It’s been two years since the release of the Meta Quest 2, and the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro hit store shelves earlier this week. The question now is, what comes next and when will it arrive? Fortunately, Meta has shed some light on when we can expect something new during its latest earnings call (via Engadget).
Dave Whener, chief financial officer at Meta (formerly Facebook) confirmed that “the next generation of the consumer Quest headset” will be arriving in late 2023. While the device wasn’t named, the fact Whener specified that this was a “consumer” headset suggests that he was talking about the Meta Quest 3.
Because while the Meta Quest Pro might be available for consumers to purchase and use, it’s built for enterprise users and developers as well. That’s why it’s such a big upgrade from the Quest 2, and why its price tag is almost four times larger.
Of course, this isn’t the first we’ve heard about the follow-up to the Meta Quest 2 — even from Meta itself. Earlier this month Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO and legless avatar enthusiast, suggested that the headset could cost between $300 and $500. Eye-tracking is also said to be “a big focus," meaning this could still be on heck of an upgrade — even if there isn’t Quest Pro-level performance.
Rumors also claim that it will be a mixed reality headset, rather than pure virtual reality, and may come packing the same slimmer “pancake lenses“ as the Quest Pro. Another rumor noted that the headset could come with a GPU with twice the power of the one in the Meta Quest 2.
Now these rumors originally suggested that the Meta Quest 3 could arrive this year, alongside the Meta Quest Pro. That obviously hasn't happened, so we can’t always trust what we see online. Likewise the pricing estimates may change, especially since Meta is willing to hike the price of the Meta Quest 2 mid-cycle.
It’s not clear when in 2023 the Meta Quest 3 might launch, or what additional features we should expect. That said, Meta has a habit of launching new hardware during its annual Connect event. That’s likely to happen sometime in the fall, and means the Meta Quest 3 could be available before the holiday of 2023.
Perhaps that means the Meta Quest 2 will get a discount around Black Friday 2023? It certainly needs one.
