Are We About to See a Quest 3 Reveal
The third installment of Meta Quest Gaming Showcase is starting in the next few hours and going by a Zuckerberg post, the company’s third-generation standalone consumer headset, the Meta Quest 3, will likely be unveiled.
Yesterday, Zuckerberg likely teased a possible reveal of the headset later today.
In an Instagram story, Zuckerberg posted himself looking down at something that he was holding. The image is captioned ‘Sharing what we’ve been working on’. The post was accompanied by an image of a countdown that ends at 7 am PT.
Behind Zuckerberg, one can make out a casted view from a headset that features an upward-pointing color passthrough. You can also make out his shoes, jumper, and the floor in the image. In February this year, Zuckerberg confirmed that the Quest 3 headset would have a color passthrough. This is a vast improvement over Quest 2’s black-and-white passthrough.
Zuckerberg also wrote the words “Excited to share something we’ve been working on tomorrow” on his Instagram broadcast channel.
A Meta internal product roadmap presentation in March this year was leaked to The Verge. In the presentation, the company’s VP of VR Mark Rabkin told staff that the Quest 3 headset will be twice as powerful and half as thick as the current Quest 2 headset and that it will cost “a bit more.”
In an October interview, Zuckerberg also revealed that the headset would cost in the “price range of $300, $400, or $500”, so the headset is likely to have an entry price of $500.
According to Rabkin, the headset is likely to feature a “Smart Guardian” that will heavily focus on room-aware mixed reality, along with 41 new apps and games.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman tried out the headset prototype recently and wrote that it felt “far lighter and thinner” than the Quest 2 headset. He also reported it had “speedier performance” thanks to its next-generation chip and that there was a notable improvement in functions such as navigating the interface, playing games, or launching apps.
In his article, Gurman praised the quality of the passthrough mixed reality in the Quest 3 headset and said that it “offered an almost lifelike rendering of the real world”, adding that he was even able to use his phone with the headset on. This is impossible with the higher-priced Quest Pro headset which has a grainy passthrough.
Earlier leaked schematics of the Quest 3 headset suggested it would feature newer and clearer lenses that debuted in the Quest Pro headset. According to Gurman, the clarity of the display in the Quest headset is “similar” to those in the Quest 2 headset. He also speculates that there might be some tracking transgressions in the new controllers which do not have IR LEDs or cameras.
In March, Meta CTO suggested that the Quest 2 headset will not be phased out anytime soon and that it will continue to sell alongside the Quest 3 headset. It is likely to be around until Meta launches an affordable headset in 2024 which was also mentioned in the Meta roadmap recently.
Meta’s CFO revealed in late 2022 that the company’s “next generation consumer Quest” will be launching “later next year.” In February this year, Zuckerberg confirmed the same timeline.
Meta launched both the Quest and Quest Pro headsets at its annual Connect conference which usually takes place in October. So the Quest 3 will likely be teased today and we are unlikely to see a full launch.
https://virtualrealitytimes.com/2023/06/01/are-we-about-to-see-a-quest-3-reveal/https://virtualrealitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Quest-3-Reveal-600x589.pnghttps://virtualrealitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Quest-3-Reveal-150x90.pngBusinessThe third installment of Meta Quest Gaming Showcase is starting in the next few hours and going by a Zuckerberg post, the company’s third-generation standalone consumer headset, the Meta Quest 3, will likely be unveiled. Yesterday, Zuckerberg likely teased a possible reveal of the headset later today. In an Instagram story,...Rob GrantRob Grant[email protected]AuthorVirtual Reality Times - Metaverse & VR