Why Meta’s Oculus Quest Pro Will Bomb In Montana

In October 2021, Facebook changed it's parent company name to Meta, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg went from dipping his toes in virtual reality/augmented reality/whatever to full send attempts to recreate our actual world in a virtual space, the Metaverse. And the vehicle chosen to keep us hooked up to this supposed augmented reality is the Oculus.

The Zuck is clearly out of touch with what matters to Montanans and this is why his latest abomination, the Oculus Quest Pro, will likely fail miserably in the Treasure State.

RELATED: A "Super App" For Montana?

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The Next Worst Thing

You're probably familiar with the Oculus, which is Meta's native gaming headset. The second generation Oculus Quest 2 is the company's best-selling device, having (we have to include the next word) allegedly sold 14.8 million units.

Recently, Meta announced Oculus Quest Pro, a $1,500 headset that is the next generation of Meta's line of virtual reality gaming headsets.

On the surface, it's a space-age piece of technology combining augmented eye tracking, better processing power than its predecessor, and the most bizarre feature of them all: the headset's ability to detect your facial expressions so it can mirror them in the virtual world. The headset will begin shipping orders in late October 2022.

We'll get to why it's not going to sell well in Montana in just a sec, but first let's call this for what it is: an exercise in vanity. Zuckerberg not only believes he can upend an entire video game industry that has spent the last 40 years in R&D, but he also believes it's not eye-rollingly ludicrous to slap a $1,500 price tag on his device in the middle of an economic downturn when even the most high-end iPhones with far more features that people actually use and depend on are less than $1,000.

Why It's Destined To Fail In Montana

• It's absurd - as we mentioned in the "super app" article, Montanans value our outdoor activities and way of life. It's next to impossible imagining life without our Montana hiking trails, rivers, and connections with nature. We also have a stellar Montana Fish & Wildlife department to not only maintain and make our public lands accessible, but help conserve them as well.

SHOWN: the real world, far better than any tech egomaniac's attempts to replicate it.

• It's ugly - wearing this headset looks like you're wearing a condom on your head, transcending the already-accepted stereotype that not spending enough time in face-to-face communications with your fellow humans will hinder your likelihood of having children.

No disrespect intended, fella. Good luck.

• Even if virtual reality was what we wanted, Oculus isn't the best device to deliver it - setting aside the $1,500 price tag, the best solution to deliver something like a metaverse isn't with video, but with audio. Any audiologist (like this one) would tell you that hearing is just as important as sight to experience the world around you.

And the most conspicuous hearing devices in the world right now? AirPods. Compared to Oculus 2's 14.8 million units sold, Apple sold somewhere close to 120 million pairs in 2021 alone.

They look way cooler, too.

A Montanan's Perspective

I'll confess that I introduced my dad, an avid golfer all his life, to the Oculus golf game. He had some fun with it but he didn't last long as it made him dizzy. Yeah, he's out of the Oculus target market but just like any other Montanan he prefers the real thing even if he can't enjoy it as much as he used to.

He only looked like this for a few minutes. He likely never will again.

I'm not telling anyone to not buy the Oculus Quest Pro. But it hardly seems to fit with our Montana way of life, which values real experiences instead of virtual ones. So it's doubtful that most Montanans (even gamers) would choose to invest in this overpriced ridiculous-looking piece of hardware to further disconnect from the real world. Hey, speaking of things to do in the real world...