Meta offers Quest OS up to third-party developers, ASUS and Lenovo among them

ASUS and Lenovo are two of the first third-party mixed reality developers to adopt Meta’ Quest OS for their own hardware.

Meta announced “a new era for mixed reality” when it opened Quest OS up to third-party developers in a move that rebrands the software to Meta Horizon OS. This comes after Meta’s Quest 3 headset delivered a massive quarterly revenue at the end of 2023. The first two companies to take up the opportunity are ASUS and Lenovo.

ASUS’s Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand is reportedly working on new “performance gaming” headsets, while Lenovo, the company behind the ill-fated Oculus Rift S, is working on devices for “productivity, learning and entertainment.”

Meta’s DNA as a social media-driven company appears to be a central part of Meta Horizon OS, with the company writing in its announcement: “Meta Horizon OS combines the core technologies powering today’s mixed reality experiences with a suite of features that put social presence at the center of the platform.”

Meta specifically names the fields of gaming, entertainment, fitness, productivity, and social presence as exciting spaces when it comes to mixed reality. While Meta has developed the operating system, now the chance arises for more competition between companies to develop the hardware, apps, and use cases required to expand the world of mixed reality.

“As we’ve seen with the PC and smartphone industries, consumers are best served by a broad hardware ecosystem producing both general-purpose computing devices and more specialized products, all running on a common platform,” Meta wrote.

Meta also announced what it has been working on, as well as ASUS and Lenovo, with a collaboration with Xbox to produce a limited-edition Meta Quest, inspired by Xbox. The Meta Horizon Store is also becoming more open, with fewer boundaries between it and Apple’s App Store. This should make it easier for any company to launch a mixed reality app, adding more ideas and companies to the mix.

Featured image: Meta

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