If you told people that Meta would start licensing their headset platform less than three months after Apple released the Vision Pro, most would assume that Apple’s headset must of sold like gangbusters. Not only has that not happened, it couldn’t happen based on supply chain constraints. So why license now? I have two thoughts: that Apple still disrupted Meta and that both companies are necessarily in it for the long game.

Meta’s first gambit was to dominate the market by being the first mover. After buying Oculus, Meta quickly established itself as the preeminent company in the very nascent headset market. At this time last year, they were touting a line of consumer and high end hardware that was coupled with their OS. Without any meaningful competition, Meta could play the long game merely by continually releasing products over time, because they would undoubtedly be the default people chose when headset sales eventually took off. The Apple Vision Pro didn’t need a bunch of sales to disrupt this strategy. As crazy as it sounds, it did so by merely existing. Meta couldn’t just idly wait for headsets to take off anymore because the longer that took, the more time Apple would have to bring its compelling and tightly integrated offering down market.

Meta responded to Apple Vision Pro in two ways. They effectively shitcanned its high end line and more importantly, lowered prices of its consumer line. Undercutting the competition to dominate an industry is a classic and often very successful strategy, but only if there is an industry to dominate. Meta’s problem is that no one is buying headsets in meaningful numbers. The whole point of selling hardware on the cheap is that everyone comes to your ecosystem instead of the other guys’, but that doesn’t work when no one is buying. By cutting prices, Meta was trying to drive headset adoption to happen now so they could maximize their first mover advantage. That apparently didn’t happen so the company is necessarily pivoting.

By licensing their platform, Meta is embracing the long game. They are still hoping headsets will catch on this or next year, but their goal isn’t to be the default headset choice. Now it’s to be the default headset platform. Meta is betting that if headsets do take four or five years to take off, whatever Apple does won’t matter when every other headset on the market runs their Horizon OS. It worked for Microsoft. It worked for Google. It’ll probably work for Meta too.