The Oculus Quest 2 is one of the best VR headsets. They were designed by Oculus, a brand of Facebook Technologies, LLC and successor to the Oculus Quest. Interestingly, just five months after its launch. The Oculus Quest 2 became one of the top of the hardware charts. Thus it becomes the widely used virtual reality headset among its competitors.
Oculus Quest 2 VR headset comes as a second version of the Quest headset range. This device is a battery-powered, standalone headset device. So you can roam around freely in your physical and digital play spaces without worrying about wires.
Also, it has some significant upgrades over its predecessor. Such as it provides a more responsive experience overall with the help of its improved RAM and Chip specs. Also, it has a higher resolution display which is 50 percent better than the previous version.
Based on a Steam Hardware Survey for February it seems like this VR headset has surpassed the Rift S and claimed the top spot as the most popular VR headset around.
Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets are the most popular VR Headsets on Steam
Steam is a digital gaming distribution service from Valve. According to Valve’s regular survey of the February 2021 edition of its PC gaming platform’s user hardware. It confirmed that the Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets are now making up 22.91 percent of all virtual reality headsets that are being used to play steam games.
This is a drastic improvement of 5.52 percent from January’s position. Oculus Quest 2 beats other headsets that have been on sale much longer. This includes both Oculus Rift S and top-of-the-line Valve Index.
This steam Hardware Survey shows us just how much these Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets have been shot up in popularity. Last year October, when these headsets were first released. Facebook stated that they were selling these headsets beyond what they have expected.
In addition to this, As per Shawn Whiting, who is ahead of the community at Rec Room Inc. The Oculus Quest 2’s launch was 250 percent better than the original Quest, in terms of Rec Room players. These states here prove the testament further about how well they have been sold.
Factors driving the Oculus Quest 2 popularity Based on reports
Oculus at this point has the best brand recognition when it comes to virtual reality. Having been in the game from the beginning. Still, it didn’t reach a point where the word Oculus is identical to the VR, such as Nintendo was identical with all of the gaming back in the 1980s.
The second factor may be its price and availability. Because Oculus provides Quest 2 not only as a high-quality product but also at an affordable price too. Whereas other VR headsets like Valve Index are hardly ever in stock and available at a higher premium price.
And most interestingly, it’s the headset’s flexibility. The Oculus Quest 2
is not mainly designed for PC VR use. Initially, it’s a mobile headset but then it’s easily possible to hook it up to a PC using a single USB-C connection. Thus offering the best of both worlds in VR.
Even with all these features, it’s very impressive how Oculus Quest 2 went to the top position. Even though it made that Facebook login mandatory, it didn’t show much impact on its popularity.
Quest 2 design comes with an improved processor and screen
The Oculus Quest 2 is worn on the head. Which is quite similar to a scuba mask. In the place’s scuba mask’s window, you will get a padded cavity. Which has a pair of goggles like a lens that sits in front of a screen. Thus producing stereoscopic 3D visuals. Also paired with motion sensors and accelerometers in the headset. You can move your head and observe that the motions reflected in real-time on the digital screen in front of you. Which feels like you are moving around in the real world.
Coming to internal improvements between the quest 2 and the original Quest headset are very important. The Oculus Quest 2 features 6GB of RAM compared to the original Quest 4GB. In addition to this, it powered by a much faster Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chipset. This offers greater fidelity in experiences and allows boosted resolutions and refresh rates.
The Oculus Quest 2 comes with a single LCD panel that split to display an 1832×1920 pixel resolution per eye. Which provides 50 percent sharper images than the original. LCD also provides an improved refresh rate of 90Hz to developers. Whereas the original Quest gives 72Hz.
However, it’s a lightweight design same as the first Oculus Quest. Oculus Quest 2 comes with its outer shell housing external cameras. They help to track your position and also of the supplied controllers. Also, you can tighten the headset with velcro. Which is a slightly elasticated fabric strap.
These VR headsets come with an Intuitive setup
Generally setting up a VR headset is quite difficult. There will be loads of wires you need to plug in and external sensors to arrange. Whereas Oculus Quest 2, which has all the computing and motion tracking self-contained. It takes just 5-10 minutes to get into action.
Once you wear these VR headsets on your head. you can turn on them after their first charge. It will show a few safety clips and a short video. This video informs you about controllers and how their point and trigger system can be used for navigating menus. After that, you are then asked to set up a Guardian.
With the Guardian set up, it shows optional instructions for how to use your hands’ to navigate menus rather than controllers. As of now, it remains a beta feature, but it’s still very interesting to see your hand outlines move in front of you.
Small movements such as thumb and forefinger pinches are used to select options and looking at your palm with fingers touching opens up menus. However, the number of games that support this feature remains limited.
Conclusion
Here are the details and factors that influenced Oculus Quest 2 to become the most popular VR headsets around. Based on the Steam Hardware Survey for February, The Oculus Quest 2 has made its way to the top spot as the most popular VR headset surpassing the Rift S.
