Facebook discontinued the Oculus Go virtual reality headset last year, but a decision developer John Carmack has been “pushing on for years” means the it will remain useful for many years to come.
In an announcement via Twitter, Carmack revealed that Facebook is set to release an unlocked version of the operating system for the Oculus Go, which will allow full root access. In a follow-up tweet, Carmack explained, “This opens up the ability to repurpose the hardware for more things today, and means that a randomly discovered shrink wrapped headset twenty years from now will be able to update to the final software version, long after over-the-air update servers have been shut down.”
In June last year, Facebook announced it was going to drop support for the $149 entry-level Oculus Go in order to focus on developing more powerful headsets. The Go had served its purpose, with PCMag’s review concluding it’s an affordable, comfortable standalone VR headset which doesn’t require a big investment, but that lacked position tracking and was hampered by being underpowered and lacking software.
Although Facebook never revealed sales figures for the Oculus Go, it’s estimated that over 2 million units sold meaning there’s a healthy market for an unlocked operating system out there. And even if it is underpowered, developers new to VR have an easy and cheap way to get started. It may also just be the start of unlocked Oculus headsets as Carmack in hoping “this is a precedent for when headsets go unsupported in the future.”
