ByteDance is laying off hundreds of employees from Pico. Were the rumors right all along?

If you’re keen on becoming a VR enthusiast, then you’ve got to start somewhere. Most people check out online lists of the best VR headsets to get and a lot of those feature the Pico 4. And you know what? It’s for good reason, as it’s a solid piece of VR tech.

Now, while the Pico 4 isn’t on the level of the Quest 3, it is still an improvement over the Quest 2, for example. As such, I honestly believe that Pico has a bright future as a solid competitor to future midrange headsets.

And, for the most part, I felt like I was right. Recently, reports came in about the Pico brand being in danger, but officials confirmed that it wasn’t the case. Two weeks later, though, Pico is laying off hundreds of employees (translated source). So what’s going on?



It’s always a bummer to have to talk about people losing their jobs and this is no different. As per the reports from Tencent Technology News, the layoffs could extend to over a thousand people, bringing Pico’s team from two thousand to hundreds.

That being said, keep in mind that Tencent is a competitor to ByteDance — owner of Pico and creator of TikTok.

If this report is true, though, one would have to ask: would such a team even be capable of producing new hardware? Or even, improving existing headsets? After all, the Pico 4 received several game changing software updates in the past.

When we last talked about Pico, the brand was preparing to reveal its strategy for 2024 and beyond at AWE 2023 in Vienna. To me that sounded a lot like a roadmap that possibly even included information about future plans for new headsets.

That, however, never happened. Mixed News has reached out for information on why that is, but has heard nothing back as of now.

So, what is going on? In short: we don’t know. This may be part of a massive shift in strategy moving forward or it may actually mean that the original rumors were — at least partially — true. Whatever the case, we’ll make sure to keep you posted here.