Meta will discontinue support for new Quest 1 apps on April 30, 2024, but users can continue to purchase and use existing apps.
Meta informs Quest developers in an email that important changes are coming to Quest 1.
As of April 30, 2024, Meta will stop supporting new Quest 1 apps. Here's what Meta writes to developers:
- You will not be able to upload builds for new apps that only support Quest 1
- 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
- New apps will not be listed in the catalog of Quest 1 apps in the Meta Store
- Quest 1 users will not be able to search or purchase new apps created after April 30, 2024
The only change for users is that no new VR apps will be released for the device. However, they will still be able to purchase and use existing VR apps from the Quest Store that support Quest 1. The headset will also continue to receive critical bug fixes and security patches until August 2024.
These changes were announced in early 2023. Social features were already turned off last year, and no new features have been released for Quest 1 since Quest Update 49. A number of studios have dropped Quest 1 support for their VR games because Quest 1 builds can no longer be properly updated. As a result, some titles are no longer playable on Quest 1.
From Oculus Quest to Meta Quest 3
The original Oculus Quest was released in May 2019, and it still runs most of the games in the Quest Store, which is surprising considering the headset's chipset was already outdated when the device was released.
In October 2020, just a year and a half later, the successor Oculus Quest 2 was released with a new, much more powerful chipset, the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1. At the same time, the Quest 1 was taken off the market.
In October 2023, Meta Quest 3 launched. The Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 in it offers more than twice as much GPU performance as the last-gen chipset. According to reports, the new chipset will also be used in a cheaper "Meta Quest 3 Lite", which is expected to be released this year to replace the Quest 2.
