In response to Meta’s current quarterly earnings report, Quest headset gross sales are declining, nonetheless AI glasses are rising quick sufficient to partially offset a stoop in Actuality Labs income. And shifting ahead, the corporate says solely the “main” VR breakthroughs will warrant productization.
The Information
“Inside our Actuality Labs section, Q3 income was $443 million, down 6% attributable to decrease Quest headset gross sales, which had been partially offset by continued robust development in AI glasses income,” Meta CFO Susan Li mentioned throughout the firm’s Q3 2026 earnings name final week.
Whereas solely a snapshot, the figures supply perception into Meta’s shifting {hardware} priorities. When the corporate introduced it was successfully pivoting Actuality Labs to focus extra on wearables and AI, making its shopper VR {hardware} and metaverse ambitions much less of a precedence, it was clear occasions had been altering for the corporate—and the VR trade at massive.
That shift can also be set to impact future VR {hardware}, with Meta ostensibly stepping again from common generational upgrades.
“We’re altering our method to digital actuality to solely ship new units when now we have main breakthroughs like we had with the Meta VR Glasses this yr,” Zuckerberg mentioned, echoing statements made at Meta’s Join developer convention in September, which proved to be dominated by the corporate’s developments in AI.
However Zuckerberg hasn’t given up on VR. He nonetheless believes in its long-term potential, though the AI race has taken priority.
“I proceed to imagine that the trail to delivering the holographic expertise of bringing collectively the bodily and digital worlds in on a regular basis glasses will come by way of VR first, however we are going to tempo this facet of our funding extra to concentrate on delivering private superintelligence first,” Zuckerberg continued.
Now, with Meta VR Glasses attributable to launch in Spring 2027, which is ready to attraction to prosumers and professionals at $1,300, the corporate’s subsequent guess in VR {hardware} is wanting distinctly extra like a stepping stone to augmented actuality.
My Take
What’s much less clear is the place the corporate’s game-focused Quest platform suits in all of this, as Meta is now successfully holding off on iterative VR {hardware} releases because it targets a special viewers with Meta VR Glasses.
Hypothetically talking although, the corporate may supply up huge reductions on Quest 3 & 3S across the vacation season in an try and make up for slower than typical VR {hardware} gross sales all year long.
Nonetheless, I wouldn’t guess on a brief bump in {hardware} income to alter Meta’s thoughts on shopper VR although, because it’s successfully pulled a majority of funds devoted to large, costly VR content material earlier this yr with no obvious plans to renew—usually not one thing you do if you happen to’re betting on the long-term well being of a VR console platform.
Try our current article on What Meta VR Glasses Imply for the Way forward for Quest to study extra.
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