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Oculus winding down Go headset support

Oculus winding down Go headset support

Virtual reality giant Oculus has said that it will be stepping back from its standalone Go headset (pictured) in favour of focusing its other hardware.

In a blog post, the Facebook-owned firm said it is ending sales of Go later this year and will "double down" on the Quest and Rift headsets. Part of the reason for this is that the latter two pieces of hardware offer full six degrees of freedom, compared to the rather limited Go.

"Since we launched Oculus Go two years ago, VR technology has improved at an incredible pace," the company wrote.

"Oculus Go’s success first proved that the all-in-one form factor can deliver highly immersive experiences. A year later, Oculus Quest redefined the category, with full head and hand movement powered by our Insight tracking system. Quest enabled incredible VR games like Beat Saber, Dance Central, and The Climb with the freedom of an untethered experience, plus access to high-powered PC games like Asgard’s Wrath and Stormland through Oculus Link. Just past the one-year anniversary of Quest, we’re humbled by its continued success. The community response has been overwhelmingly positive, and you’ve told us loud and clear that 6DOF feels like the future of VR. That’s why we’re going all-in, and we won’t be shipping any more 3DOF VR products. We’ll end sales of Oculus Go headsets this year as we double down on improving our offerings for Quest and Rift. Today we’re also excited to share a sneak peek at a new way for developers to distribute Quest apps starting next year, so that even more of you can join the next chapter along with us."

Oculus announced in May that consumers had spent more than $100m on its Quest VR ecosystem. The company helped drive Facebook's non-ad revenue up by 80 per cent for the three month period ending March 31st, 2020.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.