While in theory this sounds like an eagerly awaited solution to the multi user problem, the convoluted Oculus developer’s announcement (made on Jan13/21) comes with a slew of caveats.
It claims that coming February, users of the Oculus Quest 2 (expended to other Quest users at later date) will be able to have multiple accounts to log into a single headset; and have the ability to share apps with others on the shared device.
Let’s take a look at how it’s going to work:
- the Primary account holder will be able to add up to 3 secondary accounts
- The Primary account holder can share their purchased apps with the secondary accounts (so people can track their own progress in games and maintain their personalizations)
- HOWEVER, if a secondary account makes a purchase they are unable to share it with other users
Also:
- If a secondary account decides to purchase their own device and become a primary user, they will no longer be able to access the shared apps
- if you decide to change who will be the Primary user, you have to do a factory reset
In the works:
- in their announcement, Oculus presented a plan to expand the App Sharing feature to allow a primary account holder to share their purchases across three separate devices. This would allow for households who own more than one device to be able to share purchased apps.
- BUT, if you are logged into multiple devices as a primary account, you are unable to run the same app at the same time. So if you want to play a multi-player shared game, the additional devices would need to be signed in with their secondary account.
Other things to keep in mind:
- every secondary account needs to have their own Facebook account
- It’s important to realize that this further marries you to Facebook and gives away even more customized data on yours and your family’s personal behavioural patterns – a reason why many people decided not to pursue the Oculus Quest in the first place
- any new applications listed in the Oculus Store after February 12 will need to support app sharing. All existing apps and ones listed before Feb. 12 will have an option to opt out of this function. There have been some concerns among users that their favourite games might not be supported
- there is also no mention if users will be able to change or remove the secondary users
The verdict:
All in all, the ability to have Multi-user accounts on the Oculus devices as well as the ability to share apps between users and, potentially, between devices will certainly be a welcomed update and fill the gap that should not have been there in the first place. I imagine that especially for users who use the social apps and functions heavily, this is great news!
For many Oculus Quest users, however, this added function might not be as beneficial as it first appears. There are still a lot of unanswered questions that will hopefully get addressed in the near future!
Will you be able to take advantage of this new function?