Facebook Discontinues Oculus Go, Its Cheapest Virtual Reality Headset

Facebook discontinues Oculus Go, its cheapest virtual reality headset

Device was launched in late 2017 costing from $ 199

Facebook announced this week by Oculus Oculus Go to discontinue his virtual reality headset cheaper. This model was launched in late 2017 starting at $ 199 and at the time it was a milestone for the company, which used it to combat the natural perception that virtual reality was expensive.

Oculus Go will continue to receive firmware updates until 2022 and will only accept new applications sent by developers until December 2020, but the headset itself will only continue to be sold until stocks are exhausted .

In its announcement, the company said it is retiring this model after users’ positive response to Oculus Quest, which has the same “all-in-one” format and offers six degrees of freedom (6DoF). For comparison, Oculus Go offers only three degrees of freedom (3DoF).

“You told us loud and clear that 6DoF is the future of virtual reality. That is why we will no longer offer virtual reality products with 3DoF”, says the post published by Oculus. Currently priced at $ 149, Oculus Go is already listed as out of stock on the Oculus website – the virtual reality company responsible for the Oculus Rift and which was purchased by Facebook in 2014. The company believes that Oculus is currently Quest is the best solution for most users.

Facebook discontinues Oculus Go, its cheapest virtual reality headset

Oculus Go has more modest specifications compared to Oculus Quest. The Oculus Go comes equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chip, has a 5.5-inch LCD screen with 1280 x 1440 resolution with 60Hz and 72Hz refresh rates, 3GB of RAM, 32GB / 64GB of storage capacity and battery 2,600mAh with autonomy of up to two hours for games and up to two hours and 30 minutes for playing videos.

The Oculus Quest comes equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip, two OLED screens with a resolution of 1600 x 1440, a refresh rate of 72Hz, active cooling, 4GB of RAM, 64GB / 128GB of storage capacity and the aforementioned 6DoF. In addition, an updated version of Oculus Quest will appear to be released later this year with a 90Hz refresh rate and this may result in a reduction in the price of the current Oculus Quest.

In addition to confirming that Oculus Go will be discontinued, Facebook has confirmed that it is working on a way to make it easier for developers to distribute applications for Oculus Quest outside the Oculus Store. In 2021 developers will be able to share their applications with anyone who has Oculus Quest without the need for the practice known as “sideloading”, which basically allows the installation of applications using unofficial methods, and without having to access the Oculus Store.

Facebook has not yet released details on how this will work, but the company made this announcement so that developers have time to adapt their applications for the headset.Source: XDA Developers

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Facebook discontinues Oculus Go, its cheapest virtual reality headset