According to market researcher Counterpoint Research, the Facebook group dominates around 80 percent of the global business with VR glasses.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
san francisco The Facebook group Meta Platforms will present its new virtual reality glasses this Tuesday after two years of development – but the device will not be available in Germany. A group spokesman confirmed this to the Handelsblatt: “The sales stop currently applies to all VR devices, including the new headset.”
The new device will be presented by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at the company’s “Connect” conference from 7 p.m. German time. The group’s developers had been working on the technology for around two years under the code name Cambria. It is a central element of Zuckerberg’s strategy to align the company with the metaverse, i.e. virtual worlds.
The new glasses – also known as Meta Quest Pro – are aimed primarily at professional customers and are intended to promote business applications in the metaverse.
In Germany, however, the technology group stopped selling all VR glasses in 2020. The reason was an abuse procedure by the Federal Cartel Office, which had intervened because the group had made the use of Facebook accounts mandatory for the devices.
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Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt had argued: “This link between virtual reality products and the group’s social network could represent a prohibited abuse of a dominant position by Facebook.” The Cartel Office’s proceedings have not yet been completed.
However, Meta CEO Zuckerberg had recently changed his strategy. In August, the company lifted the requirement to use a Facebook account. Since then, users of the company’s VR glasses have been able to create a “meta account” for use. Unlike a Facebook account, all you need to do is provide an email address and the account is not linked to an account on a social network.
Nevertheless, Facebook has not lifted the sales freeze in Germany to this day. The group has so far left open whether this will change in the future.
The Facebook group took over the VR glasses manufacturer Oculus in 2014 for around two billion dollars. In 2016, the Oculus Rift was the first pair of glasses for the mass market. The latest Quest 2 model has been available since 2020. In the US, the glasses cost $299 plus sales tax, and the price was recently raised to $399. Analysts estimate that this price is below the manufacturing and development costs.
The Oculus Quest 2 is considered the most widely used VR glasses in the world. According to calculations by the market research company Counterpoint, Meta controlled a total of 80 percent of the global market for VR glasses in the fourth quarter of 2021.
More: Fitbit makes Google accounts mandatory – risk for the German market.