The
Oculus Quest comes out this spring. Guess what — it’s now spring! It has been for a few weeks now. And as of this writing, Facebook and its Oculus legion haven’t disclosed a release date.
How much longer are we going to wait?
I imagine Facebook wants to get Quest out before June.
While more big stakeholders have pulled out, the Electronic Entertainment Expo remains one of the most important trade shows on the game industry’s calendar. It’s a big black hole that sucks the attention of everyone in gaming, and it’s not a good time to launch new hardware.
It’s a good time to announce a new hardware launch, though. But then Quest is missing it’s spring launch date.
So May feels like a good time to release the Quest. May does have one big game release — Rage 2 from Bethesda — but it’s not a game like
Red Dead Redemption 2 that will dominate discussion. And with Oculus’ resident genius, John Carmack,
seeing it as a Switch competitor, late spring also makes sense. It’s going to be a portable console, something you can play on the go, in cars, on planes, or while visiting people during summer vacation.
Or so Oculus hopes.
I do plan on at least testing out the Quest. But I don’t know if I’ll pick it up. I don’t see any exclusive VR games that make the Quest a “must own” system. Yes, I’m intrigued by Vader: Immortal intrigues me — besides a level in TIE Fighter in which you’re his wingman, the Sith Lord has never had a good video game.
Beat Saber and
Moss are also attractive.
But I wouldn’t call Beat Saber a killer app — would you?
— Jason Wilson, GamesBeat managing editor
