Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new virtual reality headset, the Quest 3, on Thursday.
Zuckerberg said in a video clip on the “Instagram” platform, that the price of the new headset is $ 499, as it will be the first headset with “high-resolution mixed reality.”
Quest 3 is 40% smaller than Quest 2.
The Quest 3 is slated to have at least three front-facing cameras that may improve some experiences, as the user can see the real world around them while wearing the headset and interact with apps. The video indicated that it improved the wearer’s “natural” perception, and noted improvements in the games’ graphics.
“(The headset) allows colors to pass with high-resolution technology, innovative machine learning, and ‘spatial’ understanding to interact with virtual content and the real world simultaneously, creating unlimited possibilities for exploration,” Meta said in one of the releases.
The publication said that the Quest 3 will feature a new chipset from Qualcomm. Mita said it would provide more details on September 27 during the Connect conference.
The Quest 2 headset was unveiled in the fall of 2020, with a starting price of $299.
Apple is expected to release a virtual reality headset to rival the Meta next week as part of its June WWDC event. The Apple headset, which may also include augmented reality technologies, will work with hundreds of thousands of iPad apps and cost at least $3,000.
Meta first revealed the Quest 3 this year when it announced its earnings for the third quarter of 2022, saying at the time that the company’s cost would rise in part due to “Reality Labs’ hardware costs driven by the launch of a new generation of Quest headsets for consumers later next year.” “.
Meta continues to spend heavily in the metaverse, the undeveloped digital world that requires virtual reality and augmented reality technologies to access it.
The company’s Reality Labs unit, which develops virtual and augmented reality technologies, posted an operating loss of $3.99 billion in the company’s first quarter while generating $339 million in revenue.
In July 2022, Meta increased the price of the entry-level Quest 2 from $299 to $399, citing high manufacturing and shipping costs for the device. And she said, today, Thursday, that she will reduce the price of this headset again to $ 299, starting from June 4.
Last October, Meta launched its Quest Pro VR headset for businesses rather than consumers. Although the Quest Pro initially sold for $1,499.99, the company dropped the price of the headset to $999.99 in March while also lowering the price of the Quest 2 version, with added storage, from $499.99 to $429.99.
