Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg teased His company’s newest virtual reality headset, the Quest 3, on Thursday.
Zuckerberg said in an Instagram video that the new speaker will start at $499. The post noted that it will be the first headset to be announced with “high-resolution color mixed reality.” Quest 3 is 40% thinner than its predecessor, Quest 2.
It appears to have at least three cameras on the front which may improve some traffic experiences, as the user can see the real world around them while wearing a headset and interact with apps. The video noted that it had improved the wearer’s “natural” depth perception, and also noted graphics improvements for the games.
“High-accuracy color traversal and innovative machine learning and spatial understanding allow you to interact with virtual content and the physical world simultaneously, creating limitless possibilities for exploration,” Meta he said in a statement.
The publication said that the Quest 3 will ship with the next generation of Qualcomm chipsets. Mita said it would provide more details on Sept. 27 during the CONNECT conference.
The Meta Quest 2 headset was released in the fall of 2020 with a starting price of $299.
Apple is expected to launch its competing virtual reality glasses next week as part of its June WWDC event. The iPhone maker’s consumer headset, which could also incorporate augmented reality technologies, will reportedly work with hundreds of thousands of iPad apps and cost at least $3,000.
meta first announce It will launch Quest 3 this year as part of the company’s earnings for the third quarter of 2022 when it said the company’s cost of revenue will grow in part because “Reality Labs’ hardware costs are driven by the launch of our next generation of Quest headset customers later next year.”
Meta continues to spend heavily in the metaverse, the yet-to-be-developed digital world that requires virtual reality and augmented reality technologies to access it.
The company’s Reality Labs unit, which develops virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, reported an operating loss of $3.99 billion in the company’s first quarter while generating $339 million in revenue.
In July 2022, Meta raised the price of the entry-level Quest 2 from $299 to $399, citing the device’s high manufacturing and shipping costs. On Thursday, it said it would drop the price of this headset again, to $299, starting June 4th.
Last October, Meta launched its Quest Pro VR glasses that are meant for businesses rather than consumers. Although the Quest Pro initially sold for $1,499.99, Meta dropped the price of the device to $999.99 in March while also lowering the price of a more expensive version of the Quest 2 headset with added storage from $499.99 to $429.99.
Research group NPD Group told CNBC last December that sales of VR headsets in the United States fell 2% in 2022 from a year earlier to $1.1 billion, indicating that immersive technology is still far from being a mainstream electronic hit in the field. consumer electronics.
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