While virtual reality has largely been explored from a gaming perspective by many people, its long-term future is ultimately towards business needs, as this is seen as the market that will drive the technology to profitability and eventual mainstream use. This approach makes a lot of sense from a cost perspective, as these don’t come cheap.
From a business perspective though, it’s not just more money at play, but also higher processing needs which probably explains the recent decision by Oculus (as reported by UploadVR) to drop support for the Oculus Go from their Oculus for Business platform and focus rather on pushing business applications to make use of the more high powered Oculus Quest device:
It’s become clear that Oculus Quest, with its high-end graphics and fully immersive capabilities, is the best solution for most business VR needs. We’ve decided to focus our efforts on developing the platform based on Quest features and functionality.
While this means that business can still purchase a Go order with a license for commercial use, it means that the Oculus for Business software which the company has created to aid in the development of software for the platform, won’t be supported on the Go.
This decision could spell the end of the Go device long-term as well because with the cheaper Go not including fully fledged motion controls and not as great for gaming as the Quest or Rift S. Now with its business functions also been removed it will be interesting to see if Facebook targets the device at a different audience and makes it a cheap entry into VR with limited usage or perhaps kills it off entirely.
Last Updated: January 22, 2020
