Meta’s planning a less expensive Quest 3 follow-up that ships with out controllers

Meta is trying down the highway at a follow-up to the Quest 3, which is releasing this week, and plans to take cues from Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional whereas it races to mainstream its VR tech. That’s based on Mark Gurman in in the present day’s Energy On e-newsletter for Bloomberg, who writes that the corporate’s Quest headset advertising plans have modified in response to Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional announcement earlier this yr. A part of the plan is to launch a VR headset with out controllers to get the associated fee down subsequent yr.

Gurman says an individual inside Meta advised him the corporate is “within the ‘afraid of Apple’ stage,” evaluating it to the cell phone business simply earlier than the iPhone’s launch. He writes that the corporate’s shift away from a heavy concentrate on the metaverse and extra to pushing the sensible makes use of of the headset — gaming and productiveness — is a direct response to Apple’s pitch for the Imaginative and prescient Professional. You possibly can argue that Apple’s headset is extra down-to-Earth than immersive digital worlds, even when its worth could be very a lot not.

Meta’s roadmap has concerned making its subsequent headset, codenamed Ventura, even cheaper — The Quest 3 is already lower than 15 p.c the price of a Imaginative and prescient Professional — and extra snug with out sacrificing display screen decision. And apparently, based on Gurman, Meta can be disposing of controller bundling to assist with that, letting clients both simply use hand gestures or purchase controllers individually.

Apple and Meta are finally after totally different markets, however in the mean time, the present VR headset market is just about simply “individuals who need VR headsets” — you understand, early adopters. Meta is making an attempt to determine how issues will shake out when the market really grows, and to plant a foot in it, the corporate wants a distinct product, or it dangers the Quest going the way in which of function telephones.