Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed the company’s mixed reality headset — the Quest 3 – ahead of Apple’s VR launch.
Meta is the leader in the AR VR market with 47.8 percent share in Q1 2023, according to the latest IDC report. Meta lost some share to Sony’s PSVR 2. Sony is in the second position in the AR VR market with 35.9 percent share during the first quarter. ByteDance (Pico) has 6.1 percent share.
Meta’s Quest 3 – which has a starting price of $499, will be 40 percent thinner than the company’s previous headset and feature color mixed reality, which combines augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) elements.
Meta would lower the prices of its existing Quest 2 headsets, while adding performance upgrades to those devices aimed at delivering a smoother user experience, Mark Zuckerberg said in an Instagram post ahead of Meta’s annual gaming conference.
The Quest 3 will have a new Qualcomm chipset with twice the graphics performance as the Quest 2. The device would be available in the autumn and the social media giant will share details at the company’s annual AR/VR conference on Sept. 27.
Rival Apple is expected to unveil its first mixed reality device, a high-end product with a price point around $3,000, according to a Bloomberg report.
Meta has struggled to sell its vision of an immersive “metaverse” of interconnected virtual worlds and expand the market for its devices beyond the niche of the gaming community, Reuters news report said.
The company classified eight of the 10 most popular apps on its Quest store as being in the gaming category, according to a Reuters count.
Sony released its own second-generation headset dedicated to games, the PS VR2, in February and has significant developer support.
In March, Meta cut the prices of most of its existing Quest headsets in hopes of stirring demand, after raising the price of its entry-level Quest 2 128 GB version in July 2022.
Its high-end Meta Quest Pro now retails for about $1,000, down from a launch price of $1,500, and the Quest 2’s 256 GB version now starts at about $430, down from $500.
The company said on Thursday that it would lower the Quest 2 prices once again starting June 4, with the entry-level device dropping back to its original price tag of $300 and the 256-GB version falling to $350.
