Meta is streaming some free Lionsgate movies each month to Quest 2 owners, who can watch together in Horizon Home with friends in the United States.
Lionsgate movies like Gods of Egypt (3D) and Leprechaun can be watched together with friends in Meta Horizon Home. The free movies from Lionsgate will change monthly, Meta announced in a blog post, and this content is only available to people living in the United States. A Meta representative told UploadVR that in the future “we’ll explore the possibility of adding movies that are available to users outside of the US.”
The latest feature lets people watch “2D and 3D rectilinear content together on a giant screen” much like startup Bigscreen has enabled with its VR service for years. Notably, Bigscreen went head-to-head with the company formerly known as Facebook a couple years back by contesting its platform fees for movie rentals. The startup continues to build its own synced video watching functionality, first launching free movies and recently making it easy to watch YouTube together.
Meta Horizon Home, meanwhile, was added to Quest this month with a key feature being the ability to invite friends to share your home space “as soon as you put on your headset” to see content like Alex Honnold’s recent 360-degree video release together. Cowatching traditional 2D content was promised late last year with the official announcement of Horizon Home, but Meta was non-specific about what videos would be watchable with the system.
Meta benefits from being the default experience you get with a Quest 2 headset and uses platform-level features starting with a “ Party—a VOIP call that lets you hang out and chat with friends in VR” which you can then use to “invite some friends to your Meta Horizon Home.”
The Lionsgate movies are available alongside a range of 360-degree content in the Oculus TV app.
