Oculus is dropping the Oculus Go from its business platform

Oculus’ virtual reality business software program is dropping support for the budget Go headset, pushing users toward the fuller-featured Quest. UploadVR noted today that the “Oculus for Business” page no longer lists the Oculus Go for the platform. An explanatory note says “it’s become clear that Oculus Quest, with its high end graphics and fully immersive capabilities, is the best solution for most business VR needs. We’ve decided to focus our efforts on developing the platform based on Quest features and functionality.”

Businesses can still place bulk Go orders with a license that allows for commercial use, but they won’t get Oculus for Business software, which includes features like remote device management. A representative told UploadVR that the Go was withdrawn after a closed beta period, and for the “small number” of customers impacted by this choice, “we are partnering on various solutions that include transitioning them to Quest.” This news comes after Oculus (which is owned by Facebook) permanently cut the consumer Go’s price by $50, bringing it to $149.

As former Oculus designer Dimitri Diakopoulos wrote on Twitter, it’s easy to read this as a death knell for the Go, even if the headset isn’t going away just yet. The Go isn’t as good for gaming as the Quest or Rift S since it doesn’t have full-fledged motion controllers and it won’t let you walk around a virtual space. It was designed for passive VR media like film, but that’s getting harder and harder to find. Business was one of the few spaces where a bare-bones but still well-constructed VR headset made sense; Walmart bought Go headsets for employee training, for instance. But now, Oculus is downplaying even that use case and betting more of its money on the fuller-featured Quest.