Meta Quest 3 unveiled; Costs $499 and offers full-color reproduction
Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled the Meta Quest 3, his long-rumored next-generation virtual reality headset. Meta’s CEO first introduced the device just hours before the recent Meta Quest Games Showcase and right before Apple’s WWDC.
Like the Quest Pro, the Quest 3 supports mixed reality and offers full color passthrough. This allows users to see a colored version of the physical space around them through external cameras. The headset is able to connect elements of augmented reality with the outside world. Zuckerberg says it’s “the first high-resolution mixed-color headset.”
Zuckerberg claims the device features a “next-generation” Qualcomm chipset and offers twice the graphics performance of the Quest 2. It’s said to be “Meta’s most powerful headset to date.” Despite the added oomph, the Quest 3 is more comfortable and 40 percent thinner than its predecessor, Meta’s CEO noted.
Meta has redesigned Quest 3’s controls. They say they’re more streamlined and comfortable, and include the TruTouch haptic feedback technology seen on Touch Pro controllers. The new Touch Plus controllers no longer have external track rings. Mita says this helps them feel like a natural extension and takes up less space. In addition, Quest 3 supports hand tracking by jumping.
The headset starts at $500 for 128GB of storage and will be available this fall in all countries where the Quest 2 is available. That’s half the price of the Quest Pro and the same price as the PlayStation VR2 (which users need to pair with the PS5).
Meanwhile, the Quest 2 will cost $300 again for the base 128GB version starting June 4. The 256GB model costs $350. Meta raised the price of the headphones by $100 last year, blaming increased manufacturing costs. Zuckerberg said in March that the company dropped the price of the 256GB Quest 2 by $70 to $429 to “help more people get into the world of virtual reality.”
In addition, an upcoming software update will improve the performance of Quest 2 and Quest Pro. Meta says the processor per headset gets up to a 26 percent performance boost, with GPU boosts up to 19 percent on the Quest 2 and 11 percent on the Quest Pro. Dynamic resolution scaling is also implemented in both headphones. According to Meta, this will help them “take advantage of the increased pixel density without dropping frames.”
Quest 3 is fully compatible with every Quest 2 app and experience. The company will reveal more details at its Connect conference on September 27,
It’s no surprise that Meta Quest 3 is coming. Earlier this week, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said he had hands-on time with a Quest 3 model. Gurman wrote that the headset “feels much lighter and thinner” than the previous model, and that it has a sturdier head strap. Unlike the Quest Pro, the Quest 3 may not have face or eye tracking features.
For another year, Zuckerberg could wait for Connect to reveal the Quest 3. However, the meta may try to steal some of Apple’s thunder. The latter is expected to announce an excellent mixed reality headset at WWDC next week. As such, Meta may soon face another major competitor in mixed reality.
