mirror lake meta reality labs research (6) — Prototype headsets from Reality Labs | Image courtesy Meta

Meta Plans Pricier Quest 3 With Features to ‘fire up enthusiasts’

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Mar 1, 2023

Meta’s Quest 3 headset, which the company has confirmed will land this year, is said to be positioned as a slightly pricier headset with features designed to appeal to VR enthusiasts.

For Quest 3, due out sometime later this year, Meta may be focusing more on its existing VR customers rather than trying to reel in brand new users.

According to a report by The Verge, Meta’s VP of VR, Mark Rabki, told thousands of employees that for the company’s next consumer headset, Quest 3, “we have to get enthusiasts fired up about it […] we have to prove to people that all this power, all these new features are worth it.” The Verge cites an internal Meta presentation held today as the source of this information.

Those features, which are largely expected to be a subset of what’s on Quest Pro, would make the headset cost “a bit more,” Rabkin said, than Quest 2 which currently sells for $400.

Vision Pro and Quest 3 Hand-tracking Latency Compared

Leaks have consistently pointed to Quest 3 having pancake lenses, a more compact form-factor, and better augmented reality capabilities. The device is reportedly codenamed ‘Stinson’.

The improved AR capabilities, Rabkin hopes, will make Quest 3 feel easier to use.

“The main north star for the team was from the moment you put on this headset, the mixed reality has to make it feel better, easier, more natural,” he told employees, according to The Verge. “You can walk effortlessly through your house knowing you can see perfectly well. You can put anchors and things on your desktop. You can take your coffee. You can stay in there much longer.”

That would be swell, but Meta hasn’t exactly demonstrated that natural feeling with Quest Pro yet, meaning there is still significant work to do on the user-experience side if Quest 3 will meet those goals.

Something else that would surely ‘fire up enthusiasts’ for Quest 3 would be a dedicated video pipeline for PC VR tethering, rather than using the compressed Oculus Link or Air Link method that’s currently available on Quest 2. However, the company has shown little appetite for appealing to PC VR users as of late.

As for leaning into existing VR customers rather than pulling in new ones, this may be an effort to address Quest’s retention issues; while the headset has certainly sold well, Meta has been disappointed with the rate at which customers continue to use their headset after buying.

With regards to Quest 3 being more expensive than Quest 2, it seems that Meta has learned its lesson; having not established a substantial ads business in VR, heavily subsidizing headsets to get them out the door probably isn’t a good idea. Meta had to very publicly reverse that strategy when it raised the price of Quest 2 last year, by as much as 33% (though this was also related to inflation and broader economic turbulence).

The report from The Verge includes more info about the company’s XR roadmap, which you can read in full here.

Tommy

Pass
My Thoughts

Everyone is going to want pancake lenses so it is good that they are bringing them out for consumers.
Danny Huynh

I’m still confused between Quest Pro and Quest 3. If they are both standalone headsets, then why bother releasing Quest 3 that is slightly less powerful than Quest Pro, but slightly more expensive than Quest 2? Are they thinking the middle range device will attract the enthusiasts? If Quest Pro did not attract the enthusiasts, then how can a less slightly powerful Quest 3 do it?

I have Quest 2 and I decided to skip Quest Pro because the resolution is “not” significantly better than Quest 2, but the price is triple. If they were able to make Quest Pro to be at least double the resolution and the power of Quest 2, then it would justify the triple cost of the Quest Pro for me to buy it.
- Andrey
  
  Um, not sure if you know about it (probably not), but Quest 3 is rumored to have a next-gen VR SoC (XR2 Gen. 2) that will be 2x (or even 2.5x) faster than original XR2 in Quest 2.
- Anonymous
  
  Quest 3’s SoC is more powerful than the Pro’s XR2 gen1+. It just mainly lack the other features like eye tracking and face tracking.
  No eye tracking may turn out to be a mistake in Quest 3’s long-term life cycle, but eye tracking isn’t cheap.
  
  But resolution doesn’t need to “double” (nor possible no matter how good XR gen 2 is) to feel like an upgrade. The lens change from fresnel to pancake alone is immediately noticeable.
- Bob
  
  “…to skip Quest Pro because the resolution is “not” significantly better than Quest 2″
  
  I own the Quest Pro.
  
  And yes, it has approximately the same resolution as the Quest 2 but it looks noticeably sharper and has FULL lens clarity all the way to the outer rims of the lenses where there is very, very slight vignetting/color distortion (which you don’t notice unless you glance your eyes all the way to the left, right etc.). I can actually use my eyes to look around rather than my head which means as far as I’m concerned it’s the only headset which has allowed me to do this comfortably.
  
  Does it need a higher resolution panel? Sure. But at this point, it doesn’t need to be “significantly” higher but perhaps at the same level as the HP Reverb G2 at 2160 x 2160 pixels per eye. The optical stack of the Quest Pro does most of the heavy lifting anyway and already makes everything look crystal just not as pixel dense due to panel’s resolution.
  
  I’d rather they invest time and resources into an OLED panel (preferably micro OLED) capable of HDR and significantly higher luminance output. And then improve the resolution slightly more but not “significantly” considering that more hardware resources are required to drive higher resolutions.
  - ZeePee
    
    Yes.
    
    2160 x 2160 per eye hdr RGB micro-OLED with pancake optics would be a significant leap forward without needing to massively increase resolution.
    
    They are investing in Micro -OLED but unfortunately that’s for future headsets.
    
    Bigscreen Beyond is much more expensive but has 2560 x 2560 per eye RGB micro-OLED with pancake lenses – it’s going to be a truly next gen experience.
- illest
  
  For the same reason they release an iPhone or Samsung phone and release a Pro/Plus version and a Pro Max/Ultra.
  
  You grew up buying the base level iPhone/Samsung at $800
  You want a better model but aren’t looking to spend $1,400 on a Pro Max or Ultra, so you draw the line at the $1,000 Plus/Pro line. You’re more of an enthuasiast than anyone getting in at the base model. You appreciate the improvements & the better performance, but still aren’t comfortable spending top dollar for the top spec.
Octogod

From the Verge:

“We should be able to run a very good ads business,” he said. “I think it’s easy to imagine how ads would show up in space when you have AR glasses on. Our ability to track conversions, which is where there has been a lot of focus as a company, should also be close to 100 percent.”

YIKES.
- Jonathan Winters III
  
  That’s really disturbing.
- Nevets
  
  Does it matter that much? If they junk ads the product will cost three times as much.
  - Ookami
    
    it’s funny we got to the point that people are ok with multi-billion dollar corporations stalking people and invading their every privacy. It’s not like there’s never been malpractice around that, right?
    - Nevets
      
      You’re catastrophizing! Ads have been around for donkey’s years as well
      - MosBen
        
        Yeah, but when Ford wanted to sell me a truck in the 90s they weren’t able to base that on listening in to my private conversations and then shove an ad in my face while I’m walking to work.
      - ViRGiN
        
        If you’re going to wear xr on your walk to work, i guess it provides immense value
      - MosBen
        
        Obviously the technology isn’t there yet to make wearing XR while walking to work either practical or useful, but it seems likely that we’ll get there at some point. But that’s really a non sequitur to my comment, which was that while ads have existed for a long time, the type of advertising that we’re talking about with XR is pretty substantially different, including but not limited to issues of privacy.
      - ViRGiN
        
        What type of advertising? You’re accepting cookies left and right all across the web without really understanding what does it mean. Those cookies know how long ad was visible on your screen, how long your cursor hovered on it etc – eye tracking measuring conversion rate isn’t really controversial. Gatekeeping or being paranoid that they _might_ use them in different way (what way?) is just spreading panic. If it will be so privacy invasive – it will simply not get adopted. People are already paying for TV subscriptions, and are bombarded with ads on every channel. Ads are part of our lives. Being overly negative about this whole thing reminds me of linux users – fighting the “good” fight, but ultimatetly not making a dent for 99% of people worldwide.
      - MosBen
        
        You’re all over the place. You’re doubling down on the idea that we are already bombarded with ads on TV, which misses the point of my original comment. Then you bring up cookies, which do invade our privacy in ways that most people don’t understand, but then you say that if XR privacy issues are bad then people won’t adopt them, which is not what the cookie example should show us.
        
        Again, my point was what while advertising has been around for a long time, what’s being proposed for XR is quite a bit different than what existed, say, 20 years ago. And it’s not like issues with privacy in online haven’t been brought up before, XR would just be an additional push to bring advertising even more into our private moments and spaces. The power that that gives corporations and the impacts that that has on our lives is worth concern and discussion. Handwaving away privacy discussions with laissez faire pablum is just silly.
      - Octogod
        
        A billboard or web banner is quite different from a company looking around your house, detecting objects, and serving customzied ads based on your specific needs.
        
        Especially when that company has been caught multiple times in lying to consumers about how it uses this data for both corporate and government interests.
      - Ookami
        
        they literally say they want to record your every conversation, and you don’t see the problem in that? 20 years ago you could write a piece of fiction around that concept alone, and people would call it a scary dystopia.
      - Nevets
        
        The article says that they will be able to track conversions, not conversations! I’m not a FB shill, but as I said earlier, ads make money and that’s the way it’ll keep the hardware going.
      - Ookami
        
        oh lol I didn’t realize I misread! haha.
    - ViRGiN
      
      It’s funny how you support only the company of which only leader owns a 100 million dollar yacht and emplys no more than 350 people, hoarding worlds wealth.
      - Ookami
        
        How did we get from A to B? Your comment makes no sense. Some rich dude owning a yacht is a far cry from a company stalking and spying on people.
      - ViRGiN
        
        yeah, one provides dirt luxury to a single obese human, the other supports hundreds of millions of businesses around the world, giving work to an uncountable amount of people.
      - Ookami
        
        Do you suffer from a reading comprehension disability?
        They are completely different issues.
      - ViRGiN
        
        One is a real issue; the other is your projection and hatred for something that allows businesses to exist in the first place.
      - LMAO
        
        Ignorant troll alert!!,
  - Octogod
    
    Does it matter that a company is monetizing everything you see at near 100% rate?
    
    I honestly can’t tell if this is a joke.
    - ViRGiN
      
      So, you’re a Facebook user? Cause I’m not, and have never seen a single ad from them. Meanwhile this very website, along with like 99% of Internet will haunt me down with Google AdSense.
      
      You just have a hate boner for the leading horse in vr race.
      - Octogod
        
        No, I don’t have a Facebook account.
        
        As someone who works in advertising, you’re comparing apples to spaceships. Google actually follows rules. They are nothing compared to Facebooks insidious tracking.
        
        Yes, I disagree with your statement and lack of knowledge, therefore I hate a secondary company. I see why everyone blocks you.
      - LMAO
        
        Ignorant troll alert!!.
- Ookami
  
  hahaha, that’s a solid “nope” for me.
  this is why I refuse to buy a Meta headset.
  - ViRGiN
    
    What kind of dystopian future you live in to think that biggest personal computing switch in history of earth will sustain itself without ads?
    
    100 years ago you would refuse to listen to a radio cause of ads?
    
    Some of you have bigger problems than ads – the problem is your clearly scared to shit to be influenced by them! Oh no, i just saw oreos ad, i HAVE TO buy them now ñ
    - Octogod
      
      Apple XR devices will sustain themselves without ads. The most popular tech brand in the world, have you heard of them?
      
      There is quite a difference between listening to ads and having a company detect the contents of your home to serve ads. Are you familiar with a strawman argument?
      
      No one is afraid of being influenced by ads, they are concerned about being Meta’s true product. If you’re happy making money for someone by sitting in your house, so be it. Others believe corporations being given your personal data crosses a boundary. If you’re for sale for the lowest bidder, so be it!
      - ViRGiN
        
        It’s fake until proven. In the other comment you said Google follows the rules. And how many times have you heard about Google listening to conversations and then displaying ads about those topics? I haven’t heard that about Facebook and once again, their reach us only Facebook users. You imagine xr as that meme RPO image where ads obstruct you see. If that happens, it will simply not be adopted.
        
        I bet you believe your information that you search for Domino’s Pizza is worth hundreds of dollars annually.
      - O K
        
        Have you considered looking into the practices of Apple before commenting on them? I guess not! As an Apple user, you are subject to continuous monitoring, control, and analysis for marketing and other purposes. Your data is frequently shared with numerous third-party entities, including governments. It’s important to recognize that Apple is no different from other US companies in this regard – many of them engage in round-the-clock surveillance for many different reasons. If you wish to avoid this type of monitoring, you may need to dispose of devices such as Alexa, iOS, Android, and Windows among others. Its simply unrealistic to believe today that you can escape any of this.
      - Octogod
        
        As someone who has Apple stock since 2002 and has a massive collection of their kit: you’re delusional.
        
        Data is shared with governments, as is true on every platform.
        
        Data is shared with third party engines, when you allow them. It does ask the companies you interact with to be responsible for their TOS, which is astonishingly more than Meta. But, like any platform, it can be blocked through many other ways. As an example, I have ad blockers on the device which ensures that if a company does try to serve ads or call to tracking servers they are denied.
        
        It’s nice that you have given up hope and wish to spread the joy of not trying, but try to be lightly informed about the topics you speak next time, m’kay?
      - Arno van Wingerde
        
        With Apple, you pay more and then they still steal your data… but it seems less bad than MEta or Google in that respect.
    - Ookami
      
      I don’t care about seeing an ad lol. I care about corporations recording my every conversation. You’re not dumb enough to not see the difference, are you?
      - ViRGiN
        
        you know steam messaging isn’t peer to peer, and all messages are recorded on valve servers, do you?
      - Ookami
        
        Big difference between that, and literally recording your every conversation with another human being “at 100%”.
      - ViRGiN
        
        literally every steam conversation is recorded; there is no difference here.
        maybe if we were spied all day long from all sides, we wold see a true battery drain on our devices. mind linking me to an undisputable evidence about facebook spying and listening to every conversation, scanning homes to identify products etc?
      - Hivemind9000
        
        That’s “conversion” not conversation. Conversions are when people click on an ad.
      - Ookami
        
        Yeah I misread that.
      - ViRGiN
        
        read first, then bark, you valve zombie.
        
        you got so excited about discvoering “TrUe” meta intentions.
      - Ookami
        
        it was worth it just to give you another mental meltdown. Those are always funny to see
      - ViRGiN
        
        So you did get triggered.
    - Dennis Duncan
      
      Spot the META plant. Okay, George.
    - Lucidfeuer
      
      You really are the scum of this forum aren’t you?
      - ViRGiN
        
        did you just get triggered and went on a comment posting spree in old various news threads?
ZeePee

I’m sorry but unless it’s micro-OLED and has a display port connection, I can’t get excited about it.
- Anonymous
  
  I am not sure the better colours of OLED is worth it anymore. PSVR2 uses OLED but the noticeable mura and SDE (even if subtle then previous gen) is really not great compared to Quest Pro (which is likely going to feel similar on the Quest 3).
  - Gamal
    
    For me I rather have the HDR and Blacks, with minimum mura and SDE just like the PSVR2.
    - Anonymous
      
      Have you already tried one?
      Many users, particularly those coming from the Quest2, Quest Pro, and Pico, complain a lot about the PSVR2’s mura and SDE. They are subtle but definitely NOT minimum.
      
      I tried one at friend’s house and while I find it tolerable and also because GT7 is great, I can safely say PSVR2’s OLED are not great.
      - Rome
        
        PSVR 2 broke my heart. One of the biggest hardware disappointments of my life. The motion blur and mura sink the whole illusion for me. Sent mine back with a heavy heart.
      - Cless
        
        I mean… what did you expect? Its a cheap low-mid tier VR headset, I hope you weren’t comparing it for some reason to $1000 PCVR headsets like many are doing in Reddit.
        Those OLED panels can’t be more than $250 bucks. Good OLED panels start at around $500, JUST the panel, so you can make the number yourself there.
      - Anonymous
        
        And that is the thing – knowing that mura and SDE exists and no good, cheap OLED panels exist, why adopt it?
        
        The better colours do not justify seeing mura and SDE which are real eyesores.
      - Cless
        
        Because different tastes exist as well. I’d rather have bad mura than feeling that I have an early 2000s LCD strapped to my face. But again, depends on what you like better. I do understand that not everyone thinks the same!
        Just like some people won’t even come close to HMDs with less than 130FOV, its all about what you like better.
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        Do you have a source for the USD 500 for good displays? This is one of the main unknowns in the PSVR 2 bill of materials. The very highest end OLED displays used in latest gen phones are significantly cheaper, they are available as replacement parts less than USD 200, meaning actual manufacturing costs will be much lower, and the production process should be very similar.
        
        The total number of sold displays would have a huge impact on unit prices, so a high quality OLED panel used only in a six figure number of HMDs will by default come with a much higher price than a display integrated into tens of millions of phones. But we can probably expect the PSVR 2 to at least sell 5mn units like the PSVR 1, so mass production should significantly lower the price per single OLED display here too.
      - Cless
        
        Sorry, correction. They weren’t good OLED panels, since they are quite hard to not do pentile at those sizes for a decent price. The ones I was talking about are some micro OLED panels that were about 1.5 inches, 2.5k and incredibly bright.
        I can’t remember from who I read it, but they had a link and everything where you could check all the specs of it and everything :S
      - Cless
        
        Huh, weird, I was convinced I had answered your comment already… But I don’t see any answer here so… here I go again!
        
        I don’t have the source atm, I read it from someone that was offering a good source even with a link attached though. They were micro OLED displays though, 1.5 inches and 2.5k, and capable of being incredibly bright if I remember properly.
        
        I’m guessing the $500 pricetag wasn’t for 1 unit, but for a decent amount of them.
        In any case, the problem here would be that, if you chose microOLED, then you will need better optics so the FOV improves… thus you will most likely need pancake lenses… which would cost more as well, and look at the time, we are around $1000 pricetag now, similar to what bigscreen is offering…
      - Christian Schildwaechter
        
        I now see two answers from you, and yesterday already upvoted your previous one. So they are definitely both still there, no idea why you can’t see your other response.
      - Cless
        
        Weird, still can’t see it! Though now that I think about it, yesterday Disqus was down for a while, maybe something broke…?
      - Gamal
        
        Yes I have the PSVR2. I came from Oculus Rift CV1, PSVR1, Quest 2 and now PSVR2. When I booted up the PSVR2 I did notice the Mura, SDE but did realize it was way better than PSVR1 and the HDR and Blacks are amazing. Is not a deal breaker for me just like the cable is not deal breaker, because when I’m immerse in a game all that goes out the window. Just like the SDE bothers you on PSVR2 so the grey blacks bothers me on Quest 2. Now, what I did to help make it little better; Is lower the brightness on PSVR2 and the SDE is a little less noticeable, and lower the brightness on Quest 2 to help the grey blacks look a little bit better.
  - wheeler
    
    Micro-OLED is quite a different beast compared to OLED. Look at the Bigscreen Beyond. Preliminary impressions indicate the typical limitations of OLED like mura, response time from black/off, persistence, pixel density and pixel layout, SDE, etc etc are not issues for Micro-OLED
- MeowMix
  
  then you can buy the BigScreen Beyond system at $1000+
  - ZeePee
    
    And that’s exactly what I intend to do.
    
    I have 8-9 months to save up for it.
    - ViRGiN
      
      You have 24+ months plus if it ever releases.
      But hey, pcvr is dead so cope
      - LMAO
        
        Ignorant troll alert!!
  - ViRGiN
    
    *pay for
    
    I don’t see it releasing anytime soon. When has something non Meta ever released on time in vr scene?
Jonathan Winters III

At $299, Quest 2 sold very well to the general public. If Quest 3 is $499, it will be mostly VR enthusiasts.
- MeowMix
  
  it’s also alluded they play a cheaper consumer headset in 2024; maybe a ‘Quest 3 Lite’. That will probably hit the $299 price point, yet still allow the QUest3 to include some of the premium features we want.
ShaneMcGrath

If they want to charge a higher price, Then give me higher FOV!
Christian Schildwaechter

Trying to get the enthusiasts fired up is a good idea, but “The main north star […] was […] mixed reality has to make it feel better, easier, more natural, […] You can walk effortlessly through your house knowing you can see perfectly well.” isn’t really what the enthusiasts have been most enthusiastic about so far.

No doubt passthrough is useful, and I have used it since the original 2016 HTC Vive to pick up real objects and avoid obstacles. And I actually would like to have an HMD that allows me to walk around the house and add useful content, like shopping reminders on the fridge, or rain forecasts on the window, my next appointments on the door when I leave the house, my current ToDo list always on my right wrist, while there is a large virtual watch with all notifications and infos I currently need on my left wrist. That would be an AR HMD and actually useful.

I do not want an HMD that allows me to walk around the house with a still primitive and distorted view that is extremely inferior to my eyes, when all it can do in exchange for less comfort and worse vision is show some mostly static virtual object that I have to place there myself. For grabbing my controllers or my cup, hires color passthrough is nice, but the 2016 HTC Vive monoscopic grainy b/w image worked too. And for moving around the house I’ll still prefer to take the HMD off, which I am solely wearing because that is the only way to experience VR, so I am willing to bear the discomfort.

Somehow Meta is desperately trying to reinterpret what users want to somehow match their fuzzy vision and technical limits. They can’t compete with PCVR or PSVR in processing power, doubling the performance of the Quest 3 still only leaves it with about 1/6th the performance of a PS5. They can’t to AR at all, because this would require even more processing power and probably dedicated hardware for image processing. They could accept that and focus on making the best mobile VR HMD, technically limited, but standalone and untethered. But they still want to sell their headsets as uniquely advanced, so they invent things like Horizon Workrooms as the most sophisticated virtual conferencing solution to justify having eye tracking, but not really benefitting from ETFR due to limited processing power, or Mixed Reality with the best HMDs for people who want to walk around the house with now half-sized bricks strapped to their face, making them only partially blind.

On top of my wishlist for a Quest 3 would be improved comfort and balance. I’ll gladly take the improved lenses and the faster processor, but I’d rather have the battery in the back, a set of differently shaped facepads to select from, integrated diopter adjustment and enough straps to evenly distribute the weight. Once I have this, I might even consider wearing the HMD longer than absolutely necessary and possibly start walking around the house, and maybe gain actual benefit from their “main north star” improvement.
- Arno van Wingerde
  
  Well, my demands are much lower: I would already be happy with a few good games a la Horizon call of the mountain …
- Cl
  
  I was considering the pimax crystal, but I think I’ll go with bigscreen beyond. Only downside for me is it has wires and the fov is like the quest2, but the micro oled panel and comfort is something I want too. I feel like I will use it alot more if it’s really comfortable.
- JB1968
  
  Virtuall shopping reminders on the fridge! LOL That thinking makes me physically sick. But it looks like Zuckerberg have lot of fans between “enthusiasts” here.
Zerofool

It’s sad it doesn’t have eye tracking and, therefore, foveated rendering.
If the competition, let’s say Pico 5, basically matches the specs of Quest 3 but also has eye tracking and is priced similarly, and is launched worldwide … I think Meta will find itself in a not so great place. And that’s exactly what the leaks by Brad Lynch from some time ago suggested.
- Kraeuterbutter
  
  there are already some headsets with eyetracking…
  Vive Pro, Pimax, HP Reverb
  and? no games which use it..
  i fear: if the meta-Quests does not bring Eyetracking and use it heavily in games, dont count on pico
  even if they have the hardware-solution for eyetracking..
  
  lets face it: the pico 4 is cabable of better image-quality (little more performance) and still: most games are just cheap meta-ports with quest2-kind of low-resolution, sometimes even look worse than on the quest
  love the pico4… but software side… not many realy does support what it is capable standalone
  - Andrew Jakobs
    
    But pico already has a pico 4 with eyetracking. Shame it’s not available in the west, at least not as a gaming version.
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    You can do several things with eye tracking, and not all of them require games to actively support it. If you want menus controlled via gaze or weeping angels only moving when the user doesn’t look at them, developers have to implement this directly. This is of course a chicken and egg problem, with no HMDs supporting eye tracking no developers will use it, leading to less demand for its integration. So far eye tracking isn’t even standardized in OpenXR, you have to use vendor specific extensions to utilize the function, making it even less attractive to developers.
    
    When you want to use ETFR to improve performance instead, developers don’t really have to actively support it, the system could do that all by itself. On the Quest developers request CPU and GPU performance and FFR aggressiveness levels from the SDK, but that is their whole level of involvement, the OS does the rest all by itself. And nothing would stop Meta from letting users enable or disable different performance or FFR levels, ignoring what the developers wanted.
    
    In a similar way, the SDK could simply enable ETFR and a higher render resolution, or replace FFR with ETFR, even if the app was developed before ETFR was even available. This way e.g. Pico could benefit from eye tracking in games ported from the Quest that have no clue that the option even exists.
    
    The bigger problem is that ETFR hasn’t really been working all that well so far. There were performance estimates from Tobii allowing for ~40% performance boost, but HTC developers using eye tracking on the HTC Vive Pro Eye using Tobii software reported that the latency introduced by the motion prediction was so large that the reduced resolution outside of the focus was very visible during fast eye movements, making ETFR basically unusable. And the latency seems to be due to rather high computational demands, which is also the reason why ETFR doesn’t provide huge benefits on the Quest Pro and is disabled by default to conserve battery life.
    
    Now it seems that Sony in cooperation with Tobii improved ETFR significantly for the PSVR 2, making it both useable and useful. We don’t know yet what was changed compared to the existing implementation with the Vive Pro or HP Reverb G2 Omnicept, Sony may have added special processing hardware to the PSVR 2, or maybe they could just optimize it very well. Depending on what was necessary to get it to run on PSVR 2, eye tracking may turn out to be a useful feature even without any software actively supporting it, or it may be just adding weight and wasting money, if e.g. more processing power is needed than even the next gen (mobile) HMDs can spare for it.
  - Zerofool
    
    and? no games which use it..
    
    Why do you think that is? Maybe because there’s no universal API integrated into SteamVR and developers would need to manually add support for each and every eye tracking tech out there, which is used by a tiny fraction of the PCVR install base. Only the likes of VR Chat do that, the rest don’t do anything and wait on the eye tracking tech providers to find a universal solution, like what the 7invensun software did for the current Pimax headsets, or what Tobii Spotlight does for the rest (both technologies rely on VRS afaik). But it will never be as good as native support in the games. Which can’t happen unless the majority of the hardware uses the same eye-tracking solution. And that’s why I think Meta is making a mistake by not including it on the Quest 3. But I guess this would make the Quest Pro even more undesirable, useless, unnecessary…
    
    As for the games on the next Pico… if it gains popularity (also in the US), game devs will be more inclined to spend the resources on supporting it (I’m talking the games running natively on the HMD, not from a PC), as it will allow their games to look better than on Quest 2. There will always be this kind of devs which optimise their games for every platform regardless (like the Red Matter devs) but I agree they are very few, not nearly enough.
    However, for potential buyers of either Quest 3 or Pico 5 for use with a PC… they’re pretty similar, but one has the Tobii Spotlight feature, the other doesn’t. Which one would you buy?
    
    Note: I’ve never used any of the aforementioned eye-tracking enabled HMDs, so it may not be as easy to enable the Tobii Spotlight feature as I make it sound above.
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  If only they would sell the Pico 4 Pro gamer edition in the west.
- shadow9d9
  
  Pico is doa. No exclusives, no viable ecosystem, no sales in NA.
xXx

New Quest 3 should have:
– higher FOV (around 110-120 in this gen should be good)
– stronger processor (XR2 gen 2)
– eye tracking
– pancake lenses
– swappable battery
I am ready to pay 2x price on Q2 for that.
- Zack71
  
  and direct connection to pc gpu..
  - ViRGiN
    
    Pcvr is dead, cope
    - LMAO
      
      Ignorant troll alert!..
    - Arno van Wingerde
      
      ViRGiN: I always wondered what you do: only Quest2 as stand-alone? I play like that, but are now considering getting a strong PC for PSVR with my Quest2 or PS5+PSVR2 for about the same price.
      - ViRGiN
        
        I play on standalone, I’m not using PCVR despite way more powerful hardware than needed for the same reason I am not getting PSVR2 (yet) – there are no games that really interests me. PSVR2 might be a good headset, but it’s still the same content I have already mostly experienced throughout the years.
      - shadow9d9
        
        Psvr 2 is so weak that they have 60 hz reprojection with blur. That is a horrible tradeoff.
        
        Most quest 2 owners use standalone exclusively. A tiny, tiny group of people use pcvr, which is why sales numbers are atrocious.
    - Guywithamouse
      
      Stupid or trolling, can’t tell : /
      - ViRGiN
        
        if you think it’s trolling, then you’re stupid.
        if you think i’m stupid, then you’re trolling.
        
        then again, you probably still bloate even for a though of something alyx related, and using it exclusively as an example of pcvr superiority over everything else.
        grow up.
      - Guywithamouse
        
        I’m the troll, ya that’s it. You say something stupid then go on to babble on like a autist and I’M the troll.
      - ViRGiN
        
        Cope.
    - Guywithamouse
      
      It’s not “dead” at all. “dead” is something haters like you parrot.
      - ViRGiN
        
        not dead is something praydog cultists and gaybens constantly say. also, 11000+ uevr games
- Kraeuterbutter
  
  higher price – thats good news for me, so there is hope that it has also good features
  additional to your list, @xXx
  i hope for a faster decoding speed of video-Stream,
  AV1 codec support
  wifi 6e
  little bit disappointed it does not go with the Pico4-Style, with battery at the back because: that brings so much comfort !
- Arno van Wingerde
  
  No Quest3 should have as its first priorities: games, games and games.
- Lucidfeuer
  
  I was agreeing until the completely degenerate argument of wanting to pay more for basic tech. 500€ should be the most for a Quest 3, and lower for the Quest Lite
- Worksa7
  
  It doesn’t
  It does have a stronger processor but it’s not hugely so.
  It doesn’t.
  It does supposedly.
  It doesn’t.
TonyVT SkarredGhost

I don’t think they can fire up us enthusiasts with a Quest 3. No one is fired up by the Quest Pro, so I don’t see how we can love its cheaper version
- ZeePee
  
  Exactly.
- ViRGiN
  
  “us enthusiasts”?
  You’re some random geek covering scammy vr kickstarters, and aren’t impressed by quest pro? It’s an awesome headset, if it wasn’t for the price. But it’s still an awesome headset. If you aren’t enthusiastic about that, then your vr values are completly out of bounds and you seem nothing more than steamvr fanboy running a blog about most obsolete things vr related and call that “enthusiasm”
  - LMAO
    
    Ignorant troll alert!.
    - ViRGiN
      
      ^russian spy
- illest
  
  I think pancake lenses, 90hz-120hz out of the box, better headstrap, & higher FOV at what we’re assuming to be $100 more at $500 for the entry level is enough to get people to upgrade from a Quest, Rift S, or Quest 2. Probably enough to get newbies to jump in for the first time. I’m someone who never considered the Quest Pro at $1,500, not even at $1,100. But I’ll happily upgrade my Quest 2 for another all-in-one headset at $500-$600.
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    Those already convinced by VR can more easily be won over by improved specs, as they will know that these can make the experience they already enjoy a lot better, allowing them to justify an increased price, even if it will take some time to really benefit from the advanced tech.
    
    The Quest 3 will be twice as fast as its predecessor, though this means still only a small fraction of the power of console or desktop VR. No doubt the visual quality of games will increase over time, but we won’t see sudden jumps, simply because developers will mostly still target the by then 20mn+ sold Quest 2. And only recently has Meta even allowed developers to no longer support the Quest 1 and fully utilize the Quest 2 hardware.
    
    For newbies the argument will be much harder. If they come looking for a cheaper alternative to the PSVR 2 with VR AAA titles, they may be rather disappointed, as the technical limitations of the Quest 3 and developers focusing on Quest 2 will not provide those. Porting from Quest 2 to PSVR 2 is rather easy, the other way around not so much. So you end up with a much different value proposition, while the marker for what VR can look like has been set a lot higher now by the PSVR 2.
    
    The Quest 2 sold a lot for a VR HMD, but not a lot for a gaming console, meaning the vast majority of the target group didn’t go for it, even when it sold for USD 299. While enthusiasts tend to blame that on a lack of software, those not already into VR don’t really know that, and most users will actually stick to a few games. The software situation has improved a lot in numbers and quality, but that isn’t really going to convince newbies, as there are still basically no well known franchise titles to draw them in, while the PSVR 2 launched with Horizon, Resident Evil and Gran Turismo games. And comparing RE4 on Quest 2/3 to the RE4 remake on PSVR 2 that will be out by then won’t help either. It is hard to imagine that many of those that already skipped the Quest 2 at USD 299 will now go for a USD 499 Quest 3, esp. if Sony offers some attractive and hopefully cheaper PS5/PSVR 2 bundles for the next holiday season.
FrankB

It absolutely needs the direct to GPU link for PC. Can’t stand using the Quest2 as a PC headset.
- Christian Schildwaechter
  
  It is not actually a direct to GPU link, and that is one of the reasons why so few headsets implement it. The “modern” way to connect a HMD via tether is using the DisplayPort Alternate Mode of USB, allowing to send standard DP signals over a cheap USB-C cable, instead of requiring a more expensive, proprietary cable that also needs its own port. The Pico 3 Neo Link and the PSVR 2 use this.
  
  The problem is that this type of connection is no longer only USB, it has to be split into its DP and USB parts, which both need dedicated controllers. In the case of the Neo Link, Pico added an extra USB-C port that only connects to a DP controller attached to the display, as there is no way to route the signal through the XR2 Gen 1 SoC, while Sony most likely used an SoC capable of handling both.
  
  So unless the XR2 Gen 2 in the Quest 3 already comes with an integrated DP decoder that then can actually used the GPU to display the signal, Meta would have to include at least a separate controller, and, if they want to stick to a single USB-C port, more extra logic that is capable of splitting the signal and sending the USB parts to the XR2 Gen 2. Which is of course technically possible, but takes up space, power and money.
  
  How likely it is for Qualcomm to integrate DP decoding is hard to guess. The idea itself isn’t new at all, this has been discussed since 2014 for Cardboard. Phones already included HDMI encoding capabilities, and if any mobile SoC had integrated HDMI decoding, any phone based on it could have been used with the USB HDMI Alternate Mode as a lossless tethered display just like with DP Alt today. But no company ever bothered to “waste” the silicon space on the SoC for such a niche application.
  
  And since the XR2 Gen 2 will mostly likely be based on the SD8 Gen 2, just like the XR2 Gen 1 was based on the SD865, it is questionable if Qualcomm will introduce such a feature just for a small portion of all the XR users, which are already only a very tiny part of the total marked for the SD8 Gen 2 chip design. It is more likely that they will expect HMD manufacturers to go the Pico Neo 3 Link way, with all its disadvantages.
  - Reinhard Jud
    
    Great explanation.. thanx for that!
    i hope for good decoding performance, Wifie 6e and maybe AV1 codec
    that could bring the Wifi-Game on the next level and wanting a cable not THAT of a desire anymore
- ViRGiN
  
  If you need a “direct” connection, it means you just can’t afford a pcvr headset and is planning to use it EXCLUSIVELY with steam library. Nobody cares about people like you. Literally nobody.
  - LMAO
    
    Ignorant troll alert!
- NL_VR
  
  Imo all people who say they cant use Quest 2 or Poco 4 with PCVR. They doing it wrong.
  I’m using Quest 2 wireless PCVR so frequently I sold my tethered headset away long time ago.
  The only complaint I can have that wireless PCVR takes a more hit on performance but as I upgraded my computer that problem shdank into a none issue.
Sky Castle

Another new headset to play more Beat Saber…./sigh
Where the damn games at?
- david vincent
  
  In the modding community
  - Arno van Wingerde
    
    But it is weird that this has to be done by a bunch of hackers, rather than by the companies making those games…
- Skippy76
  
  There hasn’t been a good VR game since Half Life Alyx. An actual proper game.. not just some cheesy tech demo game that lasts 15min to play through..
  - shadow9d9
    
    Alyx was garbage with pretty graphics. No story at all, darj linear corridors, 3 puzzles repeated 30 times each. Tons of great games come out regularly if you read reviews and play more than one genre.
Foreign Devil

Us enthusiasts who are not rich enough to buy the Pro version often use PC VR. So if they want to market to us. . they need to make sure it has a highspeed connection to PC.
- Christian Schildwaechter
  
  The problem is still that they make no money from the hardware, they need software sales, so they have no real motivation to allow you to skip their store and give the money to Steam instead. Meta had to reluctantly embrace PCVR, because the limited hardware of the Quest cannot provide the same level of high end experience, and offering Quest link allowed them to kill the Rift they wanted to get rid of while pointing to Quest as a replacement.
  
  They pretty much tried to stop wireless streaming by forcing Virtual Desktop to remove the feature, to ensure tetherless VR would still require purchasing from the Quest store, and only later caved in and offered Air Link themselves, featuring less features than VD. The technical limits of mobile SoC will stay, so Meta will still have to rely on PCVR for higher end experiences, but they will most likely try to use Air Link as a bridge to a Meta VR cloud streaming service that allows them to get back into the value chain and earn money.
  
  Lossless high speed connections are understandably on the users wish list, but they are detrimental to Meta’s revenue stream, so I wouldn’t expect them to embrace them voluntarily. More likely only when pushed hard enough by outside factors like other HMDs starting to integrate DP connections as a default.
  - shadow9d9
    
    So, they tried to stop it and then offered their own? No, that isn’t a competent analysis.
    - Christian Schildwaechter
      
      Meta had to reluctantly embrace PCVR, […] limited hardware […] and offering Quest link […] kill the Rift […] only later caved in
      
      Already covered in my previous comment. They couldn’t stop it, as VD managed to circumvent their ban of wireless streaming on the Quest store by simply publishing a patch for the store version on SideQuest to restore the full functionality, completely annihilating Meta’s argument that they weren’t allowing the function “to protect users” from a subpar experience.
      
      Quest users had asked for wireless streaming for a long time, and Meta had always denied it with the quality argument, so once the cat was out of the bag, the best they could do was trying to control it by providing a less capable solution themselves while also plugging the dangerous SideQuest upgrade path. Dan Goodin obviously wasn’t particularly happy about Meta first declaring his software “illegal”, only to (having to) allow it again after they had copied it and gave their version out for free.
      
      This reduced sales for VirtualDesktop, which can do a lot more, incl. allowing steaming from a remote server. This feature would allow using streaming services like PlutoSphere, which Meta then again prohibited for any Quest store apps with the same lame excuse. And you can bet that they will again change their mind, once they can offer their own PC streaming service.
      
      So yes, this is a quite competent analysis, as Meta on several occasions tried to stop PCVR wireless streaming with stupid arguments and store rule changes, and only introduced the USB Link because they otherwise couldn’t have just dropped the Rift, as they would have possibly been forced to refund software sales for users that had bought Rift titles and now couldn’t use them any more due to the dropped hardware support, since Meta officially does not support any non-Meta headsets.
      
      They deliberately try to keep the platform closed in a way that ensures they are involved in basically all sales and can take a fee, and if some competition shows up, they try to crush it with an inferior alternative. They did the same to stop SideQuest from becoming a valid alternate software source by introducing App Lab, but making it not searchable without entering the exact right spelling, pretty much killing the SideQuest business while keeping users from buying non-Meta approved apps, yet still taking their 30% from App Lab developers. Their sabotage of any breach in their strictly controlled walled garden is very clearly systematic.
MOT

If you are into gaming and have a pcvr headset already and a quest. Get yourself a psvr2 and ps5. That’s what I did

You then have access to everything VR gaming has to offer. Theres no point upgrading stockpiling headsets to play the same content on one platform.
- shadow9d9
  
  A wire, stuck in a room wirh breakable objects. Reprojection, mura, tiny sweet spot, no built in audio..
Nads

I am one of the person that wishes they would use their Quest 2 a lot more, I have so many games purchased that im still yet to play! My main issue with the headset is comfortability and weight, its just knowhere there yet where I would want to easily use it daily, hopefully future ones they will make it much lighter especially on the front of the face, at the moment I just can’t get a good fit with it (and I have tried multiple types of straps) and its always pushing down on my nose area, maybe in the future it will be much lighter and easier to wear on daily basis.
xyzs

Fire up enthusiasts with like what… new avatars and horizon 2….?

Enthusiasts want FOV and HI-RES screen with a great wireless system to connect to Steam… nothing more nothing less.
Dennis Duncan

If they want to interest me in a Quest 3, then they need to bring back the OLED screen display. My greatest interest in VR games is the immersion factor. This is especially true with horror and survival games. I bought the Quest 2 and tried to play Senua’s Sacrifice on it. I was disappointed the second I walked into a “dark” cave. I immediately gave the Quest 2 to my 14 year old and kept the original for myself. I play exclusively using the lync cable. The processing power of my computer far outstrips any oculus device, plus I am able to heavily mod games to make them better. Skyrim VR is a mediocre-at-best port without mods and Fallout 4 VR is unplayable.
- shadow9d9
  
  Is mura and ghosting/smearing immwrsive to you? Pancake slimness and clarity over that any day.
JB1968

I’m selling “spitting in the face” for $500. All the early Quest 3 “vr enthusiasts” please line up for pre-orders asap. Limitted offer!
Walter Sharrow

What…. is the point of this article? Just that Facebook is aiming the Quest 3 at enthusiasts? If you’re into VR, you’re probably an enthusiast. Are they planning on keeping the Quest 2 around as a lower-cost option then?

I just don’t see what’s really being said here. It’s like a Facebook rep is making finger guns at VR users and saying, “We’re cool and you’re cool”. Ok… why report this? Is VR news just hard to come by at the moment?

You know Steam is full of interesting VR games that RoadtoVR could be covering. And I’d like to hear more about the new releases on the Oculus store.

(and yes I know it’s all called “Meta” now, but it’s a stupid name and I’m going to keep using the old names until it’s less stupid sounding)
Mane Vr

really this is going to fail big time. the enthusiasts are whats wrong with vr.. room scale was the beginning of the end
Realm Reaper

From what I see, games with better design are desperately needed. This headset is described as being an adult gaming system, but the games are mostly child like. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great games and apps, just better design of future games and apps are needed.