Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg signaled the company will be “making it so you can login into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account.”
Here’s the full comment from Zuckerberg in the Connect keynote:
“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 login 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. 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.”
While not exactly detailed about the path forward, the comment does indicate Facebook is at least listening to feedback since it imposed a Facebook account requirement last year.
Details on the Oculus Blog indicate that a new Quest for Business program will “let you log in to your Quest 2 headset with a Work Account, an upcoming business-only login that will allow you to collaborate with coworkers and access productivity apps from the Oculus Store like Horizon Workrooms and Gravity Sketch without using your personal Facebook account details.”
Facebook confirmed on a call earlier this week that current Quest for Business headsets did not have access to Oculus Store content, as they ran on a different software platform and used a different stock-keeping unit (SKU) code. However, the new Quest for Business program will be provided as an option on consumer headset models, with access to all the same content and with support for work account login.
This new program is set to begin in a small beta with current business customers this year, before moving into open beta in 2022 and general availability in 2023.
However, Zuckerberg’s comments indicate there will be changes to Quest login options beyond support for work accounts. A Facebook representative confirmed to UploadVR that the company is working on providing “more options” within the next year, with more details to come at a later date.
In a post on his Facebook profile, VP of VR/AR (and incoming 2022 CTO) Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth had the following to say:
As we’ve focused more on work, and as we’ve heard feedback from the VR community more broadly, we’re working on new ways to log into Quest that won’t require a Facebook account, landing sometime next year. This is one of our highest priority areas of work internally.
Bosworth also mentioned a new upcoming type of profile for first-party social experiences, called a ‘Horizon Profile’, in his post, which could play a part in the upcoming changes to Quest login options.
This news is breaking and the article will be updated as new information becomes available.
