Meta says VR Glasses are a unique product for a unique market. Quest isn’t useless, but it surely has been relegated, as the corporate has pulled again from video games, shut down plenty of studios, and is ostensibly constructing on its subsequent chapter round one thing else.
VR Glasses
Meta VR Glasses are a compute-puck-tethered blended actuality headset that’s occurring sale someday in Spring 2027, priced at $1,300.
They use the identical working system as Quest, which implies the identical video games as Quest 3. Though it’s a hand-tracking-first system, it might pair with Contact Plus movement controllers to play the complete again catalogue of Quest titles. Try our hands-on for the complete particulars.
VR Glasses aren’t actually a simple Quest alternative although, as they’re considerably dearer, much less immersive because of a decrease field-of-view, and are being positioned round productiveness, communication, and informal media consumption relatively than gaming.
When requested why VR Glasses aren’t a Quest Air, Quest 4, or Quest Professional 2, Meta’s Vice President of VR Ryan Cairns defined VR Glasses are part of the corporate’s glasses continuum.
“The factor we wished to sign with the product is: it’s a unique product for a unique market. It reads like glasses, so we wished to have it within the spectrum of glasses that go from audio to full immersive VR Glasses.”
To their credit score, VR Glasses are glossy and light-weight, and are mainly what Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional ought to have been within the first place. They’re additionally taking a few of the greatest bits from Quest, repackaging them as new, and promoting them to a brand new viewers. However they aren’t Quest, at the least not in keeping with Meta.
A Stepping Stone to AR
Anybody who’s adopted Meta/Fb can attest to how erratic its VR technique has been through the years. So, even with the brand new, extra grownup model of its VR ambitions on show with VR Glasses, it’s troublesome to say precisely what the corporate’s product technique is true now.
What is for certain, although: Meta has proven it might simply solid away years of name recognition in service of The Greater Image
, and drastically redefine its {hardware} ambitions.
In 2021, the corporate retired the Oculus identify, which as much as that time included Oculus Rift DK1, Oculus Rift DK2, Oculus Rift (oft known as CV1), Oculus Go, Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift S, and Oculus Quest 2—making Oculus practically synonymous with VR. It even modified the identify of its most profitable VR headset thus far mid-generation, retroactively making use of the Meta identify to Quest 2 that yr.
We could also be seeing one other rebrand, if a quieter one. Nevertheless it appears extra like a broad wager on augmented actuality.
VR Glasses are mild and hand-tracking-first, and so they even have a extra restricted field-of-view, making them a pure bridge to the AR glasses Meta is clearly working towards, and extra related in operate to Orion AR glasses prototype unveiled alongside Quest 3S in 2024.
The VR Pullback
Let’s rewind a bit. It began earlier this yr when Meta shut down three of its most-important inside VR studios: Armature Studio (Resident Evil 4 VR), Twisted Pixel (Deadpool VR), and Sanzaru Video games (Asgard’s Wrath), all of which have been actively creating premium VR content material.
In the meantime, Meta additionally pulled funding from plenty of associate studios, which allegedly led to the cancellation of a Harry Potter Quest recreation from Skydance Video games, VR veteran Cloudhead Video games, and a “main mission” from Moss developer Polyarc. The cancellation left Polyarc in dangerous sufficient form that the studio was pressured to close down final month.
It’s pretty clear the corporate was reacting to an underperforming video games market and reining in a multi-million-dollar spending spree on content material for a platform that also wasn’t turning a revenue after seven years of Quest headsets.
Shortly after Meta introduced Actuality Labs was pivoting to wearables and AI, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth acknowledged the shift, saying the “gravy practice has come to a cease.”
It’s an correct, if indelicate, manner of describing the state of affairs. Tens of millions of {dollars} put towards content material was turned off like a spigot, however the fallout went past the person video games shelved mid-development.
Laborious-won experience, which Meta labored to draw and form through the years, needed to look elsewhere. Schell Video games, the studio behind the VR hits Till You Fall, Amongst Us VR, and the I Count on You to Die trilogy, has been one of the vital ardent opponents in opposition to layoffs. Solely now has the studio performed its first layoff in its 24 years of existence.
“There was a time when headset-based VR was 80% of our work, however in the intervening time it’s extra like 30%,” mentioned Schell Video games CEO Jesse Schell. “We’re doing an increasing number of work that’s VR-adjacent, akin to initiatives involving interactive projection for location-based leisure, which we expect is a rising development.”
Mighty Coconut, developer of hit {golfing} recreation Walkabout Mini Golf, has been by its second spherical of layoffs.
“As a result of present state of the video games business and particularly VR, Mighty Coconut might want to downsize, and over the following a number of months we might be saying goodbye to 10 gifted individuals who have helped make Walkabout what it’s,” CEO Lucas Martell mentioned final week.
Closing studios, upending a highly-specialized developer ecosystem, and cancelling multi-year initiatives isn’t typically one thing you do when you plan to launch one other console-class headset anytime quickly.
Metaverse Misplaced
The pullback goes past VR video games too. Meta has since shuttered Horizon Workrooms and disentangled Horizon Worlds from Quest solely, making it a purely non-VR social platform.
And it doesn’t appear to be a short lived correction to Meta’s video games finances both; extra like a broader redefinition of what Quest, or relatively VR Glasses, is meant to be, because the metaverse merely isn’t firm’s religious anchor anymore.
With VR Glasses for grownups coming subsequent yr, Meta can be planning to launch VR avatars for grownups too, which really feel extra like a sober Zoom conferences than a magical metaverse full of individuals and issues to do. It’s a decidedly Apple-like transfer, and I think it’s geared toward beating the Cupertino Fruit Firm at its personal recreation.
No Assurances of Quest 4 at Join
Bosworth is a polarizing determine, however can be one of many extra open home windows into Actuality Labs. He usually hosts Q&A periods on Instagram and runs the ‘Boz to the Future’ podcast. Few different Meta execs communicate as usually and as candidly about Meta’s XR course.
Earlier this yr, he mentioned Meta had two VR headsets deliberate, and later famous in July that the corporate had “a number of” next-gen VR headsets within the works. One change into VR Glasses, beforehand codenamed Venture Phoenix. However what concerning the others?
Meta is consistently spinning up (and down) XR prototypes, so virtually something could be defined away. However on the subject of precise merchandise, the corporate appears solely discuss one system technology at a time.
It’s comprehensible why they wouldn’t discuss Quest on the unveiling of VR Glasses. Even so, VR followers in search of a flagship gaming system must wait longer than ever. Quest 3 is now three years outdated, which was the identical age Quest 2 was earlier than it got here alongside and changed it.
When requested whether or not there might be a future Quest headset particularly centered on gaming, a Meta spokesperson mentioned this to Highway to VR:
“We’re persevering with to discover a sturdy roadmap of VR gadgets tailor-made to totally different viewers segments because the market grows and matures.”
Notably, that doesn’t promise a gaming-focused VR headset.
However Possibly…
None of this implies Quest is useless. And I wouldn’t anticipate Meta to announce it both if it have been the case. It’s in all probability extra nuanced.
It’s fairly clear Meta is not positioning Quest to be the way forward for the whole lot. It may well simply stay a comparatively reasonably priced gaming platform, with a big sufficient set up base and a longtime ecosystem for it to proceed to make sense to Meta to maintain the lights on and dole out nominal developer assist for third-party builders.
So possibly Quest isn’t doomed. Possibly its stays commercially viable sufficient to outlive even regardless of being strategically relegated inside Meta, which is undoubtedly taking a look at VR Glasses to assist bridge the hole to its AR glasses. These will seemingly be much less gaming-focused, with a smaller field-of-view, and be all about agentic AI. Identical to VR Glasses.
That mentioned, VR Glasses’ success shouldn’t be solely assured. How nicely it does subsequent yr might decide whether or not Meta continues its gaming-focused Quest line, or coasts till Quest 3 and 3S shares runs out. I actually hope it isn’t the latter.
The put up What Meta VR Glasses Imply for the Way forward for Quest appeared first on Highway to VR.