As the industry comes to terms with Meta’s bombshell news of Quest OS going public, we’re seeing varying comments coming in from industry experts. Quest OS, now named Meta Horizon OS, has been opened up to third party device manufacturers in an effort to grow the Quest platform.
Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth explained the company’s decision in an Instagram AMA (ask me anything) event. He mentioned how he had said ages ago that Meta was looking to build an ecosystem. Bosworth also explained that Meta would continue making general purpose VR headsets while Meta Horizon OS will enable other manufacturers to make specialized products.
Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus, hopes it isn’t too late to do what he originally envisioned for his company. Oculus was the company that made the first modern commercial VR headset before being acquired by Facebook.
The former CTO of Oculus, John Carmack, has a very different view of Meta’s decision. Carmack thinks making Horizon OS open-source will stagnate innovation at Meta. In his words, Meta will now focus more on hardware development than the software behind VR. An approach he thinks will not help VR improve.
Road to VR approached a few developers who have made games for the Quest headsets and asked them a few questions. Developers of Pistol Whip, Light Brigade, Compound and Pillow responded. Their responses paint a picture for how developers are going to approach Meta Horizon OS.
There seems to be one common consensus amongst the developers: Meta Horizon OS is going to lead to very good things for Meta.
The developers were asked whether this was a smart move by Meta. Eddie Lee of Funktronic Labs thinks it’s a win for the VR ecosystem and hopes for more VR players. Lucas Rizzotto, developer of Pillow, says Meta will “own” the social layer of XR due to the popularity of its OS. Denny Unger, head of Cloudhead Games, had something more to add.
In some ways, the strategy [allowing Horizon OS to run on third-party headsets] de-emphasizes the specifics of the hardware and instead focuses on how the hardware amplifies the content. The important realization here is that a one-size-fits-all device or approach isn’t an ideal short-term play in the heated XR market.
The developers were also asked what pros and cons they saw for themselves moving forward. Eddie Lee said what we all probably thought when news broke about Horizon OS. Having to support multiple devices is “not fun”.
Theoretically the claim is that it should ‘just work’ [across headsets running the same platform] but unfortunately it is never the case, but I hope I am wrong.
— Eddie Lee, Road to VR, April 2024
Lee went on to talk about how VR games need extra care and attention to retain immersion. He also brought up how different headsets will have different input methodologies. Accounting for all of this will put extra load on smaller studios.
Bevan McKechnie, Head of Notdead Games, echoed Eddie Lee’s sentiments. McKechnie added that Horizon OS could be a good thing “purely as a developer”.
Lucas Rizzotto, on the other hand, thinks this is eventually going to lead to developers being charged for promotion on the Horizon Store. Lucas also thinks copycat apps are going to start filling up the store.
Lucas Rizzotto’s Pillow makes going to sleep a lot more magical. | Image credit — Meta
When asked how Horizon OS will impact their business strategies, McKechnie and Rizzotto think there won’t be much change. Eddie Lee says it could go either way. If VR demographics increase it would be a “net win”. Else, it will just negatively impact small studios. Once more, Denny Unger had more to say on the matter.
Over the next 5–10 year period, as form-factors shrink and key technologies catch up to the vision, software studios caught in the middle need parity and stability to ride those tight margins to a new mainstream dawn. Everything key OEM’s can do to maintain ‘easy porting’, some sense of OS parity, hardware parity, and scalability is critical to maintaining the health of the software ecosystem.
— Denny Unger, Road to VR, April 2024
How would developers approach this decision?
Lastly, the developers were asked how they would have approached this decision if they were Meta. Unger and Rizzotto think Meta’s approach is smart and didn’t propose any revisions.
McKechnie also agreed that Meta was making smart moves, but added that the company needs to fund more high-quality games.
[...] if I had the power I’d have them more frequently and strongly support and fund amazing games that really put the incredible immersion and embodiment of VR on display. We need more games at the high level that Half-Life: Alyx set, but with more modern VR gameplay mechanics, to convince mainstream gamers that VR is the future.
— Bevan McKechnie, Road to VR, April 2024
McKechnie really drives home what I believe too. The XR industry needs to fund more high-budget experiences that tempt consumers into trying VR. Other than that, more games that really make use of what VR is capable of need to be made.
For example, the recently released Nope Challenge, where players can confront 40 different phobias. Falling from heights or having spiders jump at you in VR is something traditional gaming simply cannot replicate.
Meta Horizon OS is poised to give birth to multiple new VR headsets and developers like these will continue making awesome VR games. Like I’ve said before, I have my fingers crossed for a renaissance era of XR.
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Abdullah loves smartphones, Virtual Reality, and audio gear. Though he covers a wide range of news his favorite is always when he gets to talk about the newest VR venture or when Apple sets the industry ablaze with another phenomenal release.
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