Oculus Quest 2 buyers and owners are in for a treat, because Oculus has announced that this VR headset will be getting support for multiple user accounts and device specific app sharing starting next month.
That means multiple users will be able to log into a single headset, with the option to share the same library of apps. So no more buying multiple headsets and duplicate apps just so everyone can have things their way.
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This upgrade will start rolling out to Quest 2 owners as an experimental feature, before rolling out to the original Oculus Quest headset at a later date. It’s not been revealed exactly what date the changes will happen, though app developers are being given until February 12 to opt out of app sharing.
From February 13 app sharing will be enabled automatically, suggesting the feature will start rolling out to users around this time.
How Oculus Quest 2 app sharing works
Primary Oculus Quest 2 account holders can add up to three secondary accounts to their headset, all of which will be able access eligible shared apps from that single headset. Obviously, Oculus would like you to buy more than one, so that feature will be expanded in the future, and allow a primary account holder to share their apps across three different Quest devices.
That’s the plan right now anyway, since the announcement post said the number of secondary devices and accounts may change as they get customer feedback. So those numbers may go up or they may also go down. It’s also not clear whether Oculus will prevent people from sharing apps when they don’t live together.
Unfortunately, this system does come with some caveats. Secondary account holders who buy their own apps won’t be able to share them with other users. For some reason that’s a right reserved only for the primary account holder. However, shared apps can be run on more than one device simultaneously, provided you’re not trying to use the primary account on both headsets.
All these accounts will need to be linked to your Facebook account, since that's now mandatory for all Oculus users.
In any case, this is all great news for Oculus Quest owners. The announcement claims that this is designed to help “grow the VR community, promote apps, and help prevent piracy”.
Whatever your thoughts on that, the fact that people will be able to have their own account space without necessarily having to spend $299 on their own headset is definitely a good thing. Especially if it also means not having to buy the same app or game several times.
