It’s not all bad news for Meta and steadfast early metaverse adopters. Despite the yellow brick road to metaverse riches increasingly looking like the Meta’s rocky road to ruin their relentless investment in all things VR will bear brand new (hopefully more affordable) fruit in a TBC-2023 time frame.
Yes there will (perhaps unsurprisingly) be a sequel to the popular one-time-bargain-priced Meta Quest 2 VR headset. And – uncontroversially – all the smart money is calling it ‘Quest 3’…
Sure the annoucement was a biproduct of the self-same earnings call that revealed another $3 billion quarterly loss from everyone favourite fallen social-media-giant-turned-fantasy-kingdom-peddlers (blame that so-called ‘metaverse’) but – for this one story at least – we’re staying pro Meta and VR positive.
CFO David Wehner stated that some of the company’s continued costs can be elaborated through Meta’s non-stop investment in new hardware development. And if a new improved Quest 3 (returning hopefully to its fairly irresistable $299/£299 price point) is the result then we’re going to give them a break.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the earnings call, “There’s still a long road ahead to build the next computing platform. But we’re clearly doing leading work here. This is a massive undertaking and it’s often gonna take a few versions of each product before they become mainstream. But I think that our work here is going to be of historic importance and create the foundation for an entirely new way that we will interact with each other and blend technology into our lives, as well as the foundation for the long term of our business.”
The new little brother for the new big brother
The company showcased the Quest Pro a couple of weeks back which costs $1,499 and comes packed with enterprise features such as eye-tracking and increased AR skills that make it more suitable for professional work. Meanwhile Meta’s Quest 2 headset continues to fight the good fight for fun, and remains on sale at a recently hiked $399 for the 128GB version and $499 for the 256.
As for hard fact, the Meta team had little to offer, the news being the sweetener on an earnings report that the markets are still struggling to swallow. So little is known other than it will launch in 2023 with more information due before the year’s end.
Daniel Griffiths is a veteran journalist who has worked on some of the world's biggest entertainment, home and tech media brands. He's reviewed all the greats, interviewed countless big names, and reported on thousands of releases in the fields of video games, music, movies, tech, gadgets, home improvement, self build, interiors, garden design and more. He’s the ex-Editor of PSM3, GamesMaster, Future Music and ex-Group Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Musician, Guitarist, Guitar World, Computer Music and more. He renovates property and writes fun things for great websites.
