The opening keynote for Oculus Connect 6 featured a few announcements for the standalone Oculus Quest VR headset. Mark Zuckerberg announced a couple of software updates coming to the headset later this year and in 2020, which will expand the capabilities of the hardware.
First, in November, an update will bring Oculus Link to the Quest, essentially turning it into a Rift-like device. The Oculus Rift lineup has some exclusive experiences, which are possible because the headset is dependent on a separate PC, which may offer much more performance than the Quest hardware. With Oculus Link, you can use a USB Type-C cable to connect the Quest to a gaming PC and enjoy Rift-exclusive experiences.
Additionally, the company is bringing many Oculus Go apps to the Quest, and it includes paid upgrades, so if you have a paid app on the Go, you can have the Quest version for free, if it exists.
Oculus also announced an update for Quest coming next week, which brings over the Passthrough+ feature from the Rift S, so you can see the world around you without taking off the headset. Passthrough+ offers images with less distortion than the standard Passthrough feature.
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Looking forward to next year, Zuckerberg announced another major update for the Quest. Currently, VR experiences in Oculus, and most VR headsets, require some form of controller. With a software update in 2020, the Oculus Quest will support hand tracking, reducing the need for controllers altogether. There"s no solid date for the update, and all we know is it"s coming in early 2020.
If you"re interested in the Oculus Quest, you can buy it from the company"s website. It costs $399 for the model with 64GB of internal storage and $499 for the 128GB variant.