Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, just announced its latest virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) headset, ‘Quest 3,’ is dropping later this year.
The 128GB “next-generation” VR and MR headset features higher resolution, Meta Reality technology, and a slimmer, more comfortable design. It will be available sometime this fall in all countries where Meta’s Quest is currently sold, starting at $499.99 USD.
The wireless headset features a Snapdragon chipset developed with Qualcomm Technologies that delivers more than twice the graphical performance as Meta’s Quest 2 — making the graphics smoother than ever before.
The Quest 3 also comes with several new technologies that enhance performance. Its Touch Plus controllers are made to feel like natural extensions of your hands, and TruTouch haptics enables real action to be felt like never before. Hand tracking is also available so that users can explore VR worlds without controllers.
Perhaps most notably, Meta Reality technology seamlessly blends the physical world with a virtual one. Through innovative machine learning and spatial understanding, users can interact with VR content and the physical world simultaneously. Some examples Meta used in its press release included playing a virtual game on your kitchen table, or adorning “your living room with VR art using its Painting VR application.”
Meta said Quest 3’s price point makes it the first mass-market offering that delivers VR and MR experiences in one device. Currently, the device is compatible with over 500 VR games, apps, and experiences. Meta also announced that the price of the Quest 2 is being lowered to $299.99 USD.
Meta Isn’t The Only Company Working on Metaverse Headsets
The release of the Quest 3 headset from Meta could be huge for the metaverse space. While metaverse software development has continued to evolve, even through the bear market, hardware has lagged behind. That said, Meta isn’t the only company that’s developing a metaverse headset. Here are two other stories about brands creating VR headsets for the metaverse.
First, about five months ago, the Taiwanese tech firm HTC showcased a VR and AI headset at the Consumer Electronics Show 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The ‘HTC Vive XR Elite’ is a mixed reality headset billed as a “gateway” to the metaverse. It has a current price of $1,099.
Next, according to a Bloomberg report last year, Apple is working on a metaverse headset. The report said Apple has been testing a mixed reality wireless headset that could have a system of cameras on the outside to provide high-def AR experiences. Though Apple has been slow to fully embrace Web3, in 2022, CEO Tim Cook said Apple was interested in improving its AR offerings.
Competition is healthy for any marketplace, especially when it comes to developing AR and VR headsets — an important part of the metaverse. Most of us will have to wait until the fall to try out Meta’s Quest 3. But if the product is a success, it could do big things for the metaverse and Web3.
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