In a surprise announcement, Meta officially revealed the first details for its Meta Quest 3 VR headset. This move is clearly designed to take some of the attention away from Apple"s expected announcement of its own mixed reality headset that could come on June 5 at WWDC 2023.
In a blog post, we got some early info on what we can expect from the Meta Quest 3:
Quest 3 combines our highest resolution display yet and pancake optics to make sure content looks better than ever. To power those extra pixels, this will be the first headset to feature a next-generation Snapdragon chipset developed in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies. That next-gen Snapdragon chipset delivers more than twice the graphical performance as the previous generation Snapdragon GPU in Quest 2—meaning you’ll get smoother performance and incredibly crisp details in immersive games.
Meta claims that the Quest 3 headset has a 40% slimmer optic profile compared to the Quest 2. The headset"s hand controllers will also ditch the outer tracking rings which gives them a "more streamlined and ergonomic form factor". The headset itself will have two 4MP RGB color cameras and a depth sensor. All the games that support the Quest 2 will be supported with the Quest 3.
The Meta Quest 3 will launch this fall at a price of $499.99 for the 128GB model. The current Quest 2 headset is getting a price cut to $299.99 for the 128GB version and $349.99 starting on June 4. In addition, both the Quest 2 and the more expensive Quest Pro is getting a big software upgrade soon:
Quest 2 and Pro will see an up-to 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19% GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro.
Meta will be holding its Quest Gaming Showcase later today starting at 10 am Pacific time (1 pm Eastern time). It will showcase a number of VR games, including one made especially for the Quest 3.