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Comment by nickthegreek | Hacker News Reader

Im not a FB fan, But they didn't really kill the oculus brand... its now the most popular VR headset on SteamVR.

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/78089/oculus-quest-2-is-now-t...

"According to Valve's data, Quest 2 owners comprise 22.91% of all SteamVR users, while another 21.58% use a Rift S headset. Oculus also owns another 13.49%, with the original Rift, and Quest headsets added. All told, Oculus is responsible for 57.98% of all VR headsets used on Valve's platform."

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I actively discourage anyone in my social circles to remain clear from Oculus. I wouldn't say that VR has taken off yet and Oculus could've been the needed impetus had Facebook kept their fingers out of it. I mean, if Facebook just owned the brand and didn't try to force Facebook down the throats of its' users, it would've been quite a viable option.

This doesn't tell you how big VR might have been if Oculus remained independent, or tied to a less controversial parent company and profit model.

They would have had at least one more sale (I still want it but not the Facebook part).

I would have one if it weren't for the fb requirement and this outcome is exactly why I don't.

Are people actually shocked that a company with such a pristine reputation for carrying about their produ..um..Users now wants to jam ads directly into their eyes?

imo the FB requirement wouldn't be there if they didn't subsidize the system by about $300. The subsidy is just as important as the Quest being stand alone and self contained as opposed to requiring a PC.

Also, Palmer Luckey is a weird libertarian/asshole, so who knows.. FB acquisition might have been a net benefit.

Facebook is tied to Facebook and is possibly the most viewed website/app in the world.

Does facebook make profit on each quest sold? I was under the impression it was a loss leader subsidized by their advertising income and justified by projected future monetization.

Another commenter mentioned that the corporate no-account-required model costs $699, so that may be a more fair comparison. Is facebook subsidizing each Quest 2 by $400 (and assuming they'll be able to extract roughly that amount from each user)?

Yep, that’s correct!

They heavily subsidize their VR devices…nothing unusual though, all game consoles are subsidized

> all game consoles are subsidized

I think that's only true for Playstation and Xbox. Pretty sure Nintendo makes a profit on every console.

It's not even really true for PlayStation or Xbox. They often launch consoles at a loss (or even just a break even price), but manufacturing costs quickly come down while MSRP stays the same. The PS5 has already hit this threshold if Sony is to be believed.

I don't think it's safe to assume the $699 price tag is the same as the unit cost to Facebook. They'll charge whatever they can get people to pay for it, plus they have a vested interest in portraying ad-free prices as unreasonably high.

You can check Steam's hardware survey for more up to date stats. Quest 2 is now up to 29.33%

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

That’s just for people that have it plugged it when they take the stats, too. Considering you can use it wirelessly and standalone it has a commanding lead of the market.

Its the most affordable one, so that must have something to do with its popularity. I think the term is captive audience?

FB probably sells near-cost and makes all their money on the backend from taking 30% or so of sales of apps, much like consoles (and iOS minus making money on the front end as well).

They are selling us the Brave New World

Most popular doesn't necessarily mean best, since Android is arguably more "popular" but Apple is clearly making the bulk of the money (and thus delivering the bulk of the value). But Oculus also right now is also probably one of the easier to use headsets. Keep in mind some of those Rift/Quest numbers might be overlapping users who've upgraded.

Yes, but Facebook didn't kill Oculus either. imo it's stronger because Facebook is much more aggressive in the VR space than anyone else. Their approximate $300 subsidy is a pretty generous one by console standards.

I don’t think the argument was about which is more popular. Simply whether FB has “killed the Oculus brand”, and it seems these numbers suggest that it at least hasn’t been “killed” (though personally, I’m against most of the choices FB has made).

> Apple is clearly making the bulk of the money (and thus delivering the bulk of the value)

I have to disagree with your implicit assertion that making more money = delivering more value. curl/libcurl earns $0, but delivers more value than a 2-year old *aaS that makes $2,000 in annual revenue.

You're valuing curl incorrectly. For example, an engineer isn't valued based on what he enables at the company. S/he's valued based on what they can deliver that others can't. Maybe I manage the database at my company and the database is arguably one of the most important pieces of infrastructure but that doesn't mean I have unlimited salary. I can only negotiate as high as someone else is willing to undercut me to perform the same duties. If you apply that to curl, how much of it is irreplaceable?

Google didn't just openly license Android out of the goodness of their hearts. It was a business decision and the Android business does deliver them value, but not as much as Apple's business.

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