In a move that has been a long time coming, the company formerly known as Facebook has rebranded Oculus, its VR company. Oculus and the Oculus Quest are no more, the headsets and company will now be known as Meta Quest. Although the company is still using the Oculus.com domain name, its social media profiles have been changed and the website now refers to the company as Meta Quest.
Facebook changed its name to Meta last year after a torrent of negative press rendered the Facebook brand toxic. Despite the company becoming Meta, Oculus had so far seemed to escape the name change. Keeping the Oculus Quest branding would have made sense. Oculus is by far the best-known name in VR. The Oculus Quest 2 is the most popular VR headset by a wide margin. To many people, Oculus is VR. So it’s strange to see Meta renaming the one part of the company that actually had a good reputation.
Although there is debate over whether the Oculus name should have been changed, it was inevitable. Meta’s push of the “Metaverse” in recent months was a clear sign that Oculus would not be long for this world. That’s despite the massive pushback that the company is receiving over its metaverse. A new ad for the metaverse went viral across social media this week because of how bad users thought it looked.
Meta is pushing the Metaverse hard and Oculus’ name change is proof that the company believes it will be the future of VR. It’s a big gamble for the company that is currently leading the VR race. Oculus built its brand on VR gaming and offering technically impressive headsets for much lower prices than the competition. There doesn’t appear to be an appetite for the Metaverse among people who already enjoy VR, so it’s not clear why Meta believes non-VR users will buy a Quest headset to join the Metaverse.
