Mark Zuckerberg may be teasing a Quest 3 reveal for tomorrow.
Zuckerberg posted an Instagram story of himself looking down at something he’s holding, captioned ‘Sharing what we’ve been working on’ with a countdown ending at 7am PT.
Behind him is what appears to be a casted view from a headset with color passthrough pointing downwards, with his jumper, shoes, and the floor visible. Back in February he effectively confirmed Quest 3 would have color passthrough, unlike Quest 2 which has black & white passthrough.
On his Instagram broadcast channel, he wrote “Excited to share something we’ve been working on tomorrow. 👀”
In March an internal product roadmap presentation was leaked to The Verge, wherein Meta’s VP of VR Mark Rabkin reportedly told staff Quest 3 will be half as thick and “at least” twice as powerful as Quest 2 – but cost “a bit more.”
Zuckerberg said in an interview in October Quest 3 will be priced “in the price range of $300, $400, or $500”, suggesting $500 as the likely entry price.
Rabkin also reportedly said Quest 3 will have a “Smart Guardian,” a heavy focus on room-aware mixed reality, and 41 new apps and games.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said he tried out a Quest 3 prototype recently. He reported it felt “far lighter and thinner” than Quest 2 and praised the “speedier performance” of its next generation chipset, claiming that navigating the interface, launching apps and playing games “felt much improved.”
Gurman was most impressed with the quality of the passthrough mixed reality of Quest 3, saying it “offered an almost lifelike rendering of the real world” and that he was even able to use his phone while wearing the headset – almost impossible with Quest Pro’s grainy passthrough.
While the leaked schematics suggest Quest 3 will use the new clearer lenses introduced in Quest Pro, Gurman simply said the clarity of Quest 3’s display felt “similar” to Quest 2. He also speculated that the new controllers, which lack either IR LEDs or cameras, may introduce some tracking regressions.
Harry Baker
Comments made by Meta’s CTO in March suggest Quest 2 will continue to be sold alongside Quest 3, perhaps until the more affordable 2024 headset also mentioned in the roadmap arrives.
In October last year, Meta’s CFO said the “next generation consumer Quest” will launch “later next year”, and in February Mark Zuckerberg reiterated this timeline. Quest 2 and Quest Pro were both launched at Connect, Meta’s yearly XR conference usually held in October. That suggests we’re in for a tease or reveal tomorrow, rather than a full launch.
Meta may be looking to get ahead of Apple, which will reportedly reveal its own ultra-high-end headset at its WWDC 23 keynote on Monday. Believed to be branded Reality Pro, Apple’s headset will reportedly land at around $3000, featuring a much higher resolution, a MacBook-tier chipset, a custom xrOS operating system and an even thinner and lighter design.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Zuckerberg’s Instagram story was counting down to the Quest Gaming Showcase, instead of 7am PT.
