Quest 2 and Quest Professional will not be accessible when inventory runs out or on the finish of the yr, whichever comes first.
Quest 3S Begins At $300 And Comes With Controllers
Meta simply formally introduced Quest 3S. Beginning at $300, it options fresnel lenses, the XR2 Gen 2 chipset, blended actuality, and comes with controllers.
Meta made the announcement at present at Meta Join 2024. It comes as the corporate formally revealed and opened preorders for Quest 3S, beginning at $300, and introduced that it is also discontinuing the 128GB Quest 3 after slicing the worth of the 512GB Quest 3 mannequin to $500.
Meta Cuts 512GB Quest 3 To $500, Will Discontinue 128GB Mannequin
BREAKING: the 128GB mannequin of Quest 3 is being discontinued, and the 512GB mannequin has been minimize to $500. The 128GB mannequin is $430 “whereas provides final”.
When Quest 2, Quest Professional, and the 128GB Quest 3 are gone, Meta’s headset lineup will probably be simplified to:
- Quest 3S (128GB): $300
- Quest 3S (256GB): $400
- Quest 3 (512GB): $500
Quest 2: The First Mainstream VR Headset
Quest 2 launched in 2020 with a outstanding proposition: a twice as highly effective chipset and better decision than the unique Oculus Quest at a $100 lower cost.
Certain it additionally misplaced the OLED and exact lens separation adjustment of its predecessor, however this did not appear to matter a lot because the improved graphics and $300 value level propelled Quest 2 to a degree of success no different VR headset has reached earlier than or since.
Fb Says Quest 2 Already Outsold Each Earlier Oculus Headset Mixed
Fb’s head of AR/VR says Oculus Quest 2 “outsold not simply its predecessor, however all of its predecessors mixed“. In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, Andrew Bosworth was requested when digital actuality would have its “mainstream second”. He replied: “Nicely, when you look slightly
Quest 2 outsold all its predecessors mixed inside 6 months of being on sale. Meta has now shipped an estimated 20-30 million Quest 2 items by its 4 years in the marketplace, just like the variety of Xbox Sequence X/S consoles bought to date.
The primary main standalone VR video games to not assist Quest 2 are launching quickly, however many different VR apps will seemingly assist Quest 2 for a few years to come back, and Quest 2’s lenses and show will reside on in Quest 3S.
Quest Professional: A Pioneering Failure
Constructing on the success of Quest 2, two years later Meta hoped it might introduce a high-end Quest to serve lovers and companies.
Quest Professional launched in 2022 at $1500. It featured Meta’s first pancake lenses, QD-LCD shows with Mini-LED native dimming, eye monitoring, face monitoring, a battery within the rear of the strap, and ringless self-tracking Contact Professional controllers.
In some ways Quest Professional was a pioneering headset. However in others it was missing.
John Carmack Tried To Kill Quest Professional, Predicting Failure
Carmack says he predicted it could be “a business failure and distract the groups for a yr, stopping them from doing extra invaluable work”.
By the point Quest Professional launched, leaks of a Quest 3 arriving a yr later with a twice as highly effective chipset at half the worth had already emerged, severely dampening the headset’s worth proposition.
Additional, Quest Professional’s underwhelming decision, grainy passthrough, lack of computerized room sensing for blended actuality, and Meta’s cartoonish avatars not being detailed sufficient to do the face monitoring sensors justice led to mixed-at-best opinions.
Simply 4 months after Quest Professional launched Meta minimize its value from $1500 to $1000. This type of value minimize so quickly after launch was unprecedented, and strongly suggests the headset vastly missed its launch gross sales targets.
By round a yr after launch Meta was gifting away Quest Professional headsets to Roblox creators, when giving them a Quest 2 would have been completely wonderful. And earlier this yr Meta eliminated the whiteboard, which was designed round the pressure-sensitive stylus ideas of Quest Professional’s controllers, from Horizon Workrooms.
A number of builders have instructed UploadVR they see solely a tiny fraction of their person base on Quest Professional. As such, nearly no Quest recreation builders took the time so as to add assist for its eye-tracked foveated rendering.
Meta Horizon OS Will Run On Headsets From ASUS & Lenovo
Meta is rebranding its Quest software program platform to Meta Horizon OS and opening it as much as third-party headset makers, together with ASUS and Lenovo.
When Quest Professional is off the market, Meta will not be promoting any headsets with eye monitoring or face monitoring. It is doable one in every of its Horizon OS companions, resembling ASUS or Lenovo, will launch a headset with these options a while subsequent yr.