That number seems astonishingly high. I’d be curious to see info on the demographics who buy these headsets (compared to PS5 for example).

People with kids, I'd guess. I bought a Quest 2 a couple years ago as a toy, as much for myself as for the kids, but they've dominated usage of it. Which is fine, because I didn't find anything that was a huge draw for me. But they fight over the damn thing every day, and use it almost as much as they use the Xbox.

It's strange because somehow, all the kids I know don't even know what the Quest is, but can rattle off all the upcoming titles for PS5 and XBox and Switch.

That’s because meta’s marketing campaigns are both terrible and targeted towards adults. Children are the largest demographic who just get it. They don’t need to be coaxed into trying the Quest 2 and its isolating form factor doesn’t intimidate children as it does most adults. They’re also the most consistently active user group. It reminds me of who the NES was most popular with

Man, that's interesting.. maybe Graybeard Palmer Luckey will finally get the recognition he deserves once those kids are all powerful adults ~30 years from now

+1 this entire thread. Bought it for the kid and I to share, kid basically owns it. Games catalog isn't even as good as the Atari 2600.

I could see that. I don't think any of the neighbor kids knew anything about VR until they came over to visit and got to see our Quest. But they get hooked, and it's becoming a regular thing for them to ask to come over and play on the VR while our kids play on the Xbox instead. I guess it's a failure of marketing.

A strange thing has happened, the Quest has become uncool among kids (my kids circles at least).

Don't think the FB association is helping. Most things FB are uncool among kids these days, even Instagram.

Strange as they probably barely know or care that FB is behind these products. I think they just gotta make it cooler. The Quest 2 is a bit like having a Wii strapped to your head. Not saying that it is easy to make it awesome but I do think awesome is what is needed.

Are they allowed to play on it for as long as they like or did you set a time limit?

Why must people continue to use the term "headsets"? You sound like you're 80 years old

What else would you call it? The official announcement of it calls it a headset.

Sorry. What do you call them?

I believe the young kids are calling them Virtual Visions Visors.

Not sure if joking.

I thought he was talking about phones my bad

What else? Goggles perhaps? That sounds more grandpa to me than headset.

These aren't HMDs, if that's what you're thinking. They're fully integrated systems.

"vr-goggles" doesn't sound that great either. on the other hand, alphabet could have "google goggles"

I've taken to calling them "VR Helmets" after reading a page on rutracker passed through google translate. Sounds just stupid and wrong enough to entertain me.

It's more impressive than many people think, but in context:

- The PS5 sales have been notoriously hampered by supply constraints

- The XBox numbers are considered to be a major disappointment [1]

- The Quest continues to be crushed by the Nintendo Switch, which counted selling 18m unites in a year to be a disappointing result of supply constraints [2]

[1] https://kotaku.com/xbox-series-x-s-sales-microsoft-next-gen-...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/09/nintendo-full-year-earnings-...

Everyone who wants a PS5 can buy one now though. The constraints are long over.

That’s a pretty recent development as of this year

The year is halfway over, not exactly recent

~4 months out of the total 31 its been out? that sounds recent to me

Used PS5s are also common now.

Meanwhile the PS4 shipped over 110m units.

PS2 laughs at 158 million

Switch is at 125 and isn’t slowing.

And the Quest is still at 20m.

quest just doesn't have a game library offering that compares to the switch. plus the switch is way less of an investment to get into a gaming session. (and I say this as a quest owner) to play my vr headset, I have to clear the room, calibrate my play space and the games just arent there. there's nothing in it that matches super mario galaxy or legend of zelda. I usually jsut play a few rounds of beat saber and call it a day

This sounds exactly like my experience. And speaking as a person who owned the Quest and now Quest 2, both of which barely ever saw/seen the day of light as most times I never had them charged up when I decided to clear a place to play.

My Q2 (mostly the kids) doesn't appear to sleep when turned off. If I leave it unplugged for a couple days, I'll get a message on my phone that the battery is getting low. That is crazy to me. It should be able to be "off" indefinitely unless it is a Facebook APT.

That is a well known issue, same with it not remembering the play area so you have to recalibrate every single time. The Quest software is just an absolute buggy mess

That's a fair point, but I still feel like the sales pitch is lackluster. I only know 1 person with one of these (or who talks about it), despite being surrounded by high earning tech workers.

On the other hand when I think back to the Apple Watch launch, despite early models not selling that well compared to other Apple devices I remember plenty of friends having them.

My guess as to why there aren’t more in-store demo units is because of the need for space and staff onsite for a smooth demo. Unlike Apple, meta only has one storefront. The issue of cleanliness also calls for the need for onsite staff

The best they could do is subsidize the cost which they have done multiple times in the past. The lowest price for a Quest 2 that I’ve seen is $229

> The issue of cleanliness also calls for the need for onsite staff

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted.

As anyone who actually tried to demo a quest 2/pro knows, this was absolutely true, and still is true [1].

During covid, there were no in-store demos that I could find for the Pro or Quest 2, in my city of millions. One large chain advertised demos, but it was by appointment, and not one within 100 miles actually went through with it.

Now, with COVID restrictions gone, the locations are far between, and require assisted demos, because you can't really leave a VR headset tethered to a counter and not have something break.

The only reliable way to try was to buy it and return it. See all of the subreddits for how widespread this behavior was.

I think the real issue is that HL: Alyx is an extreme outlier in quality, in VR gaming, which isn't good.

There aren’t just that many exciting games for the platform. There are a hand full of impressive titles, but they tend to be short and eventually get boring.

There are just so much more constraints to get an immersive experience right.

Which is why I tend to use my Quest 2, and now Quest Pro using Oculus Link for Sim Racing - it's a game changer, and very sticky.

For untethered, I tend to stick to fitness apps, which is a surprisingly fun way of staying in shape, and beats the boredom of the gym.

What are your favorite fitness apps?

Not parent, but I mostly stick to FitXR and BeatSaber. I wanted to give supernatural a try, but the whole give up a credit card in the app when the headset already has one is too shady. I haven’t tried as many as I wanted to (like the bullet one) since I’m pretty happy with my routine.

Yep - beat saber is a surprisingly good cardio workout, especially some of the tracks where you're having to squat lots.

I use it for warm up and cool down. I get my main cardio from FitXR, but if I’m just not feeling it beatsaber is easy to get into for some sweat at least.

Totally agree about FitXR and beat saber.

I tried Supernatural for a few months. It’s good if you want an instructor led workout and it looks great, but I could not justify the monthly sub

Other great workout apps are synth riders, punch fit, ninja legends, creed, until you fall, pistol whip, gorilla tag, and there’s more.

You’d be surprised to see what makes you sweat

how much does sim racing cost to get into with the quest pro?

I was able to get a Quest Pro on eBay for $800. Honestly, a Quest 2 is more than good enough to start. You’ll probably be able to pick up one used for less than $200 with the quest 3 announcement

If you want more immersion though, you probably want a wheel set for about $300 and a VR ready PC which ranges from $1200 - $2000 depending on sales and assuming you’re going for midrange. It is game changing though.

what community is good? reddit?

Yeah, it has multiple sub reddits

You'll want a somewhat decent GPU (doesn't need to be a 4090 by any stretch, iRacing is pretty good at running on most things).

When it comes to wheel and pedals you can go cheap and all in one, like the Logitech ones, or push the boat out a bit more like I did with Fanatec gear. Then there's crazy expensive stuff like Heusinkveld.

The problem for Quest is not units sold, but retention.

The industry metric that’s most applicable is tie ratio (or attachment rate, which is related but specific to individual software titles).