Meta might ship the cheaper Quest planned for next year without controllers.
Earlier this year, Meta's internal roadmap leaked to The Verge revealed the company planned to release a new headset in 2024 "at the most attractive price point in the VR consumer market."
Today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that sources within Meta tell him this headset will support mixed reality and "looks a lot like the Quest 3 but uses less costly components."
Meta is hoping to reach the $300 price point of Quest 2, and is "considering" shipping the headset without controllers, Gurman writes. Meta has significantly improved controller-free hand tracking with software updates over the years, and has released tools and demos to help developers support it in controller-based games.
Meta's VP of VR Mark Rabkin told UploadVR at the company's recent Connect conference he's working to make controllers "optional for as many of the experiences as possible" while also making them totally optional at the system level.
"I want people to feel like they're getting an incredible value in a complete system. I don't want people to feel like: 'I'm getting a device [and] now Meta is making me buy a controller to do all the fun stuff," Rabkin said. "I want people to feel like we gave them the right package. But over time, I see the proportion of hands experiences growing and growing."
Quest 3 is launching on Tuesday, but the $500 starting price is a lot higher than Quest 2, hence why Meta is continuing to sell the latter. In contrast, Meta (then Facebook) retired Quest 1 upon Quest 2's launch.
Looking a lot like Quest 3 suggests the budget headset could have a similar sensor suite to Quest 3 and also use pancake lenses. Given this, Meta could likely make most of the cost savings by using a single LCD panel like Quest 2 instead of dual panels like Quest 3. It could also have Quest 2's cheaper lens separation adjustment design that has you move the lenses directly by hand, or perhaps even fixed lenses like Oculus Go. Pancake lenses are much more forgiving of misalignment to your eyes – Meta claims Quest 3's lenses support a whopping +/- 5mm.
Meta plans to continue to sell Quest 3 as a higher end option, Gurman reports, and will presumably retire Quest 2.
Neither the roadmap nor Gurman have revealed the new headset's name. Meta also frequently changes its product plans – dropping features like a depth sensor from Quest Pro mere months before release – so it's worth remembering that Meta's final plans could always change.
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