Is It the End of the Road for Oculus Go?
Although Meta’s attention may have turned toward the Quest range, there are still some Oculus Go users out there. Until recently, Go owners could enjoy their six-year-old devices despite the fact that Meta had stopped supporting the headset two years ago.
Now, many users are having issues opening apps. So far, Meta’s advice on fixing this problem hasn’t helped, and the statement issued on the subject suggests it’s time for legacy owners to hang up their headsets.
So, is Meta closing the doors on the Oculus Go for good? Let’s examine the headset’s history and explore the issues users are facing.
The Oculus Go Was a Game Changer
The Oculus Go, launched in May 2018, was the first standalone headset in the West. Previously, devices needed to use a smartphone or be tethered to a PC or games console.
Developed in partnership with Qualcomm and Xiaomi, the headset was first revealed to the world at the Oculus Connect conference in October 2017. With a low entry price of just £200, it’s believed the device sold around 2 million units in the first year.
The Go featured non-positional 3-degrees-of-freedom tracking with a basic rotational laser pointer. This meant that users were somewhat restricted as they couldn’t turn their heads to interact with the virtual world they viewed. Because of this, many of the apps and games available to Quest users wouldn’t work on the Oculus Go.
When it launched, the Oculus Go also boasted media co-watching abilities. Unfortunately, although the Go’s marketing strategy leant into this feature heavily, it was only ever available to US users.
The Oculus Go enjoyed a short limelight. In January 2020, a few months after the launch of the Oculus Quest, its price was dropped to just £150. Then, in June, it was discontinued. Meta stated there would never be another 3DOF headset.
At the beginning of December 2020, the Oculus store stopped accepting new apps and app updates for the device.
In 2021, however, Facebook released a sideloading update allowing users full root access to the hardware. This essentially meant users could continue using their headsets after the official cloud services were offline.
Finally, support was discontinued in 2022, meaning users would no longer have access to bug fixes or critical updates.
Oculus Go Users are Reporting Problems
Now, Oculus Go owners face issues and cannot launch many of their apps. The error users are experiencing is called a “Failed Entitlement Check”. Over the last few weeks, many Go users have taken to the Meta Community Forums to highlight the issue and seek a fix.
Although the issue doesn’t affect every app, users report it on paid and free apps. Headsets that are not connected to the internet do not experience this problem, indicating that it’s on Meta’s end.
Several Go owners have contacted Meta’s customer support team and were advised to perform a factory reset. This fix does not work.
The original report on the Meta Community Forums has a replay from Meta Quest Support, which is marked as the “Accepted Solution”. It reads:
“The Oculus Go was an important stepping stone in the lifecycle of not only Oculus but VR as a whole. It brought to life a new world for millions of people and introduced them to what VR was and could be. We would like to thank you for being an early adopter of this new reality and for taking this journey with us for so long. Unfortunately, all things must come to an end, and our focus has since shifted to ensure that we can keep focusing on pushing what is possible in VR. While support for the Oculus Go has ended, we hope you can still find plenty of experiences, wonder and fun with the apps that continue to thrive on the Oculus Go, and hope to continue to see you in the virtual world!”
It appears pretty clear that Meta will not investigate or fix this issue. Although many Oculus Go owners have upgraded their headsets, those who still use them will no doubt feel the frustration of being left out in the cold by Meta, whether intentionally or not.
