Facebook Hints A Key Change Is Headed To Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset

Oculus is one of the oldest names in modern gaming when it comes to VR headsets. Propelled to the forefront early on with its ease of access and not requiring room-scale setups, Oculus enjoyed broad appeal. Then in 2014 Oculus was acquired by Facebook and the concerns set in for many of us; we knew what was coming. Then in October of 2020 it happened, as Facebook began requiring your Facebook account to be tied to your Oculus headset. The only folks who were exempt were existing customers, but we worried for how long. Well, thanks to the Facebook Connect event held on October 28, we got a hint towards the answer.

During the announcement of Facebook's Meta rebrand, we were treated to a ton of information regarding the future of the company as a whole. But right now we're more interested in where things go with the Oculus line.

For one, the name Oculus is dead (sort of), and will be replaced starting next year with the new name Meta. So get ready for the Meta Quest. The other, and more important part is that Zuckerberg went on to admit that the move to require a Facebook login to use with the Quest did not go over well (duh!). Who could have seen that coming? After all, imagine having your entire library wiped out because you decided to delete your personal Facebook account for whatever reason.

Zuckerberg went on to say "As we’ve focused more on work, and frankly as we’ve heard your feedback more broadly, we’re working on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account. We’re starting to test support for Work Accounts soon, and we’re working on making a broader shift here within the next year."

So now we have a tentative timeline of expectations for something other than just your Facebook account to log in. Zuckerberg also added "I know this is a big deal for a lot of people. Not everyone wants their social media profile linked to all these other experiences, and I get that, especially as the metaverse expands. And I’ll share more about that later."

While Facebook doesn't exactly get a pass from us for implementing the Facebook account logging requirement, it's fair to give credit for seeing the error in that. Zuckerberg didn't come right out and say you would be able to use whatever kind of account you wanted for the login process, but it's clear that Meta is trying to make it more attractive for people to join and also attempting to distance itself from the Facebook name into something bigger.