Users of Peacock’s streaming service can now use one of Meta’s virtual reality headsets to view the service. No one knows how many people were looking forward to this, but it’s finally here.
As of Wednesday, April 12, Peacock is now available on Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro devices. This is the first time that the NBCUniversal streamer is available on a VR viewer. Customers in the US can sign up to get access to Peacock content on what Meta calls “a giant personal screen.”
Meta and NBCU deal
The addition of Peacock to Meta Quest 2 (which costs $400 and up) and Quest Pro (which starts at $1,000) is part of a three-year deal between NBCU and Meta to adapt some of NBCU’s intellectual property, like “Universal Monsters,” “Halloween Horror Nights,” and “The Office,” for virtual settings like Meta Horizon Worlds and the Meta Avatars Store.
Meta announces that people who wear VR headsets can watch Peacock video on multiple screens while also using other apps or surfing the web. You can also change the size of the screen, even making it as big as a “theater” screen.
Peacock adds other streaming services for the Meta Quest VR family (formerly known as Oculus) like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Pluto TV, and ESPN. Meta has put a lot of money into businesses in the metaverse, and their operating losses went up by 35% to $13.7 billion in 2022.
Peacock has more than 90,000 hours of material, like movies, TV shows, wrestling, and live sports like Major League Baseball, Premier League soccer, WWE, and Big Ten Football. Peacock’s schedule includes shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation, That ’70s Show, Yellowstone, and Saturday Night Live, as well as next-day versions of Bravo and NBC shows and originals like “Poker Face” and “Bel-Air.” Some of the things that will be on Peacock are the comedy-thriller “Cocaine Bear” (April 14), the original series “Mrs. Davis” (April 20), and the MLB Sunday Leadoff games (beginning April 23).
Peacock on Meta VR offers
To help get people excited about Peacock on Meta VR, the companies have planned a few unique promotions. People who already own Meta Quest 2 or Meta Quest Pro can get three months of Peacock Premium, which has ads and costs $15, for free. Customers who set up and register a new approved Meta Quest VR device between now and April 11, 2024 can get 12 months of Peacock Premium with ads for free (a $60 value).
“Launching Peacock on Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro meaningfully expands the existing partnership between Meta and NBCUniversal, and offers users more opportunities to experience Peacock’s robust content offering in an immersive VR and streaming experience,” said Annie Luo, Peacock’s EVP, head of global partnerships and strategic development. “Whether it be a VR experience with ‘The Office’ or an iconic film franchise, a live sporting event or the next breakout Peacock original, there’s something for everyone.”
Jarred Kennedy, VP of immersive apps and experiences at Meta, said, “With Meta Quest 2 and Pro, you can turn any room into your own virtual entertainment theater, and now users have access to an even larger collection of fan favorite movies, TV and sports.”
At the end of 2022, NBCU said that there were 20 million paid Peacock subscribers, which was more than twice as many as the 9 million customers from the year before. For the whole year of 2022, Peacock had an adjusted loss of $2.5 billion, and its parent company, Comcast, thinks that this loss will peak in 2023 at about $3 billion. Peacock is no longer a free option for new customers that is supported by ads, because NBCU is focusing on getting more paid users.
The post Peacock launches on Meta’s Quest VR headsets appeared first on NFT News Pro.