While most people were pretty excited about the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10, one thing that was noticeably lacking was that it is not compatible with the Galaxy VR. The Korean OEM did not offer any explanation as to why you won’t be able to use the new phablet with the “official” VR headset from the same brand. If sources are to be believed, we now have a reason for this strange decision: Samsung and Oculus are apparently not partners anymore.
According to SAM Mobile, one of their sources said that the Samsung and Oculus partnership has now expired and there is no news yet on whether or not it will be renewed. So naturally, Samsung will not be able to add support for Gear VR since it is powered by Oculus after all. The good news is that all of the previous Galaxy devices including this year’s Galaxy S10 flagship line can still be used with the Gear VR since they’re still covered under the partnership.
But if one of the reasons why you would get a Galaxy Note 10 is to use it with a virtual reality headset, then you probably need to find a different one. But if you’re not really keen on using it for VR or if you don’t want a Gear VR anyway, then that will probably not factor in your decision to buy the latest phablet from Samsung which has been getting pretty good reviews so far.
Now as to whether we’ll see a renewal of the Samsung and Oculus partnership, that remains to be seen. Oculus actually has its own VR headset, the Oculus Go, so they might just decide to focus on selling their own product rather than just be associated with Samsung’s own. And the Oculus Go doesn’t actually need a smartphone to function and that’s one of the selling points of the device.
Samsung has not made any official comment yet about the Oculus partnership and so all we have to go on with right now is conjecture based on the information from the source. Once the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+ hits the market, we’ll know if the lack of Gear VR support will have any effect on its sales.
