It’s since when I launched my blog that I always dreamed of interviewing someone from Oculus, and finally today this dream has come true. Thanks to the huge help of VR Intelligence, that is organizing the VRX event, I have been able to speak with Sean Liu, Director of Product for VR at Facebook!

The VRX conference will be held in San Francisco on December, 12-13th and will feature very high-level speakers from companies like Oculus/Facebook, HP, Snap and many others. I have become one of their media partners because I think it is a very interesting event.

(PS: If you want to discover more this event and register, you can check out this link …and use the code 5049TGH200 to spare $200 on the ticket 😉 )

Sean Liu is one of the speakers of this cool event, and the people at VR-Intelligence, together with people at Facebook, have been so kind to give me the opportunity to have a quick chat with him. I have been so excited to be able to interview him!

Here you are the full text of my short interview with Mr.Liu, where we speak about Oculus Quest and Oculus Go and virtual reality in general.

Hello Sean, it’s a pleasure to host you here. Compliments for what you’re doing at Oculus! Can you introduce yourself to the few readers that don’t know you yet? Hey, Antony. It’s really good to connect with you to talk all things VR, especially as we head into VRX. I’m Sean and I’m currently Director of Product for VR at Facebook. My team’s work focuses mainly on our hardware devices, like Quest, Rift S, and Oculus Go. Sean Liu (Image by Facebook) How have you started working in the VR field? I was participating in the Global Game Jam back in 2014. A friend had borrowed a DK1, and we decided to build a VR game that weekend. We ended up funding it through Kickstarter and eventually launching it on the Oculus store (Oculus Share back in the day). Amazingly, months later I ended up joining Oculus. What do you like the most about this technology? From the very beginning when I began working in this space, the most powerful thing to me about virtual reality is that it allows you to connect. Whether you’re connecting with people or with your passions, virtual reality has this ability to make you feel more connected than anything else that’s come before it. We have this shorthand that we use for our mission and you may have heard some of us say this at F8 or Oculus Connect: we like to say virtual reality lets you Defy Distance. And it’s easy to think we’re being hyperbolic here or that it’s just a slogan. But to us, Defy Distance represents that presence you feel so viscerally when you’re connecting in VR, no matter where you are in the physical world. You really do feel like you’re defying distance. At OC6, Oculus has introduced many amazing features for Oculus Quest, like Hand Tracking, Go emulation and Oculus Link. What is the one you are proud of the most? And Why? Choosing between the three is like choosing a favorite child so I really couldn’t pick just one! If I had to say what my favorite things are about these innovations, it’s what they represent when they all come together. All three of these are part of our commitment to continue to improve Oculus Quest through software updates. We’re at the point where we’ve put Quest into the market, we’re seeing people use and engage with it, and we want to make that experience better and better over time. So it’s seeing each of these features bringing value to people. And, that’s not to mention how it’s not just consumers who benefit. These features also open up new audiences for developers or new ways developers can build. So really these have value for both users and developers. I can’t wait to try the Link with my Quest! We can’t wait for you to try it either … we just announced this week! The software is rolling out in beta, where we’ll continue to test and optimize. From there, we’ll add support for more PC systems. And, later this year, we’ll release a premium, custom optical fiber cable to provide a best-in-class experience with maximum throughput while using Oculus Link. Regarding Hand Tracking, there is a debate online if it is not available on Rift S because of technical issues (like lack on PC of a specialized DSP like the one offered by Qualcomm) or if it has been a business decision because the Quest is the device for consumers you are investing the most in. Can you clarify what is the truth? Well, first I’d like to acknowledge that we’re really excited about the buzz from our community. We’re constantly listening to this buzz and the enthusiasm, questions, feedback — the good and the bad! — all matter to us as we build. As far as hand tracking, we are starting on the Quest platform first. It’s important we evaluate hand tracking on Quest this first go-around before we consider bringing it to other devices. Hands tracking can offer you new interaction possibilities on your Quest These days SuperData has said that Oculus Quest has sold in total 400,000 units. Some people have come out disappointed by this number. Can you comment on this estimate? When we’re talking about Quest, we really do need to pause for a moment and acknowledge just how pleased we are with the reactions we’re seeing from consumers and developers alike — really just the whole community. As far as sales, I can’t comment on any specifics or even broadly, but Mark has spoken on the record about Quest, including during an earnings call this past August when he shared, “we’re selling them as fast as we can make them.” When do you think a device offered by Oculus (like the Quest) can enter the mainstream selling more than 10M units having big retention? 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? I love the enthusiasm you have for our tech, and I can promise you we’re equally excited about the growth of the entire ecosystem over the past year plus. But it’s also important to remind ourselves that we’re still in the very early days of VR. These are truly long-term bets we’re making as a company that we believe will change how we connect in the coming decades. That being said, once again, we’re really excited about the momentum we’ve seen with Quest and how it’s opened up VR to even more people. Quest is an important step along the way — and we’re not slowing down from here! In the future, is there still a place for 3DOF headsets like the Oculus Go? I really can’t comment on our future roadmap at this point, but I can say that Oculus Go continues to be a great way to enter VR and we see it as an accessible entry into VR for so many people. Go remains popular for immersive media and with its affordable price point, it’s a great option for people who are new to VR. Go was also our first product in the all-in-one category, and we’re continuing to build on this form factor with Oculus Quest because we know that all-in-one VR is something people want. But let’s take a step back from the headset itself for a moment and look more broadly at what Oculus Go does — it brings more people into VR. And we shouldn’t gloss over that. Oculus Go still brings people into VR, according to Sean (Image by Oculus) How do you envision the future of virtual and augmented reality? To me, this goes back to the first question you asked me about what I like most about the technology and that’s connection. We really do think AR and VR will be the next computing platform centered around people and their connections. Those in the industry today know this magic and connection that happens with the level of presence AR and VR offers, so the future we imagine is one in which we’re using these technologies to connect on a deeper, more meaningful level. If someone wants to do a job like yours, what would be your best piece of advice? What are the lessons that you’ve learned in these years at Oculus? The best advice I’ve ever gotten was to go and tinker! We’ve got really great online classes for building your first applications in VR, and the community embraces people exploring new hardware ideas. It’s a new industry and ecosystem, so everyone in AR and VR is learning things for the first time. How is it working with the god John Carmack? And how much do you understand of what he says? When he speaks too technically, I grasp like 40% of his words 😀 😀 😀 Of course, I feel really lucky to work with John — he and I have some friendly competition on the Beat Saber leaderboards. He’s had a really foundational influence on VR, especially on our work in the mobile and standalone products. But more than that, we have talent across the whole team. It really does take a village to build a product — I’m awed working with brilliant folks spanning design, engineering, operations, sales, marketing, and beyond. What’s your favorite VR game? (Please tell HitMotion:Reloaded, that is our game… 😀 😀 :D) Haha, I’m excited by all the games you and the community are building! I’m personally a big fan of Asgard’s Wrath on Rift S, and I love showing off the Vader Immortal experiences on Quest to friends and family. Are you excited about your talk at VRX? What do you hope to obtain from this cool event? Absolutely. One of the messages we shared at Oculus Connect 6 in the fall was how we see the industry being at an inflection point right now. So spending time with this community at this time is really a treat. I look forward to taking every opportunity to learn from others in this industry and just getting energized and excited about our work collectively. Open Question: tell my readers something that I have not asked you, but you would like to add to this interview… We recently launched two big titles for Rift—Asgard’s Wrath and Stormland—that have been generating so much excitement for both the community. They’ve both received high praise and ratings from gaming sites, the response has been truly phenomenal. Vader Immortal just released the final chapter to the three-episode saga they launched along with Quest, and Star Wars fans have been calling the experience of coming face-to-face with Darth Vader in VR incredible. We’ve got developers exploring immersive entertainment and getting truly creative with The Under Presents, which launched this week as well. We’re really thrilled with the momentum we’ve got right now and we have more content, experiences, and features to launch next year!

I really want to thank Sean from the bottom of my heart for the time he dedicated to me notwithstanding his busy schedule. I also appreciated a lot the enthusiasm he shared in this interview… it is clearly noticeable his passion for the technology… and it is crazy that he started just hacking a game in a game jam in 2014 and how he’s there driving the forward evolutions of the technology! :O

He clearly dodged some of the questions I was curious about (like the Quest sales), but of course, he can’t talk about these topics. It’s more interesting the fact that he didn’t expressly clarify the reason why the Rift S won’t have hands tracking, and this makes me think about a business decision: if it would have just been a technical reason (like the absence of a DSP), he would have stated that easily.

It is also interesting that Oculus believes that we are at an inflection point of the industry, but at the same time we’re just at the beginning. Sean reminds us that we are still in the early days of VR, notwithstanding the fact that we made huge steps forward in the last 5 years. I have to say that I agree with him.

This also explains why Facebook is very satisfied with how the Quest is performing even if its sales are not exploding as some people were hoping for (that is: it is not going mainstream). Most probably, it has never been the purpose of this device for this year: Facebook knows that changing how people will interact with technology in the next decades will need many years, and it is performing a long-term bet. The Quest marks the inflection point of the curve, but this curve still needs more time to ramp up (most probably, some years).

And it is good to know that Sean and Facebook are still committed to the tech: the last sentence where he promises us “more content, experiences, and features to launch next year!” makes me dream of cool things to come for 2020! I can’t wait to discover what they are preparing behind the curtains…

(Header image by Facebook)

Disclaimer: this blog contains advertisement and affiliate links to sustain itself. If you click on an affiliate link, I'll be very happy because I'll earn a small commission on your purchase. You can find my boring full disclosure Disclaimer: this blog contains advertisement and affiliate links to sustain itself. If you click on an affiliate link, I'll be very happy because I'll earn a small commission on your purchase. You can find my boring full disclosure here