labs, and we are working on exactly that. We’ve been working with UCSF even before that. I think it’s gonna happen but it’s gonna take generations. First it’s gonna be one bit, then several bit, then high bandwidth.

The company mentioned by Bosworth, CTRL Labs, was a New York-based startup acquired by Facebook in September 2019. The company was developing a wristband that could track the user’s fingers by reading electric signals inside their arm — a primitive version of a brain-computer interface.

At the time of finalizing the acquisition, Facebook said that the CTRL Labs team would be integrated into Facebook Reality Labs. “They will be joining our Facebook Reality Labs team where we hope to build this kind of technology, at scale, and get it into consumer products faster,” said Bosworth in a Facebook post at the time.

You can see the rest of Bosworth’s AMA responses over on his Instagram account, @boztank.

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Facebook VP: BCIs Will Take Generations Before ‘High Bandwidth’

As part of his latest Instagram AMA, Facebook Vice President of Augmented and Virtual Reality Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth gave his thoughts on the status of brain-computer interfaces.

Bosworth regularly hosts Instagram AMA (ask me anything) sessions where users can submit questions, which Bosworth can choose to reply to via a recorded response. One question took the topic of conversation toward technology that will be able to communicate back and forth directly with the brain. “When do you think brain machine interfaces will become a thing? Is Facebook working on it?”

Here’s a transcription of Bosworth’s full response:

Yeah, last year we acquired a company called CTRL Labs, and we are working on exactly that. We’ve been working with UCSF even before that. I think it’s gonna happen but it’s gonna take generations. First it’s gonna be one bit, then several bit, then high bandwidth.

The company mentioned by Bosworth, CTRL Labs, was a New York-based startup acquired by Facebook in September 2019. The company was developing a wristband that could track the user’s fingers by reading electric signals inside their arm — a primitive version of a brain-computer interface.

At the time of finalizing the acquisition, Facebook said that the CTRL Labs team would be integrated into Facebook Reality Labs. “They will be joining our Facebook Reality Labs team where we hope to build this kind of technology, at scale, and get it into consumer products faster,” said Bosworth in a Facebook post at the time.

You can see the rest of Bosworth’s AMA responses over on his Instagram account, @boztank.

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Facebook’s Bosworth Discusses Store Restrictions And Virtual Desktop

In another one of his Instagram AMAs, Vice President of Augmented and Virtual Reality Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth discussed the status of Virtual Desktop’s pending App Lab submission and the requirements surrounding Oculus Store content.

Bosworth acknowledged the Virtual Desktop submission is still pending, but expanded a bit more on the context behind Oculus Store content.

Here’s a full transcription of what he said in response to a question on the status of Virtual Desktop’s App Lab submission:

“Yeah as you probably heard from Guy on Twitter, they’ve submitted the app for review. I actually don’t know the status of it yet but that’s still kind of ongoing so I don’t know that. But I do want to take this opportunity to address the broader thinking behind the store and App Lab and restrictions there.

Virtual reality is new and we want to take it mainstream. What we found is that people would try virtual reality once and if they had a bad experience, they would not be so easy to get back and try it again. So it was very important to us that when people tried virtual reality in Quest, they had a great experience.

I would say our approach appears to have paid off. Certainly relative to Go or Gear VR, we’re seeing a lot more return customers. Of course, it’s a better product, but it has a real cost – that means a lot of developers who had great content (which is doing very well, for example, on SideQuest) didn’t make it into the store, which sucks.

Developers are our life blood so, obviously having had a success, we feel like we’re in a good position with consumers [and] breaking mainstream, we’re now trying to release those constraints that we put in place, and the App Lab is just the first step in that path.

To bring this full circle, one of the challenges with Virtual Desktop is that we can’t know what your wi-fi connection is like or how it changes, and so we couldn’t guarantee a good experience, and that was why we had limitations on apps like this shipping in the store.”

While Virtual Desktop is available on the Oculus Store, a patch can be applied through sideloading and SideQuest that allows users with a strong local wi-fi connection to play PC VR games wirelessly on their Quest.  Developer Guy Godin has submitted this version of the app for App Lab approval, which would significantly lower the difficulty of installing the patch for users.

For more information on App Lab, check out our guide how to find and install App Lab apps.