Meta is not pulling out of VR hardware design, CTO says
According to a new report, Meta is outsourcing its hardware design to its manufacturing partner. Meta denies the rumors.
The Information reports that Meta intends to outsource the design of VR headsets to its Chinese partner Goertek, citing one Goertek employee and two Meta employees. Goertek is Meta's long-standing Quest hardware manufacturer.
Meta is looking to shift more of the design of components such as lenses and displays to Goertek, which has already begun designing the outer shell for future versions of Meta's mixed reality headsets, according to one of the sources.
Meta hopes that Goertek and other potential manufacturers will develop mixed reality devices independently of Meta by 2030, while Meta will focus more on the Horizon OS operating system and software, similar to Google with Android.
someone is pushing the design rumor hard to multiple outlets, and that aspect remains false. We continue to design our headsets in house as we have and have no plans to change that. We always partner with our manufacturers to some degree but nothing material is changing there.
AdAd- Boz (@boztank) December 5, 2024
A Meta spokesperson denied the report. CTO Andrew Bosworth doubled down on X, writing that the design outsourcing rumors are false. "We continue to design our headsets in house as we have and have no plans to change that," writes Bosworth.
Meta announced in April that it would license the Meta Quest operating system, Horizon OS, to hardware partners so that they can develop and manufacture specialized VR headsets in the future. The goal is to create a broad VR hardware ecosystem based on Horizon OS. At the same time, Meta emphasized that it will continue to develop and market general-purpose devices under the Meta Quest brand.
In the long term, it is conceivable that Meta will exit the hardware business and focus on developing the Horizon OS operating system and other Horizon software. However, it seems unlikely that this is already underway and will be completed by 2030, unless Meta is looking for a way to exit the VR business, which at this point is pure speculation.
The fact is that the VR market is still too dependent on Meta's leadership and expertise for the company to completely relinquish responsibilities such as hardware design to partners.
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