Facebook's parent company Meta has unveiled its new VR headset Quest 3. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the glasses would go on sale in the fall at a starting price of $499 (around €467). The successor to the VR glasses Quest 2 is a "breakthrough" and the "best way to experience mixed and virtual reality" with a headset.
Zuckerberg specifically emphasized that the headset will be good at bringing together digital objects and real environments in the user's field of vision. With the "mixed reality" functions of the Quest 3, Meta holds out the prospect of using a virtual board game at the kitchen table or decorating the living room with digital art. The real environment is recorded by cameras and shown to the users on the displays in the glasses together with additional digital elements.
According to the company's founder, the VR glasses are 40 percent thinner and more comfortable than the previous model and have a better image resolution. Zuckerberg wants to give more details at the Meta Connect developer conference on September 27. The price of the currently available Quest 2 VR glasses is expected to drop to $300.
Meanwhile, iPhone maker Apple is expected to give a glimpse of its newly developed VR glasses on Monday. Apple could try to encourage developers to deliver more content with a presentation at its Worldwide Developers Conference. According to media reports, the price of the device could reach 3,000 US dollars (around 2,800 euros). Zuckerberg announced a price of around $3 for the Quest 500.
Many rumors about Apple
There have been many rumors about Apple's VR glasses for some time. "By all accounts, Apple was hoping to launch a product that felt more like designer glasses than a gamer's headset, but it's bringing out something much bulkier," wrote analyst Yory Wurmser of Insider Intelligence.
Facebook group Meta has been in the business for almost a decade. Initially, Zuckerberg relied on virtual reality (VR), in which users are completely immersed in digital worlds. In 2014, he bought the VR glasses pioneer Oculus. Zuckerberg also stated the goal of establishing a virtual world - the "metaverse" - as a future computing platform.
The change of the company name from Facebook to Meta also has to do with this. However, the activities have so far remained a niche business - but a very costly one. In the past quarter alone, the Reality Labs division responsible for this posted an operating loss of four billion dollars.