Facebook Deepens It Oculus Integration With New Social Experiences

Facebook-owned Oculus announced some major upgrades to its Oculus Quest headset on Wednesday. But more importantly, the company announced major new upgrades to the social platform that powers Oculus headsets.

Facebook is launching a new experience called Facebook Horizon on the Oculus Quest and Rift platform next year. It’s a new “social VR world” where users can essentially chill with their Facebook friends, play games, watch movies, etc. It’s basically a VR environment where you can do lots of different activities with your other Facebook friends, and that’s about it. You will also be able to build your own worlds and activities with your other friends, which is pretty cool.

The company is shutting down Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms on October 25, though, as those are being replaced with the new Facebook Horizon experience.

https://youtu.be/Is8eXZco46Q

Facebook is also introducing a new “Oculus Social Platform” that’s completely built on Facebook. The new Oculus Platform is powered by Facebook’s tech, offering new experiences like being able to chat with your friends, co-watch movies and videos, organize multiplayer tournaments, etc. Facebook is also integrating the ability to post to Facebook Groups from your headset, which I believe will be used by absolutely no one. Oculus says the new platform is completely powered by Facebook, and you will be required to login to your Facebook account to access these features.

Facebook says this is just the beginning, and it plans to deepen its integration on Oculus going forward. “Over time, we plan to power more and more of our social infrastructure with Facebook to realize our vision of a socially-connected VR ecosystem,” the company said.