It was difficult to miss that big metaverse announcement at Connect last month when Facebook decided to shed that company name in favour of Meta. The branding has begun to appear on Meta’s range of products and as Reality Labs head Andrew Bosworth revealed, that would include phasing out the Oculus brand altogether. If you head on over to Oculus.com you can begin to see that in full effect with the new Meta Quest.
While Oculus.com may exist for now – there’s no Meta Quest website currently – the Oculus brand which was synonymous with reigniting virtual reality (VR) in the 21st century as a viable entertainment medium will soon be no more. Will this mean much change in the core products? Probably not as Meta Quest 2 is still the leading VR headset by a long way when looking at metrics like videogame revenues or those using the device on Steam – Quest 2 currently dominates with 35% of those on the platform using the headset.
The Oculus branding hasn’t disappeared entirely just yet as the “Products” drop-down menu still lists the Oculus Quest 2 but you’ll notice most mentions of the headset simply refer to it as Quest 2. This complete brand overhaul isn’t simply limited to hardware or the overall company. As Bosworth previously mentioned, Facebook Reality Labs will now be known as Reality Labs, its second name change in a year – previously called Oculus Research it went un Facebook AR/VR for a while.
All of this isn’t too surprising considering Zuckerberg’s desire to expand and move away from the Facebook brand, itself now muddied by all the public relations battles such as the recent whistleblower leaks. “Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything that we’re doing today, let alone in the future. Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company, and I want to anchor our work and identity on what we’re building toward,” said the CEO.
Since the announcement, Meta memes have been severely making fun of the new name, especially as some products and companies already have similar designs.
For those of us who’ve been ingrained in the VR industry for many years the Meta Quest renaming – doesn’t quite roll off the tongue yet, does it? – means the end of a beloved brand. But at least there’s Project Cambria to look forward to although Meta has said it won’t be part of the Quest product line. Hopefully, it’ll get a decent name without Meta being jammed in somewhere. For the latest Meta updates, keep reading VRFocus.
via Mint VR