There's not many active Meta Quest users out there these days, but the Facebook firm isn't going quietly into the night it seems.
The so-called "Metaverse" might've amounted to a gigantic dud, but Zuckerberg's VR outlet isn't giving up, and it's leveraging Xbox to help it out.
Microsoft and Meta partnered on the Xbox edition Meta Quest last year, offering a special Xbox-branded style headset that came with Xbox Cloud Gaming in the box, and a special pre-connected controller. Meta and Microsoft are taking the partnership a bit further today, announced via Xbox Wire.
"For years, XBOX and Meta have teamed up to make it easier to play the games you love across more devices.
Today, we’re building on that with a new benefit connected to the Meta Horizon+ subscription, giving you another way to discover and play with Game Pass, alongside the existing access to XBOX and Game Pass on Meta Quest devices."
Meta and Microsoft will now offer Xbox Game Pass Starter subscriptions for users with Horizon+, which costs $59.99 USD per year, or $7.99 USD per month. Horizon+ offers over 150 VR games to play immediately, with new games entering the service on a monthly rotating basis, similarly to Xbox Game Pass.
Xbox Game Pass' starter edition offers 50 additional games on top of that, playable for up to 10 hours a month via Xbox Cloud Gaming. The package includes games like Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Grounded, DayZ, Snowrunner, and many more. The games on Xbox Game Pass are not native, of course, and require high-speed internet and an Xbox Bluetooth controller to experience via a virtual cloud screen. At least, for now.
Meta and Microsoft say that they're working on bringing native Xbox controller support to the Quest VR touch controllers. This will map the functions of an Xbox controller natively to the Quest handsets, making it far easier to jump into a game without having to reach and pair an additional Xbox controller. Frankly, I'm wondering why this wasn't already a thing, but better late than never, ey?
You can already pair an Xbox controller via Bluetooth with Meta Quest headsets and use Xbox Cloud Gaming via a web app. It works rather well, and the Meta Quest can detect the Xbox controller functionality flawlessly. I reviewed the Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition last year, and thought it was an impressive experience. Having a massive VR screen to play Xbox Cloud Gaming on is fantastic, and I completed W40K Space Marine start to finish that way. Of course, whether or not you actually want to wear a foggy computer on your head really depends on the user. My Meta Quest headset has sadly been gathering dust for many months.
As a glasses wearer, the last thing I really want to do is wear additional glasses when TVs and laptops exist, which are just far more comfortable to game on in my view. But some people love it, and all the more power to them. I think VR and AR have some kind of role to play in the future of tech, but makers will have to figure out a way to make them far more comfortable than they already are. And it seems we're probably still far away from that in my view. I could be wrong, though.
Given the fact Xbox Helix is meant to be a Windows PC of sorts, it makes me wonder if Microsoft won't eventually offer VR games directly via the Xbox PC Store, similarly to Steam. It's also true that Meta is the only big player left in the VR space, though, and it makes me wonder how much longer they'll try to tough it out.
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