вЂњQuest 2 serves as a necessary step towards VR maturity,' said Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen. вЂњSo weвЂ™re going to keep investing heavily in building out the best experiences here, and this accounts for a major part of our overall R&D budget growth.' вЂњI believe that augmented and virtual reality are going to enable a deeper sense of presence and social connection than any existing platform, and theyвЂ™re going to be an important part of how weвЂ™ll interact with computers in the future,' Zuckerberg said. In a call with analysts in April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the Quest 2, while still mainly used for games, is increasingly used for activities like fitness and virtual workplaces. The standalone headset doesnвЂ™t need to be tethered to a computer or gaming console, and is designed for gaming with dual hand controllers. Facebook doesn't release sales figures, but it says Quest 2 sales have been better than expected, and has already outsold all of its predecessors combined since its launch. It launched the $300 Oculus Quest 2 in October, a cheaper and more sophisticated version of its original $400 wireless Oculus Quest. Its latest devices have had more success. вЂњAnd it doesnвЂ™t feel good to sweat directly into a $400 dollar piece of electronics you purchased.вЂќДЄlso Read | Using augmented reality to advertise products could mislead consumers, study saysДЇacebook discontinued the Rift last month. вЂњItвЂ™s not easy to try to do a work out while you have a 4-pound weight attached to your head,вЂќ said Susmilch.

Headsets' hefty weight, slow software, and tendency to sometimes cause nausea also kept VR from taking off. Early VR headsets also lacked a game or service that would make them seem indispensable, like web browsers for consumer PCs or the mobile Internet for iPhones. The Oculus Rift finally went on sale in 2016.Д«ut consumers have balked at the hardware's expense: a headset costs several hundred dollars, the same price as video game consoles that support hundreds of games. Rivals like the HTC Vive and Samsung's Gear launched in 2015. Facebook was so wowed by early demonstrations of the Oculus Rift back in 2012 that it bought the company for $2 billion. Industry observers have thought the same thing for years. вЂњI was stuck at home here in L.A.,вЂќ he said. He had tried an Oculus when it was still a Kickstarter project in 2013, and thought it would be ready for prime time in 2020. He has a PlayStation and a Nintendo Switch and was spending about an hour and a half a day gaming when he couldnвЂ™t do outdoor hobbies like rock climbing at the beginning of the pandemic. Patrick Susmilch, 33, an administrative assistant in Los Angeles, figured it was time for a VR headset after the lockdown began. It's the latest disappointment in an industry famous for stop-start progress. But consumers preferred simpler and more accessible tech like Zoom, Nintendo's Switch and streaming services like Netflix. Special headsets and gloves let people interact with a 360-degree, three-dimensional environment, seemingly a good fit for people stuck indoors. The pandemic should have been VR's big moment, offering an escape for millions of locked-in households. Virtual reality - computer generated 3D environments that can range from startlingly realistic to abstract wonderlands - has been on the cusp of wide acceptance for years without ever really taking off. (Subscribe to our Today's Cache newsletter for a quick snapshot of top 5 tech stories.

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