Xiaomi may have laid off its Mi VR standalone team: what’s the future for Oculus Go?

In these days, I got a quite interesting rumor: Xiaomi may have abandoned its plans for the Mi VR standalone headset, the Chinese counterpart of the Oculus Go.

Before I continue with this story…

Before I tell you what I know, let me clarify one thing: THIS IS A RUMOR. Xiaomi has not confirmed nor denied this news, since it has not answered to my request on the topic. Everything contained in this article may be refuted, or could be true only in part.

I’m publishing it because the source of this news is very reliable. And it is coherent with other information that I have, as I will tell you. So, I’m sure that the news is true at least in part. But nothing has been officially confirmed, so please consider this article with a grain of salt.

UPDATE: Xiaomi has actually answered to these claims, and I also got info from another source. See the final update at the end of this post. The sensation that I have is that the news is true.

Xiaomi lays off its Go/Mi VR team

If you remember well, the Oculus Go is a joint product between Oculus and Xiaomi. The headset has been actually manufactured by Xiaomi, and sold by Xiaomi itself in China under the name “Mi VR”, and by Oculus in the West with the branding “Oculus Go”. For this reason, the headset has a double branding Oculus and Xiaomi in both versions. Even the applications built for one of the two versions can be easily ported to the other one.

According to my source, Xiaomi has laid off all the Go/Mi VR team. The operation regarded a dozen employees.

This doesn’t mean that the Go/Mi VR isn’t been manufactured anymore (in fact all the stores in China and abroad still have it in stock), or that won’t be assistance anymore, but more that there is not anymore a team caring about the device and its future evolutions.

I don’t have further info on the work these people were performing and if there are now other departments inside Xiaomi that will care about the device. I don’t even know if in these months, the team has been able to already design an evolution of the Go and so its work is over.

In the last months, we had similar news about Valve and Apple closing XR teams, but then Valve has actually shipped the Valve Index and Apple has opened new job positions regarding AR/VR people. These lay-offs not always have a direct correlation with the products released by the companies. So this move by Xiaomi can just mean that it is re-organizing its internal departments, or that it is betting on a different direction of XR (e.g. AR). I have no idea. As I’ve already told you, it is just a rumor.

The reasons for the lay off

According to my source, Xiaomi closed the Mi VR project because of “disappointing sales and usage”.

This is perfectly in line with other information in my possession that come from other sources.

When I was in Qingdao for the Sandbox Immersive Festival, an informed person (different from the source of the news) told me that Xiaomi was very unsatisfied about the Mi VR: it was not being very profitable in China. Xiaomi was struggling to make a profit on their headsets simply because “the cost is too high when they want to keep the retail price low“, the informed person said. The informed person also added that content on the Mi VR market is not as rich as the one on the Oculus store, so the retention of users is lower. And Xiaomi has not the enormous budget of Facebook to invest to push a VR headset.

This doesn’t surprise me because in my multiple travels to Mainland China and Taiwan, I have rarely seen a Mi VR. Most 3 DOF headsets that I have seen were from Pico, and if I consider VR in general, I have mostly seen headsets by HTC, Pico and DPVR. The Mi VR is surely not the most popular headset there.

So, it would have perfectly sense that Xiaomi is abandoning the Mi VR project.

What does this mean for the Oculus Go?

This could mean that we will never see an Oculus Go 2. When I asked my source about the Go, he/she answered that almost surely there won’t be a Mi VR 2, and probably there won’t be a Go 2 as well.

The informed person in Qingdao told me that despite the public claims, Go is not seen as a success by Oculus. It is not a failure either, but maybe they expected something more, having launched the device with the claim of wanting to take 1 billion people inside VR.

Furthermore, it is news of these days that Oculus is going to add Oculus Go emulation inside the Quest, and this means that the Quest will be able to let people also enjoy all the best apps of the Oculus Go. The Quest is being a great success, so it is probable that Oculus wants to bet more on this form factor and let it cannibalize the Go.

Anyway, it is also possible that Oculus will take Go production all on its shoulders and will continue even without the partnership with Xiaomi. Maybe the team that has laid off, had just finished designing the Go 2 and so their work is over and a Go 2 will be announced soon. The possibilities are many.

In any case, I think that the Go will have the same destiny of Half-Life and never reach the number 3, because sooner or later its features will be included inside a 6 DOF standalone like the Quest, that in the next years will be able to become cheaper. Go is a device with a clear present but that hardly will have a long-term future.

Final thoughts

The future is 6 DOF standalone. 3 DOF VR standalone HMDs have their use now and work good as media consumption devices, but their limited features make them difficult to evolve, especially now that the interest is shifting always more towards interactivity and mixed reality.

We will see what will happen in the next months. Facebook has just announced all its first generation of headsets (Rift, Go and Quest), and it is going to launch the second one at OC6 in September. We all thought that the second generation would just mean Rift 2, Go 2 and Quest 2, but actually, it could also mean a completely new line of devices, that maybe start incorporating also AR. We all thought that Gear VR was fundamental for Oculus, but then Oculus abandoned it with no mercy. Go could slowly follow its same route in the following years.

For sure It will be interesting to see what will be announced at OC6. For now, let’s all take this news with a (huge) grain of salt.

UPDATE: Facebook and Xiaomi have answered to this article.

Both of them have clarified that Oculus Go and Xiaomi Mi VR are high-quality devices that are selling well, and that production will go on as usual. Both companies are still committed to VR and current version of devices will continue to live for sure.
Neither of them, anyway, has denied or confirmed the main news reported here, that is that the Mi VR team has been disbanded, or has expressed an opinion on whether there will be an Oculus Go 2 or Xiaomi Mi VR 2.

Facebook has released the following statement to Jeremy Horwitz of VentureBeat:

We don’t comment on our future product roadmap, but Oculus Go continues to be the best way to enjoy immersive entertainment, and is a great device for anyone just getting started in VR. We’re still producing and selling Oculus Go and as always, we’ll keep our community informed on any updates to our product portfolio.

A Xiaomi spokeperson has instead sent me this comment, that has been sent to Jeremy as well:

Xiaomi Mi VR Standalone and Facebook’s Oculus Go have seen strong sales and are among the most popular standalone headsets on the market. Recent reports on Xiaomi closing VR projects due to disappointing sales and usage are untrue.
Productio and sales of current Mi VR Standalone are operating as normal. At the moment, we don’t have any news to share regarding our future product roadmap, but we will keep our users in the loop on any updates to our product portfolio.

After that, I got in contact with another person, unrelated from the other sources I have already mentioned, that confirmed me what seems to emerge mixing the rumor and the answers by the two big companies.

Xiaomi is still producing the headset. But it is investing just the money to keep the current situation unchanged (e.g. shipping Oculus Go and Mi VR so that people can order them), but the people dedicated to it are always less. So, you can be sure that the Go will live long and you will continue finding it on the various stores, but the project has no future, at least for what concerns the commitment of Xiaomi. This may mean in the end that we will never see a Go 2 made by Oculus and Xiaomi.

UPDATE 2: A person reacted on this post on Linkedin with this first-person experience:

What I heard from an Oculus employee during GDC: there will not be an Oculus Go 2. There were never plans for Go 2. It was meant to be a landing place for GearVR customers.
The Oculus Quest series is the future of Oculus Go.

I see that all the cues take us in one direction…

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(Header image created from an Image by Oculus)