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Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

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Re: Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

#41

Post by opello »

Novosell wrote: post #34
opello wrote: post #17

Is it unreasonably pedantic to want the title here to be "20MM" since the original post was "20 Million" and the "thousand thousand" abbreviation should be correctly used?

The symbol to denote a million is M according to the SI.

If this were attached to a noun like "units" (e.g. Munits, like Mb in Megabits) I'd think the SI was a reasonable place from which to draw guidance. But it's attached to the number which to my eye seems like the accounting/finance Roman Numeral style would be expected.

Thinking about it more maybe the MM should only mean million when there's a dollar sign. I'm not so confident anymore.

Re: Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

#42

Post by MichaelZuo »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #4

20 million is on the same scale as the Xbox Series X, but I've heard monthly active usage is something like 75x lower. As someone who moonlights as a VR dev ( cough checkout my solodeveloped indie starfighter sim Rogue Stargun [ https://roguestargun.com ]), I think Meta also makes it really unclear how to get on their storefront. It's a process completely gated by human review which can take months (by which time Met…

How fast does it take for Steam to approve a game under similar circumstances?

Re: Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

#43

Post by seanmcdirmid »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #4

20 million is on the same scale as the Xbox Series X, but I've heard monthly active usage is something like 75x lower. As someone who moonlights as a VR dev ( cough checkout my solodeveloped indie starfighter sim Rogue Stargun [ https://roguestargun.com ]), I think Meta also makes it really unclear how to get on their storefront. It's a process completely gated by human review which can take months (by which time Met…

I use my quest a lot, almost daily, but only use two games on it. So my retention might come off as small even though I’m a heavy user. I would guess lots of Quest owners are in this bucket. They use an app, usually BeatSaber, but aren’t interested in much of anything else, especially less casual games.

Re: Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

#44

Post by seanmcdirmid »

theogravity wrote: post #21

I have a Quest 2 and haven't touched mine in years mainly because of the set up procedure (which is common in VR headsets): I have to find available space first by moving furniture around, then I need to calibrate the headset to work in that space. After usage, I have to clean the device with wipes to make sure sweat doesn't cause bacteria to grow. If some of the items were addressed somehow, I'd be using it more fre…

If you are just playing BeatSaber, since you don’t move much you don’t really need a lot of space allocated, you still set up a room boundary but just draw it wherever. It’s too bad that Quest doesn’t have a stationary but non-stationary guardian setting that doesn’t require room boundaries.

Re: Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

#45

Post by seanmcdirmid »

DreamFlasher wrote: post #35
theogravity wrote: post #21

I have a Quest 2 and haven't touched mine in years mainly because of the set up procedure (which is common in VR headsets): I have to find available space first by moving furniture around, then I need to calibrate the headset to work in that space. After usage, I have to clean the device with wipes to make sure sweat doesn't cause bacteria to grow. If some of the items were addressed somehow, I'd be using it more fre…

The first issue is solved by Quest 3: 1) calibration is a matter of seconds, 2) it remembers all previously calibrated spots, so I basically never need to calibrate. Yes, you need about 2m² space if you want to move/do fitness, but that's something no VR can solve.

If your fitness experience doesn’t involve actual movement from one spot (like BeatSaber, fitXR, supernatural, on shape, etc…) you only need about 1m^2, probably a bit less (basically wherever your hands can extend to needs to be unobstructed).

Re: Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

#46

Post by seanmcdirmid »

latchkey wrote: post #19
cm2187 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every kid loved videogames. I see no such enthusiasm for VR. My experience mirrors that of many others here, and of those I handed the 3 VR headsets I bought over the years: interesting, but just interesting. One off experience.

I was just house sitting for some friends who went out of town and my partner and I watched over their 3 boys. Good kids, but addicted to screens. None of them cared anything about VR. The youngest just watched the equivalent of tiktok on TV for hours on end, until we could pry him away to go for a bike ride outside with us. The two older ones just played games on their computers. I found this quite interesting cause…

You can’t let any kid under 12 play VR yet, so we have to keep telling our son this. He can’t play BeatSaber until he is 12, it’s almost like a law.

Re: Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

#47

Post by latchkey »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #46
latchkey wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just house sitting for some friends who went out of town and my partner and I watched over their 3 boys. Good kids, but addicted to screens. None of them cared anything about VR. The youngest just watched the equivalent of tiktok on TV for hours on end, until we could pry him away to go for a bike ride outside with us. The two older ones just played games on their computers. I found this quite interesting cause…

You can’t let any kid under 12 play VR yet, so we have to keep telling our son this. He can’t play BeatSaber until he is 12, it’s almost like a law.

Two of the boys were over 15 and one under, but none seemed to have an interest in it at all.

Oh interesting, I didn't know that. Looking it up [0], it is actually 13+, so you're safe for another year. =)

[0] https://www.meta.com/quest/safety-center/ - Meta accounts are available for ages 10+ on Meta Quest 2 and 3 (may vary depending on country); all other Meta Quest headsets are for ages 13+.

Re: Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

#48

Post by seanmcdirmid »

latchkey wrote: post #47
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t let any kid under 12 play VR yet, so we have to keep telling our son this. He can’t play BeatSaber until he is 12, it’s almost like a law.

Two of the boys were over 15 and one under, but none seemed to have an interest in it at all. Oh interesting, I didn't know that. Looking it up [0], it is actually 13+, so you're safe for another year. =) [0] https://www.meta.com/quest/safety-center/ - Meta accounts are available for ages 10+ on Meta Quest 2 and 3 (may vary depending on country); all other Meta Quest headsets are for ages 13+.

I think they are being overly conservative but here we are. My kid is 7 so it’s a long time before he is old enough. But there is enough popularity about BeatSaber here that he wants to just play that.

Re: Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

#49

Post by latchkey »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #48
latchkey wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two of the boys were over 15 and one under, but none seemed to have an interest in it at all. Oh interesting, I didn't know that. Looking it up [0], it is actually 13+, so you're safe for another year. =) [0] https://www.meta.com/quest/safety-center/ - Meta accounts are available for ages 10+ on Meta Quest 2 and 3 (may vary depending on country); all other Meta Quest headsets are for ages 13+.

I think they are being overly conservative but here we are. My kid is 7 so it’s a long time before he is old enough. But there is enough popularity about BeatSaber here that he wants to just play that.

I'm pretty well convinced that unless you start beatsaber at a super young age, you'll never get the skill to hit the advanced levels. I got fairly high up and just realized that I physically just can't move that fast, but I'm old now... so it is what it is.

Re: Meta has sold nearly 20M Quest headsets, but retention struggles remain (2023)

#50

Post by LarsDu88 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #43
LarsDu88 wrote: post #4

20 million is on the same scale as the Xbox Series X, but I've heard monthly active usage is something like 75x lower. As someone who moonlights as a VR dev ( cough checkout my solodeveloped indie starfighter sim Rogue Stargun [ https://roguestargun.com ]), I think Meta also makes it really unclear how to get on their storefront. It's a process completely gated by human review which can take months (by which time Met…

I use my quest a lot, almost daily, but only use two games on it. So my retention might come off as small even though I’m a heavy user. I would guess lots of Quest owners are in this bucket. They use an app, usually BeatSaber, but aren’t interested in much of anything else, especially less casual games.

This metric is called the attach rate, and it's lower for quest than Xbox by an order of magnitude supposedly. However, even 10 percent of Xbox owners actually only have 1 game - call of duty. It's just that CoD players play it every single week!
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