Only two percent of Virtual Desktop users connect with a Quest Pro
UPDATEJune 15, 2023:
Virtual Desktop developer Guy Godin explained on Twitter that only two percent of users of the Quest 2 version access his app with a Quest Pro (tweet below). So even among enthusiasts with access to a gaming PC, the premium VR headset might not exactly be widespread. According to Godin, Quest 1 users still make up about six percent of Virtual Desktop users.
Meta does not publish Quest sales figures broken down by model. According to a recent leak, Mark Zuckerberg spoke of "tens of millions" of Quest devices sold in an internal meeting. That figure coincides with an older leak from March 2023 of nearly 20 million Quest headsets sold.
Original article from June 15, 2023:
In an email to Quest users, Meta revealed the monthly user numbers for the popular VR app Virtual Desktop.
Some Quest users reported receiving emails from Meta that reveal the monthly user numbers for certain VR apps.
VR Youtuber and commentator Brad Lynch shared such an email about Virtual Desktop via Twitter. It states:
"178,603 people visited Virtual Desktop last month. The number of Virtual Desktop visitors last month is pretty staggering. That's a lot of new people to play with... or against."
Kinda interesting to get an email from Meta like this pic.twitter.com/pC2oiz9Gfb
— Brad Lynch (@SadlyItsBradley) June 14, 2023
For those who aren't familiar with Virtual Desktop: The VR app allows users to connect their Meta Quest to PCs via Wi-Fi to bring their desktop into virtual reality, watch movies in virtual environments, and stream PC VR games.
The developer of Virtual Desktop is surprised
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that user numbers for the VR app have been released to the public, although it's not entirely clear what is meant by "visitors". Presumably, it includes everyone who launched the VR app at least once in the past month.
The developer in charge, Guy Godin, took to Twitter to express his surprise that Meta had published the statistics without his permission.
He himself had assumed that he was not allowed to publish user numbers. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth joined the discussion and wrote that developers are allowed to publish usage statistics, just not sales and revenue figures. Godin neither confirmed nor denied the number.
An email was also sent out for the VR hit game Bonelab. According to it, the title had 361,340 users last month.
PC VR is popular with Meta Quest users
What is Meta trying to accomplish with these emails? They seem to be automatically generated and are meant to get people to return to a VR app they used in the past. Judging by the wording, they are meant to promote VR apps and games with multiplayer functionality, a feature Virtual Desktop does not support.
Didn’t know I was able to share but if you are wondering why Quest Pro specific features are not high priority in Virtual Desktop, it’s because Quest Pro represents only about 2% of the Quest 2 users in my usage statistics. https://t.co/L0U5SE9MqK
— Guy Godin (@VRDesktop) June 14, 2023
The number of nearly 180,000 monthly users is impressive considering that PC VR usage is a secondary feature of Meta Quest and requires a PC.
According to leaked documents, the VR platform had 6.37 million monthly active users last October. Based on this number, just under three percent of all Quest users used Virtual Desktop last month. In the Meta Quest Store, Virtual Desktop is among the top 20 premium apps and games by number of user ratings.
The total number of Meta Quest PC VR users may be even higher, as a significant number of users are likely using Meta's own free PC VR streaming feature, Quest Link.
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