Oculus parent company Facebook today announced it’s bringing Spaces, the company’s own social VR app, to HTC Vive.

Like YouTube, which Google recently brought to the Vive, Facebook works only when it’s available to as many people as possible. And the same makes sense for Facebook Spaces. If the goal is social interaction in VR, the ‘network effect’ gets a boost when more people have access.

Facebook’s head of social VR Rachel Rubin Franklin said in the blog post announcing the app’s new cross-platform functionality that Vive users will “find all the same fun features as the Rift version — you can create your own avatar, view Facebook photos and 360 videos, play games, draw with markers, go Live, make Messenger video calls, and (my favorite) take awesome selfies.”

Rubin Franklin says that Vive support is “only the beginning: We’re working to bring Facebook Spaces to even more VR platforms and devices in the future, so stay tuned.”

Don’t look for Spaces on Steam yet though, because Facebook is hosting the executable directly on its site. Simply pick your platform, and download the file.

Spaces launched in April 2017 with a number of basic features, most of which Rubin Franklin lists above. The company recently opened up the platform to third-party app developers however in effort to build out its offering of activities, including its first big mini-game update courtesy Bait! Arctic Open.

Facebook’s extension of Spaces to HTC Vive somewhat clashes with Oculus’ historical practice of creating exclusive content to drive headset sales. This is however independent from the fact that Facebook’s desktop/mobile app is hardware agnostic, making it an interesting, but altogether understandable move by the social network giant in effort to gain more users (and more user data) so they can further refine their social VR platform.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Firestorm185

    That’s pretty huge in my opinion! I don’t have a lot of Facebook friends that
    own VR yet but if at some point it makes its way to GearVR that would be amazing!

    • CRASH_Override

      Yeah, I ended up hear looking to see if it came to Google Daydream too, as we have family that has one of those (we have a Rift).

  • If they want most Vive owners to use it then they need to putt it on Steam. I tend to forget about most VR titles that aren’t in my Steam library.

    • Suitch

      I tend the opposite. The games on Oculus’s store are just so much better that I would practically never use my headset if I only used my Steam games. Cheers.

      • CRASH_Override

        To me, Steam VR just feels so buggy and glitch compared to Oculus Home. At first I was buying games on Steam. But that quickly changed after firing up Steam VR a handful of times.

        • Suitch

          Exactly! Thankfully almost all game devs will give you a free Oculus key if you have it in Steam! Got Elite Dangerous, Eleven table tennis, Trickster, and more on Steam and got free keys for Oculus from their respective developers. Everything just runs better–even than running steamvr natively on my Vive. It is why I just use my Rift: better controllers and better software and better comfort and better headphones and slightly better lenses with identical screens. Better tracking once a third sensor is added and perfected tracking with four sensors. (I can’t occlude my controllers without very deliberate and unnatural tucking withing the arms and against the chest)

  • Facebook is a social network and it must be available on all possible platform

  • Foreign Devil

    Does anyone with VR even use Facebook spaces?

    • CRASH_Override

      I’m sure most Rift users have used it once or twice but probably never gets launched again since they likely don’t know other people with VR :D

      • They split the market even worse by not supporting Windows 7.

  • daveinpublic

    I knew this would happen, but it’s cool to start seeing the moving pieces coming together.

  • J.C.

    I hope they don’t use Spaces as a way to gauge Vive user interest in Oculus software. I have ZERO interest in using Spaces, but I’d be VERY interested in some direct support in Oculus Store games.

  • Could they *PLEASE* bring this stupid app to Windows 7???