David Bridges
The first $1,000 Meta Quest Professional was rapidly supplanted by the Meta Quest 3, a tool that price half the value. A brand new report—now successfully confirmed by Meta execs—claims Meta is not contemplating a brand new, costly headset to be worthwhile. In any case, CEO Mark Zuckerberg already claimed the $500 Quest 3 is higher than the $3,500 Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional in each means that issues. Why hassle with a competing, costly headset?
Meta has reportedly been creating a number of new AR/VR merchandise, together with a pair of true altered actuality glasses (and so has Apple). A kind of tasks was a Professional-level headset codenamed La Jolla. On Friday, The Info reported, primarily based on nameless sources, that Meta determined to axe the headset initially slated for 2027. The report mentions that Meta Quest 4 remains to be in improvement, with a deliberate launch in 2026.
That headset was going to be very very like Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional. It was imagined to have micro-OLED shows. Meta reportedly wished to craft a headset as succesful as Imaginative and prescient Professional and promote it for lower than $1,000. That’s a tall order for such high-quality shows, and the corporate couldn’t discover a method to match the prices, in line with The Info’s sources.
On Threads, Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth not directly confirmed The Info’s report: “We now have many prototypes in improvement always. However we don’t convey all of them to manufacturing. We transfer ahead with some; we move on others… tales primarily based on chatter about one particular person resolution won’t ever give the actual image.”
Meta has been attempting to juggle the price of AR improvement with its plans to dominate the {industry}. Whereas we’re not listening to the phrase “metaverse” practically as a lot as we as soon as did, the corporate’s VR-focused Actuality Labs division continues to burn by billions of {dollars}. In its final quarterly earnings report, Meta reported Actuality Labs misplaced $4.5 billion in its second quarter alone.
In accordance with a earlier report from The Info, Zuck’s beginning to rely the bucks his firm spends on AR. At this level, the corporate has a two-pronged technique for VR. Now that different corporations are making headsets primarily based on Meta’s personal RealityOS, it could actually turn out to be the sugar daddy of AR software program whereas nonetheless pumping out the most-capable digital actuality {hardware}.
Simply final week, Meta added the power to make use of an HDMI hyperlink to reflect any PC, cellphone, or different suitable gadget at 1080p. The corporate’s newest updates have vastly improved the hand monitoring efficiency, and it’s edging near the Imaginative and prescient Professional’s industry-leading monitoring.
In the meantime, Imaginative and prescient Professional gross sales have stalled within the U.S. simply as Apple is stepping into the European and Asian markets. A giant issue for that’s worth, and Meta might be Apple, questioning whether or not the general public is able to purchase a VR headset that prices greater than $3,500 and even $1,000. Apple’s going to attempt that with a rumored cheaper Imaginative and prescient headset that can doubtless be much less flashy than the Imaginative and prescient Professional.
As a substitute of spending much more cash on a costlier Quest, Meta is healthier off bettering the capabilities of its cheaper headsets. That doubtless received’t cease the cash drain, but when it may be the one to lastly crack AR glasses, maybe it could actually get the broader public to care.
