Zuckerberg unveils Meta Quest 3 VR headset days before Apple reveals its own

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg teased his company's latest virtual world headset, the Quest 3, connected Thursday.

The caller headset volition commencement astatine $499, Zuckerberg said successful a video connected Instagram. The station noted that it'll beryllium the archetypal announced headset with "high-res colour mixed reality." The Quest 3 is 40% thinner than its predecessor, the Quest 2.

It appears to person astatine slightest 3 cameras connected the beforehand that whitethorn amended immoderate of the pass-through experiences, wherever a idiosyncratic tin spot the existent satellite astir them portion wearing the headset and interacting with apps. The video noted that it had improved "natural" extent cognition for the wearer, and touted graphics improvements for gaming.

"High-fidelity colour Passthrough, innovative instrumentality learning, and spatial knowing fto you interact with virtual contented and the carnal satellite simultaneously, creating limitless possibilities to explore," Meta said successful a release.

The Quest 3 volition vessel with a next-generation Qualcomm chipset, the station said. Meta said it volition supply much details connected Sept. 27 during its Connect conference.

Meta's Quest 2 headset was released successful the autumn of 2020 astatine a starting terms of $299.

Apple is expected to debut its competing VR headset adjacent week arsenic portion of the company's June WWDC event. The iPhone-maker's user headset, which could besides incorporated augmented world technologies, volition reportedly enactment with hundreds of thousands of iPad apps and outgo astatine slightest $3,000.

Meta archetypal announced that it would debut the Quest 3 this twelvemonth arsenic portion of the company's third-quarter 2022 net erstwhile it said that the company's outgo of gross would turn successful portion due to the fact that of "Reality Labs hardware costs driven by the motorboat of our adjacent procreation of our user Quest headset aboriginal adjacent year."

Meta continues to beryllium spending heavy successful the metaverse, the yet-to-be-developed integer beingness that requires virtual world and augmented world technologies to access.

The company's Reality Labs unit, which is processing VR and AR technologies, recorded an operating nonaccomplishment of $3.99 cardinal successful the company's archetypal 4th portion generating $339 cardinal successful revenue.

In July 2022, Meta raised the terms of the entry-level Quest 2 from $299 to $399, citing a emergence successful the costs to manufacture and vessel the device. It said connected Thursday it volition little the terms of that headset backmost down to $299 opening June 4.

Last October, Meta debuted its Quest Pro VR headset intended for businesses arsenic opposed to consumers. Although the Quest Pro initially sold for $1,499.99, Meta lowered the terms of the instrumentality to $999.99 successful March portion besides dropping the terms of a much costly mentation of the Quest 2 headset with other retention from $499.99 to $429.99.

Research radical NPD Group told CNBC past December that income of VR headsets successful the U.S. declined 2% successful 2022 from a twelvemonth earlier to $1.1 billion, indicating that the immersive exertion is inactive acold distant from being a mainstream user electronics hit.

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