Tencent Establishes XR Equipment and Content Business Department, Plans to Act as Agent for Meta Oculus Quest Headsets

Tencent has established a new XR Equipment and Content Business Department, according to internal emails obtained by VR Gyro. The department is responsible for the research and development, sales and marketing of Tencent's own brand of XR equipment, as well as the content ecological construction surrounding it.

The news comes after reports in January this year that Tencent's XR team was disbanded. The official response at the time was that the business development path had been changed and relevant teams had been adjusted.

It is now reported that Tencent is planning to act as an agent for Meta's Oculus Quest VR headsets. Bilibili up owner "Dianwan Technology AK" said that Tencent had originally disbanded its self-developed XR team, but affected by the release of Apple's Vision Pro, it began to reorganize the XR team in August this year and plans to act as an agent for Meta's VR headset Oculus Quest.

Jiemian News stated that Meta had begun negotiating the Quest plan with a number of Chinese technology companies as early as the end of 2022, including Tencent, Lenovo and mainstream smartphone brands, and Quest’s negotiation intentions with Tencent have made certain progress.

Tencent's new XR Equipment and Content Business Department is headed by Qian Geng, who is also the general manager of Tencent Games' Nintendo Cooperation Department. This department has introduced the Switch game console to Tencent and cooperated with Nintendo on the Chinese localization translation of some games.

Tencent's move to establish an XR Equipment and Content Business Department and act as an agent for Meta's Oculus Quest headsets is seen as a sign of its renewed interest in the XR market. Tencent is one of the largest technology companies in China and its involvement in the XR market could help to boost its adoption in the country.