Facebook Announces Stand-Alone 6DoF HMD, Oculus Quest

Subscribe To Download This Insight

4Q 2018 | IN-5276

At October’s Oculus Connect conference, Facebook announced its next Virtual Reality (VR) platform, Quest (code named Santa Cruz). Quest is a stand-alone solution offering full Six Degrees of Freedom (6DoF) VR experiences (room-scale VR with 6DoF controllers) and will ship in spring 2019 for US$399. Pricing puts it amid the company’s 3DoF stand-alone system Oculus Go, which starts at US$199, and the high-end tethered Rift (pricing for packages typically start at the same US$399 price but requires a personal computer [PC]). The hardware is reportedly based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 platform (above the Go’s Snapdragon 821 platform but lower than the current Snapdragon 845).

Registered users can unlock up to five pieces of premium content each month.

Log in or register to unlock this Insight.

 

Facebook’s Oculus Quest to Fill the Middle Ground between Go and Rift

NEWS


At October’s Oculus Connect conference, Facebook announced its next Virtual Reality (VR) platform, Quest (code named Santa Cruz). Quest is a stand-alone solution offering full Six Degrees of Freedom (6DoF) VR experiences (room-scale VR with 6DoF controllers) and will ship in spring 2019 for US$399. Pricing puts it amid the company’s 3DoF stand-alone system Oculus Go, which starts at US$199, and the high-end tethered Rift (pricing for packages typically start at the same US$399 price but requires a personal computer [PC]). The hardware is reportedly based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 platform (above the Go’s Snapdragon 821 platform but lower than the current Snapdragon 845).

While some cross-platform (tethered/PC) content will be available, not all experiences will port over due to differences in performance capabilities. The power profile, for example, limits the amount of compute power Oculus could include in the device (high PC gaming could draw hundreds of watts of power compared to the roughly five watts for Quest). While this does limit the initial library and possibly the rollout of crossover titles, it is a step in the right direction toward bringing the stand-alone VR market to a bifurcated higher- and lower-end split (Three Degrees of Freedom [3DoF] experiences versus full 6DoF).

Drawing Parallels to Consoles and Smartphones

IMPACT


In fact, the development of the VR market is looking remarkably similar to the early console and even smartphone days. In the console market these devices typically offered less graphic and less robust gaming experiences than their PC counterparts. As the console hardware advanced and closed the gap (in particular, as the platforms became more PC-like), development across segments increased; now there many cases where content development occurs, geared toward consoles first with ports coming to PCs at a later date. There are still plenty of platform-specific titles, but in terms of overall performance and robustness, there are far more similarities than differences—resolution and the newest graphical effects/rendering still favor the PC, but the visual gap between the two is far less noticeable. These early VR platforms are following a similar progression with more dedicated software and experiences, but in time we expect to see far more crossover happening with VR than not.

The smartphone market may not have taken off until Apple and Google tackled the market, but it existed before the first iPhone (2007) and HTC’s G1 (2008—the first commercially launched Android phone). Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and companies such as Palm provided devices that offered many of the same features found on today’s smartphones, but they were relegated to enterprise and techies. I personally remember carrying a Palm Treo (and before that, a Samsung SPH-i500); everyone commented on the “brick” in my pocket—which by today’s standards and from a top-down perspective was quite quaint compared to today’s large-screen smartphones that were once called phablets. Like these smartphones and PDAs, VR is in its early days, which is why quite a few still point to a killer device or application that will turn the tide like Apple (and Google) did for smartphones.

Stand-alone VR is certainly a step in the right direction—it solves some of the issues plaguing consumer VR, such as excessive heat, weight, battery drain on smartphones; cost (when factoring in PCs or consoles); portability; and ease of setup (e.g., no sensors or wires/tethers). The stand-alone market, however does not yet address the content problem, and it does necessitate a comparably higher investment into VR than mobile reliant solutions. With stand-alone gaining more attention, the question arises—will mobile VR have a future?

Yea or Nay on Mobile VR?

RECOMMENDATIONS


Certainly the mobile VR space (particularly at the premium end) is challenged. Key proponents like Samsung and Google have not pushed their solutions (e.g., no bundles), and updates have not occurred as frequently. While this could portend a strong shift away from mobile VR solutions, if this outcome should come to fruition it would greatly diminish the overall market opportunities for VR. First and foremost it will greatly reduce and shift the installed base toward a set of niche users rather than one that could continue building toward the mainstream. Cost remains a barrier to entry (largely speaking to the consumer side), and the removal of mobile VR essentially requires consumers to invest more into a dedicated device. Mobile VR, on the other hand, takes advantage of the hundreds of millions of devices consumers already have in their pockets—hardware that is updated under relatively short upgrade cycles, which simply means the base of potential VR ready devices grows with each passing year. If we remove these smartphone-based devices, the stand-alone market could still try to satisfy the lower and higher ends of the market with 3DoF and 6DoF solutions. However, it is likely that this market landscape would heavily favor the more premium experience because the volume at the low end will not justify as much developer support (e.g., 3DoF users would likely exhibit buying patterns closer to mobile gamers/users, who spend less per user when compared to PC/console gamers; mobile gaming makes this up in sheer volume of users). Focusing on the more premium side of the business would likely keep VR in a more niche role—one cannot assume that all hard-core gamers will make the VR plunge either.

While mobile VR does fall victim to many of the pain points currently associated with VR, alternate device form factors could address some of these issues. For example, a mobile Head-Mounted Display (HMD) that includes the screen/lens, battery, and sensors could plug into a mobile device via a tether (e.g., a phone in the user’s pocket) which would at minimum reduce the heat signature and weight of the HMD and battery performance as well. While the cost would be higher than a smartphone holder/sleeve, it would more readily support future generations of phones and be less “disposable” than some of the inexpensive smartphone VR holders. We are also ignoring those users who refuse to (or cannot) wear head-worn devices, because these users are not part of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) regardless of changes to the hardware—at least not until we see devices that blur the lines from regular glasses.

There is also the issue of 5G. While quite a few cite the upcoming rollouts of 5G as opportunities for VR, these devices need to support this connectivity at the device level in order to benefit from it. Some early dedicated VR devices played with 4G, but that effort never came to fruition. Even with mobile, most VR is still used indoors and over Wi-Fi, where content is streamed or downloaded. Investment in a 5G-enabled HMD not only carries a higher up-front cost but also carries recurring monthly fees/subscriptions that significantly increase the cost of ownership. Many of the key benefits of VR on the go (e.g., autonomous transportation) are still years away, suggesting that the rollout of these cellular-enabled devices are similarly quite far off.

The market in some respects continues to find itself at a crossroads of sorts. ABI Research believes that support for mobile VR space is essential for market development within the consumer space. Since companies remain committed to and invested in VR, we will continue to forecast it as such, but if the industry chooses to let mobile VR wither or die on the vine, as it were, we would alter our long-term market expectations accordingly. Stand-alone VR would likely shift toward the higher end, limiting the support and ultimately adoption of lower-cost stand-alone devices, which would reduce this base of users. This would shift the market toward more curated video experiences and gaming. Tethered VR would not see a significant impact; it is more dependent on future console support and overall game developer/publisher investments. Overall, however, the market forecast would further shrink, which could leave it as a niche market for a longer period of time (and again, only until cross reality/mixed reality devices become more prevalent).

Services

Companies Mentioned