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

Meta is wanting down the street 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 in response to Mark Gurman in at present’s Energy On e-newsletter for Bloomberg, who writes that the corporate’s Quest headset advertising and marketing 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 fee down subsequent yr.

Gurman says an individual inside Meta informed him the corporate is “within the ‘afraid of Apple’ stage,” evaluating it to the cell phone trade 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 can argue that Apple’s headset is extra down-to-Earth than immersive digital worlds, even when its value may 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 % the price of a Imaginative and prescient Professional — and extra snug with out sacrificing display screen decision. And apparently, in response to Gurman, Meta can be taking a look at removing controller bundling to assist with that, letting clients both simply use hand gestures or purchase controllers individually.

Apple and Meta are in the end after totally different markets, however in the mean time, the present VR headset market is just about simply “individuals who need VR headsets” — you realize, early adopters. Meta is making an attempt to determine how issues will shake out when the market truly 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.