Meta-licenses Quest operating system for Lenovo and Asus, unveils limited edition Xbox headset

Meta Platforms has started licensing the operating system for its Quest headset to competing device makers, starting with Lenovo and Asus. The company also announced a limited edition gaming-focused Quest headset in partnership with Microsoft’s Xbox.

By sharing the revamped Meta Horizon OS with partners, Meta aims to position itself as a major player in the VR and MR market, similar to how Google’s Android operating system became a dominant force in the smartphone industry. The open-source approach will allow partner companies to build headsets tailored to specific activities, leveraging Horizon OS capabilities such as gesture recognition, passthrough, scene understanding and spatial anchors.

“Imagine a lightweight headset that pairs with your computer on your desk to provide the best work experience at home or wherever you are,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the news. “Or imagine one that is entirely focused on watching immersive entertainment like movies and videos with the highest resolution OLED displays available.”

Meta’s move comes as the company faces increasing pressure in the VR and MR space from competitors like Apple, which recently entered the market with its $3,499 Vision Pro headset, and Google, which is reportedly working to an Android platform for VR and MR devices. By licensing Horizon OS, Meta firmly positions itself as an open alternative to Apple’s closed ecosystem.

“In the open ecosystem, you actually have much broader partnerships,” Zuckerberg told reporters in an interview in the fall of 2022. “So Microsoft didn’t build the chips; they didn’t build the PCs; they didn’t build the computers. App Store. They were all important things built around the ecosystem, similar to Android. And that’s actually what we hope to build here: the open ecosystem for the next generation of computing around virtual and augmented reality in the metaverse more broadly. , which means it’s going to take all these partnerships.”

As part of its commitment to openness, Meta is also working to make alternative app stores easier to find on its platform. The company is making its experimental App Lab store more prominent and has invited Google to bring the Play Store to Horizon OS. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth recently accused Google of pitching its VR/AR platform to partners with restrictive terms that “could fragment the ecosystem,” a disagreement Zuckerberg alluded to in his video announcement, in which he said he was targeting Google Play would welcome apps on Meta Horizon OS devices, “when they are ready.”

Crucially for Meta, Horizon OS includes the Horizon social layer, a 3D, Roblox-meets-The Sims open-world platform that the company hopes to monetize through advertising and commerce. By licensing Horizon OS to hardware partners, Meta will expand the reach of its social network, potentially attracting more users and developers to the platform.

While Meta has yet to share more details about the business terms of its Horizon OS license, the company has confirmed that it will require the use of Qualcomm chips and the inclusion of the Horizon social layer. This move has been a long time coming, with Zuckerberg expressing his desire to build an open ecosystem for the next generation of computing around virtual and augmented reality.

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