Facebook’s Oculus Quest might be the Honda Civic of VR

If cost is keeping you from purchasing virtual truth equipment, Mark Zuckerberg has a brand-new headset for you.

The Oculus Quest, a $399 VR headset that Facebook’s CEO revealed Wednesday which’s due out next spring (the business generally reveals brand-new models months prior to they go on sale), is created to attend to a number of irritating problems early VR users have actually had about the existing generation of headsets.

On the outdoors, the Quest appears like a normal VR headset: A huge black box slips over your head and rests simply above your nose, positioning the screen inside so near your eyes that your brain is fooled into thinking you remain in a computer-generated world. It likewise has a set of electronic cameras constructed into its sides keeping an eye out into the real life to identify your area in a space and deal with a set of hand controllers that will be available in package.

“This is the all-in-one VR experience we’ve all been waiting for,” Zuckerberg stated at Facebook’s Oculus Connect designer conference in San Jose,California “This is it.”

At its heart, the Quest represents Zuckerberg’s greatest push yet to get us to purchase into VR. In the 4 years given that he purchased Oculus VR for more than $2 billion, Facebook has actually launched a series of gadgets to attract hardcore fans and newbies alike.

So far, it’s been a variety.

People are anticipated to purchase just 8.7 million VR headsets this year, up from 7.1 million in 2015 and 6.7 million the year prior to, according to information from market watcher SuperDataResearch That consists of Oculus equipment such as the entry-level Oculus Go, a $199 headset created for less-sophisticated video games and experiences, like enjoying videos or talking with pals.

There’s likewise Facebook’s powerhouse headset, the $399 Rift, which takes on HTC’s $499 Vive and Sony’s $299 Play Station VR Released in 2016, 2 years after Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus, the Rift needs a computer system to power its abundant VR experiences, like significant spaceship fights and lavish vibrant computer-generated forests.

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Oculus Quest is a full-motion, self-contained VR headset…

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What sets the Quest apart is that it will offer high-end VR experiences without the need for an expensive PC to power it. Instead, it’s powered by a self-contained computer running Google’s Android operating system software typically found on phones. The result is a device powerful enough to run many dozens of the Rift’s games, an effective middle ground between Facebook’s entry-level Go and high-end Rift.

Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, believes Facebook will put most of its marketing muscle into promoting the Quest. He compared it to mass-market cars that aren’t the cheapest but aren’t muscle cars either. “This is their Honda Civic,” Sag said.

All told, Zuckerberg said he’d like 10 million people to use each of his company’s devices. He didn’t say how many people use Oculus devices today, but said he expects the Quest will help the company make significant headway.

“We have this saying at Facebook that the journey is 1 percent finished, and in this case, not even quite,” he said. “This isn’t a question of when we’re going to get there, it’s how.”

Games, games, games (and Star Wars)

Since buying Oculus, Zuckerberg has talked up VR’s potential as a new learning tool, a new medium for communication and a new way for us to interact with computers.

As he talked about the Quest on Wednesday, though, he shifted almost entirely to VR’s potential for gaming. He said that over 50 games you can play today on the high-end Rift will also run on the Quest, including popular and top-selling titles such as the adventure title The Climb, the shooting game Robo Recall and the puzzle game SuperHot.

That, Oculus executives said, is the result of decisions the company’s made to focus on games and the 2.6 billion people around the world who play them.

“It is an audience that is enthusiastic, wants their games, that’s willing to invest both their time and their money,” Hugo Barra, Facebook’s vice president of VR, said in an interview.

To help get more people interested in VR, Barra said Facebook has increased its investment beyond the $500 million it committed to two years ago, though he declined to say by how much. The cash boost seems to be an acknowledgement that game and app makers still need financial support as they experiment to find what apps will attract wider appeal beyond VR fans.

“We’re putting tremendous amount of energy and our resources into these platforms,” Barra said.

Oculus has also struck a deal with Disney’s ILMxLAB, an entertainment division of Lucasfilm that’s produced games like the VR game Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, where you and friends playing along dress as Stormtroopers and infiltrate Darth Vader’s castle.

A new three-part episodic series, which will go on sale alongside the Quest but doesn’t yet have a retail price, will be called Vader Immortal. The company didn’t say much about what it will entail, except that it’ll be a story involving the popular villain that occurs before the events of the original Star Wars movie that came out in 1977.

ILMxLAB said it was motivated to do the deal because it believes that VR will help break down the barriers between fans and the Star Wars world they’d like to live in.

“Whether it’s watching movies or playing video games, there’s always been a separation between you and the Star Wars universe,” said Mohen Leo, director of immersive content at ILMxLAB. In each case, he said, there’s something happening on a screen away from you.  “VR is really the only medium that can fulfill that fantasy of stepping into the world of Star Wars and being there yourself.”

Whether consumers will buy into this whole vision is unclear. But with the Go, the Rift and now the Quest, Facebook believes its first-generation product lineup is complete, though it didn’t say when the next-generation hardware will appear.

“This is all still early,” Zuckerberg said. “This is what we need to do for VR to succeed and get to the future we all want.”

Oculus Connect: Everything announced at Facebook’s annual VR conference.

VR’s missing link: You likely haven’t bought a VR headset yet and it’s beginning to show.