New Quest apps will be unable to support Oculus Quest 1 headsets from May

The Oculus Quest launched back in 2019, just five years ago, but come May new apps released in the Quest Store won't be playable on the Quest 1. This isn't because the Quest 1 isn't powerful enough to play them anymore, but because developers will no longer be able to upload them and players won't be able to see them.

It's part of the planned obsolescence of the Quest 1 which Meta announced last year.

From April 30th, new Quest Store apps won't show up in the store for players using the Quest 1, and developers won't be able to upload new apps which solely support Quest 1. Builds for new apps that support an array of headsets, Quest 1 included, will have that Quest 1 support blocked. Thanks, UploadVR.

These changes only apply to new apps, so existing apps that currently support Quest 1 will continue to do so.

Meta announced last year that they were winding up support for the Quest 1, with security updates and bug fixes also due to come to an end later this year, in August. Quest 1 users have also already lost access to certain social features, and the Oculus SDK stopped supporting Quest 1 back in April 2023.

If it's not already obvious, I think this sucks. Console generations already offer precedent for the planned obsolescence of video game machines, obviously, but the Quest 1 is only five years old and the Quest 2 was released only 18 months after it. Console generations have the decency to be much longer, with graphical upgrades that justify why developers stop making games for one in favour of the next. With Quest headsets, Meta are making the decision on developers' behalf, with the value proposition for the audience far less clear. It's not "buy our new console, because the games look better", it's "buy our new headset, because your old headset has been deliberately scuttled."

Valve, new Index headset when?