It was written that 2023 would be a hectic year for virtual reality, at least on the hardware level. A few months after the debut of the PlayStation VR2, of which Sony Interactive Entertainment revealed that it had sold some 600,000 copies in the space of six weeks, Meta is back to the charge with a Quest 3, one of the main objectives of which will be to increase the loyalty of users who are too prone to put their headphones away in the closet quite quickly get over the surprise effect.
More than ever devoid of attachment, the Quest 3 always relies on comfort of use and is also 40% thinner than its predecessor. Function pastrough, which allows you to keep an eye on the real world while having the helmet screwed on your head, now offers color vision and good depth management, which opens the door to new experiences in augmented reality. The integration of virtual elements into the physical world is called here Meta Reality, to be more precise.
As it is necessary to justify a change of “generation”, especially so quickly, its Snapdragon graphics processor multiplies the performance by two compared to the Quest 2, for more fluid and visually clean games. For their part, the Touch Plus controllers are also getting a makeover and are equipped with the “TruTouch” haptic features already present in the Touch Pro controllers. On the other hand, no foveal rendering or eye tracking on the program as on the PlayStation VR2. On the games side, if you will have to watch for the evening announcements to find out if strong hits will accompany the release of the headphones (Asgard’s Wrath II has already leaked), the Quest Store catalog will of course be fully backward compatible on this new device, which represents some 500 games and applications.
The Quest 3 will be available this fall at a price of 569.99 euros for the model with 128 GB of storage space. More details on the headset, including detailed specs and release date, will be revealed at Meta Connect on September 27.
A power boost and a price drop for the Quest 2
While Meta of course hopes to see as many people switch to Quest 3 as possible, Quest 2 has obviously been too successful to be repackaged so easily. As of June 4, the headphones released in October 2020 will therefore adopt a price drop to 300 dollars for 128 GB and 350 dollars for 256 GB. Unfortunately add around 50 euros to obtain European prices, knowing that current prices are 450 and 480 euros. In other good news, the Quest 2 and the Quest Pro will both be getting an update increasing their power as if by magic.
Specifically, the CPU of the Quest 2 and Quest Pro will see its performance increase by 26%, while the GPU speed will increase by 19% for the Quest 2 and 11% for the Quest Pro. ” As the developers take advantage of these changes, you can expect smoother gameplay, a more responsive user interface, and richer content on both headsets. We’re also enabling dynamic resolution scaling for Quest 2 and Quest Pro, so games and apps can experience increased pixel density without dropping frames. “, explains the press release.