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Facebook recently said about 20 original titles had surpassed the $1 million revenue mark on the Quest platform.
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Yet, the company just revealed that it has sold about $100 million in VR content, over the past year.
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Facebook’s first standalone VR device to include positional tracking for the headset and its hand controllers.
Nearly a year after its launch, Facebook still won’t say how well its Oculus Quest VR headsets are selling. Yet, the company just revealed that it has sold about $100 million in VR content, over the past year. Facebook recently said about 20 original titles had surpassed the $1 million revenue mark on the Quest platform. Painting a clearer picture of its VR business, Facebook is now saying that Moss, Pistol Whip, and 10 other titles have generated over $2 million in revenue on the platform. Additionally, another game named Superhot VR has surpassed 2 million copies sold across all VR platforms, worldwide.
To date, Facebook has been cautious about offering insights into its VR business. Retailing for $399 a pop, the Quest was Facebook’s first standalone VR device to include positional tracking -- for the headset and its hand controllers. During the first quarter, the tech titan said “other” revenue -- mostly made up of Oculus product sales -- reached $297 million, which was up 80%, year-over-year. Despite ongoing efforts by Facebook and other tech titans, virtual reality remains a niche market. And, while the pandemic has accelerated certain technology trends, some analysts don’t believe virtual reality will be one of them.
Learn more: LOOKING TO BUILD THE INFRASTRUCTURE TO CONNECT THE WORLD’S GAMING PLATFORMS
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“ Retailing for $399 a pop, the Quest was Facebook’s first standalone VR device to include positional tracking -- for the headset and its hand controllers
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~ Facebook says
The problem is, we haven’t worked out what you would do with a great VR device that isn’t a game (or some very niche industrial application), and it’s not clear that we will, technology analyst Benedict Evans wrote in a recent blog post. “We’ve had five years of experimental projects and all sorts of content has been tried, and nothing other than games has really worked,” Evans added. Looking forward, sources recently told Bloomberg that Facebook is working on a smaller Quest VR headset, in addition to a faster image refresh rate for more realistic content.
“ Despite ongoing efforts by Facebook and other tech titans, virtual reality remains a niche market. And, while the pandemic has accelerated certain technology trends, some analysts don’t believe virtual reality will be one of them.”
Today, Oculus released a new sales figure as the company reaches the 1 year anniversary of the release of the Quest headset. We didn’t get unit sales but the company did share that they’ve sold $100 million worth of Quest content in the device’s first year — a number that indicates that while the platform is still nascent, a handful of developers are definitely making it work for them.
Of that $100 million, Facebook says 20 titles have pulled in at least $1 million each with 10 of those eclipsing $2 million in sales. Just this past October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had shared that Oculus had surpassed $100 million worth of content across all devices in its store, so this announcement seems to showcase that Quest titles are selling much faster than content for the company’s PC-based headsets.
Oculus has been struggling to keep supply chains open over the past several months in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic — most of their headsets, like the Quest, have been sold out for most of 2020.There are signs of growth though it’s clear the Quest is still a niche product. Facebook detailed on its most recent earnings call that the 80% year-over-year quarterly growth of its quarterly “Other” revenue [$297 million] was “driven primarily by Oculus products.” Zuckerberg commented on sales of the company’s flagship VR device, “Quest has surpassed our expectations. I wish we could make more of them faster.” Over the past year, Oculus has had good luck in pushing developers to downscale titles optimized for PC-based headsets to the Quest and many of the platforms winners have been titles that originally launched on Rift several years ago like Superhot VR.
Learn more:
FACEBOOK’S OCULUS IS DEVELOPING A NEW QUEST VR HEADSET
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