Meta will fully end support for its original Meta Quest headset at the end of this month, the company has told developers.
In email to devs spied by Forbes, the VR pioneer says April 30 is the last date to get app updates to owners of the first-gen Meta Quest.
After that, no further updates will be pushed to users, while no new apps will appear in the Meta Quest’s store beyond that point.
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“Builds for new apps that support other Quest devices along with Quest 1 will be able to be uploaded, but Quest 1 support will be blocked,” says Meta in the email.
The Quest headset was released in 2019 so the five years of support isn’t too egregious given the fast-moving nature of the category.
The Meta Quest 2 has been around since the winter of 2020. However, we don’t see that one going away any time soon even though the Meta Quest 3 is still out there.
The Quest 2 is available for around half the price of the Quest 3, meaning there’s still a decent market for those looking for a casual, mainstream VR experience.
This doesn’t mean Quest 1 users won’t be able to use their headsets anymore, but it does mean experiences will be more limited moving forward, with no new apps or updates.
Meta had previous announced in January 2023 that Quest 1 support would be coming to an end this year. Features have gradually been dropping off – for example Meta Horizon Home disappeared in March. Now it is really dropping the hammer on the 2019 release.
The Quest 1’s tech is pretty old now, with a Snapdragon 835 chip doing the heavy lifting, 4GB of RAM, and just a 72Hz refresh rate for the displays. There was also a low display resolution compared to the Quest 2 and lower max storage for apps. The Quest 1 was also much heavier in comparison to the Quest 2.
