Meta introduced in early 2024 it was planning to launch Horizon OS past Quest in an obvious bid to turn out to be the ‘open’ different to Apple’s staunchly monolithic Imaginative and prescient OS. Whereas this 12 months’s massive Join reveals are behind us—with no bulletins for brand new XR headsets to talk of—the corporate confirmed with Highway to VR that associate gadgets are nonetheless coming.
Meta introduced in April 2024 it was planning to open its working system to third-parties, initially tapping three major corporations to supply standalone combined actuality headsets operating Horizon OS: ASUS, Lenovo, and Microsoft’s Xbox.
Admittedly, the Xbox headsets doesn’t precisely rely. From the get-go, it was anticipated to be a branding deal solely, ensuing within the June 2025 launch of Quest 3S Xbox Version—primarily a black variant of Quest 3S with matching Elite Strap, Contact Plus controllers, and Xbox gamepad. Notably, Xbox Cloud Gaming is on the market on the whole lot from Quest 2 and up, bringing nothing substantively new to the desk.
Each Asus and Lenovo gadgets are anticipated to be materially totally different from Quest 3 although, with Asus seeking to leverage its Republic of Avid gamers model for a “efficiency headset” and Lenovo growing “combined actuality gadgets for productiveness, studying, and leisure,” Meta mentioned on the time.
Now, greater than a 12 months and a half since their announcement, these gadgets have but to materialize. And neither has the expanded listing of associate ODMs teased by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
At Join, a Meta spokesperson advised us that, regardless of the shortage of on-stage replace, the corporate continues to be actively working with companions to convey Horizon OS to extra gadgets.
Why The Lengthy(er) Wait?
Though the 2025 Vacation Season presents one other massive second for Meta to not solely onboard extra customers with its $300 Quest 3S for a second 12 months now, the corporate appears to be utilizing its launch of associate headsets to primarily bridge the hole between gadget generations. And that hole may very well be rising.
In June 2024, The Info reported Quest 4 was slated to reach someday in 2026, with a extra highly effective ‘Professional’ type headset set to reach in 2027. Up to date reviews from XR analyst Brad Lynch and knowledge miner ‘Luna’ (through Tom’s Information) from earlier this summer season nevertheless recommend that Quest 4 might have been delayed to 2027.
On the face of issues, the wait doesn’t appear uncharacteristically lengthy; Quest 2 was launched in 2020, Quest 3 was launched in 2023, and Quest 3S in 2024, leaving a three-year hole till the next-gen Quest.
Nonetheless, Quest 3S isn’t a brand new gadget era per se, because it packs in the identical chipset as Quest 3, permitting it to play the entire similar digital and combined actuality video games, however makes it cheaper by coopting Quest 2’s Fresnel lenses and single 1,832 × 1,920 per-eye decision LCD panel.
If these further reviews are true, by the point a Quest 4 arrives the present platform era might be 4 years outdated—not lengthy for a console lifecycle, however nonetheless the longest in standalone platform’s historical past.
And conserving customers engaged with new headsets that basically don’t rock the boat in how builders create video games for the platform may be how Meta bridges that hole within the close to time period. Regardless of the case, Asus and Lenovo doubtless don’t wish to compete with the next-gen Quest, making it a superb wager we’ll see them sooner relatively than later.
