Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Launch on Meta Quest Headsets

After Microsoft brought Xbox Cloud Gaming to the Meta Quest 3 VR headset earlier this week, the company has quietly made its Office suite available on the Meta Quest Store (via Android Central). Word, Excel, and PowerPoint can now be downloaded on the three Meta Quest headsets plus the Meta Quest Pro.

The three Office apps for the Meta Quest are based on the Office web apps, which means they’re free to use but you get more features with a Microsoft 365 subscription. The apps support hand tracking and keyboard and mouse input if you connect a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard to your Meta Quest headset.

While Microsoft’s own Windows Mixed Reality platform seems to be going nowhere, the company announced a VR partnership with Meta at its Ignite conference last year. That’s where we learned that Mesh for Microsoft Teams would launch on Meta Quest headsets, with Microsoft 365 and Xbox Cloud Gaming to follow.

Last year, Microsoft also said that Outlook and SharePoint were also coming to Meta Quest devices, in addition to Windows 365. This will allow commercial customers to stream a Windows 11 or Windows 10 PC to a Meta Quest headset and get even more ways to be productive in VR.

While Meta’s big bet on the metaverse appears to have largely failed, the idea of using VR headsets for productivity scenarios isn’t completely dead yet. This is something that Apple also seems to believe in, and it will be interesting to see if the company’s upcoming Vision Pro headset makes the idea of working on documents, slides, and spreadsheets with a VR headset strapped on your head something that’s a bit more desirable.