Meta are becoming the Android of VR by opening up their Meta Horizon OS

Meta changes the VR market by opening up their Horizon OS to partners

Today, Meta has made an industry-changing announcement, one that may forever change the VR/XR market. Meta are creating a new hardware ecosystem by allowing partners to use their Quest VR OS. The OS of the quest series is now called Meta Horizon OS, and this OS has now been opened up to 3rd parties.

Now, third parties can develop Quest-like VR/XR headsets, creating a larger ecosystem for developers. With this mode, Meta plans to become the Android of XR (Mixed Reality). Moving forward they will develop/support a hardware/software ecosystem that includes their own Quest series headsets and 3rd party devices.

Meta has confirmed that ASUS and Lenovo are now working on gaming headsets that use the Meta Horizon OS. ASUS’ headset will be an ROG (Republic of Gamers) product, with the company calling it a “performance” product. Microsoft has also confirmed that they will be working with Meta to launch a Limited Edition “Inspired by Xbox” Meta Quest headset. Last year, Xbox also teamed up with Meta to bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to Mixed Reality.

This news comes not long after Meta has given their popular Quest 2 VR headset a major price drop. Meta has made it clear that the company plans to continue releasing Quest series VR headsets. It’s currently unknown what improvements 3rd party headsets will be able to offer given their shared software ecosystem with Meta’s Quest series. Will these headsets simply be “faster” or “cut-down” versions of main series Quest headsets, or will there be major differentiating factors?

You can join the discussion on Meta opening up their Meta Horizon OS on the OC3D Forums.