xbox-quest-3s — Image courtesy Meta, Microsoft

Meta Launches Quest 3S Xbox Edition for $400, Including Controller & 3 Months of Cloud Gaming

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Jun 24, 2025

Meta and Microsoft unveiled the Quest 3S Xbox Edition, a limited edition bundle that launches today, packing in everything you need for both XR and Xbox cloud gaming.

Make no bones about it: this isn’t Xbox’s long-awaited answer to PlayStation VR—i.e. it’s not a headset that you can hook up to your Xbox to play VR games. Essentially, it’s a new, limited edition colorway of the standard Quest 3S (128GB), skinned in Xbox’s Carbon Black and Velocity Green. Ok, it is slightly more than that.

Priced at $399.99, in the box you’ll also find a pair of matching Touch Plus controllers for VR and MR gameplay, a limited edition Xbox controller, matching Elite Strap (not the extended battery edition), and a three-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership.

Image courtesy Meta, Microsoft

That said, the bundle is actually a pretty good deal if you wanted to purchase everything separately, which would otherwise cost you around $490. Here’s the breakdown: Quest 3S 128GB with controllers ($299), Quest Elite Strap ($69), standard Xbox controller ($64), and 3-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate ($60).

'Rust'-like Shooter 'Silent North' Launches in Early Access on Quest & PC VR Headsets, Trailer Here

Granted, if you already have a supported Xbox controller and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you don’t need the special edition Quest 3S, as Meta and Microsoft introduced Xbox cloud gaming on Quest in late 2023, supporting Quest 2 and above, letting you play over 400 cloud streaming-supported games.

Notably, Quest 3S Xbox Edition also comes along with a three-month subscription to Meta’s Horizon+ game service, which is normally priced at $8 per month. Horizon+ lets you download 30+ Quest games, such as Asgard’s Wrath 2 (2023), Red Matter (2018), and Demeo (2021), as well as two select games each month and keep them as long as you’re a subscriber.

If you’re on the fence, make sure to check out our review of Quest 3S for all the specs and deep dive impressions.

While the Quest 3S Xbox Edition was initially announced at Connect 2024 last April, Meta is also gearing up to offer a few other XR headsets too that we still haven’t heard about.

Meta tapped ASUS Republic of Gamers and Lenovo to create entirely new headsets running Horizon OS—the first third-party companies to do so. Meta says the Asus headset is targeting performance, while Lenovo is looking to target “productivity, learning, and entertainment.”

In the meanwhile, you can find the Quest 3S Xbox Edition starting today over on meta.com, Best Buy in the US, and Argos and EE in the UK. The companies say supplies are “extremely limited,” so once they’re gone, they’re gone.

g-man

umm, ok. Round 2 of taking hardware that could already stream – but not play – Xbox games and slapping the name Xbox on it for some reason. Well sort of round 2 – the Ally X(box) was announced but not released yet while this is launched same day. Feels a bit "see what sticks" but sure, whatever.

It's a little surprising they didn't do it with the top end device (Q3) as with the Ally but again, meh, it works.
Christian Schildwaechter

TL;DR: for Microsoft, this is about "Xbox Game Pass" everywhere; for Meta, this is about drawing in flat game players that so far ignored VR; for VR users, this means you can now (for a limited time) get a black Quest 3S. And that's about it.

I wonder how much Microsoft was even involved with this. Sure, they have partnered with Meta before, for example announcing Office 365 support for Quest Pro, but all this meant was that the web version of Office would run on the Quest browser, just like in any other browser on any other platform, without any real adaptions for VR.

This looks the same: Microsoft "supports" Quest and even allows using their brand, but what you get is just another Game Pass client that runs the exact same flat games they already offer on other platforms, again incl. any browser.

So besides the color scheme and bundling hardware that you'd otherwise have to buy separately, the level of Microsoft's engagement seems to be limited to getting Game Pass onto anything from Xbox to toasters. This is part of their ongoing attempt to shift their gaming efforts from a trailing console platform to offering a gaming subscription service for a monthly fees everywhere, incl. the platforms of their competitors. They invested billions into Xbox and went on a very expensive spending spree, acquiring gaming heavy weights like Bethesda, id Software, Activision, King and many more, and want to recoup that by making sure that whatever piece of tech you use, you'll have the opportunity to pay them money.

I seriously doubt they care about Quest itself. In February we learned that John Carmack personally tried to convince Microsoft to allow Team Beef to sell the official game files of Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein with their ports for Quest on Meta's Horizon Store, of course paying Microsoft for the use. Carmack even offered to personally guarantee USD 1M in revenue as an incentive. And if Microsoft cared at least a little bit about VR games on Quest, all they would have had to do was say yes and then collect the money, as Team Beef had already done all the hard work. Using the game files from the PC version was already working, and all Team Beef was asking for was the permission to make it more convenient for Quest users to buy and play classic titles, all now owned by Microsoft. Microsoft said no.

For Meta the advantages are more obvious. Quest and VR in general have had a hard time to draw in regular PC and console players, so Meta probably hopes that the Xbox brand with the option to play tons of AAA via Game Pass, even if these are all flat games, will draw in more users that very likely will give VR games at least a try. Lowering the entry barrier is probably also the reason why they went with the cheaper and way more popular Quest 3S instead of Quest 3, which would offer a clearer image for flat gaming on a virtual screen. And officially partnering with Microsoft should address trust issues regarding ongoing support, so this (hopefully) won't end up like Netflix first neglecting their Quest client, and then finally completely dropping it and just pointing Quest users to use the browser version available everywhere.

A couple of hardcore Xbox fans will probably jump on board just because it says Xbox somewhere. Not sure how large the group of Game Pass users longing for large, virtual screens will turn out to be. And for others into VR, but not into the Quest 2/3 color scheme, this will be the first (mostly) black consumer HMD since the 2019 Quest 1/Rift S, ignoring the rather expensive and quickly discontinued Quest Pro in "professional" black. Unfortunately this is only a limited edition, which doesn't bode well for those hoping that this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Or those not convinced by Meta's HMD color selection, which is sort of the spectral opposite of the color selection once available on the Ford Model T:

Any color the customer wants, as long as it's black. – Henry Ford in his auto-biography.
- Herbert Werters
  
  I bet that most users who play the Gamepass on the Quest (Quest 3/3S) stop playing after 5 minutes. I couldn't stand it after 5 minutes because the resolution in my eyes is below 720p on the virtual big screen. I prefer any monitor or TV. Everyone has one and they are thrown at you for little money. Why should you play it with a pixelated quest? This edition is only bought because of the color scheme, as a collector's item. Most people will even sell the controller. I'm quite sure of that.
Sofian

Fresnel lenses should be banned.
- Bobobj
  
  Quest 3s has significantly greater stereo overlap than Quest 3, and runs games with better performance. Get over it.
- Mateusz Jakubczyk
  
  Even though I own a Quest 3 and am very happy with it, I really don't like the excessive arrogance of its users because of the lenses. OK, yes, pancake lenses are the best, but that doesn't mean that headsets with Fresnel lenses are useless. Most current VR users use Fresnels (owners of Quest 2 and 3S, PSVR2, Valve Index, and both Rifts) and are happy. There's no point in shitting on the Quest 3S because of the lenses, we should be happy that they are attracting more people to VR thanks to their lower price.
  - Rupert Jung
    
    I wonder how much pancake lenses costs compared to fresnel lenses. Didn't really like them on my PSVR2 after Quest 3. I personally will not by any headset with fresnel lenses ever again, pancake were a game changer. As much as the absence of a cable (IMHO).
Paul Tomlinson

I'm going to offer a positive take on this—while I agree it's mostly a marketing gimmick, and the Fresnel lenses of the 3S hobble the experience overall. But despite those shortcomings, I had also tried the XBox cloud gaming on the Quest family of devices and found it to be generally exceptional.

I do not have much time for gaming these days, sadly, so I let the subscription lapse. But if I had that time, enough to justify the expense (even an hour a week) this is absolutely the way I would engage in that gaming. The ready access to an expansive library, good quality and responsiveness on the streaming tech, the size/quality/privacy of the virtual screen, are all winning points and for me outshine the shortcomings.
VRDeveloper

I think here im the comments we’re not looking at the positive side, guys. This product isn’t for us.. it’s for the average consumer to start seeing VR differently. That said, I found the collaboration between Meta and Xbox very welcome. I’ve been seeing a lot of comments from people who normally dislike VR becoming more interested and less resistant to the idea. From there, it’s only a matter of time before they try out something like Beat Saber or Contractors and get hooked on VR. From my perspective, this is a bold move from both companies, I hope it works out.
- Mateusz Jakubczyk
  
  That's right, it's not a product for VR enthusiasts (and neither was the Quest 3S itself), but a headset that is intended to attract the attention of those who have not yet had any experience with VR. It's a clever way to attract new customers at a low cost. And for us, the bigger the VR community, the better.
- Herbert Werters
  
  I rather think that exactly those players who buy and test it because of the Gamepass will have a rather negative experience and then spread the good news that VR glasses are not even good enough for 2D content because the resolution is far too low and any cheap 1080p monitor is a better investment. I personally find the pixel mura effect on virtual screens a real dealbreaker.
- Christian Schildwaechter
  
  I’ve been seeing a lot of comments from people who normally dislike VR becoming more interested and less resistant to the idea.
  
  Can you point to a source where you found these interested comments? I may be frequenting the wrong sites, but the reactions from non-VR users to this bundle I found were way more negative than from VR users. Many people branding it as a futile attempt to keep Xbox relevant was one of the friendlier takes, and I really went looking for positive ones, checking more than a dozen gaming news sites.
  
  The five (currently) top rated comments from Eurogamer, which were not anywhere near the worst:
  
  – "Get in the bin […]"
  – "I hate it so much that I don’t even have the motivation to explain why."
  – "This is an Xbox VR headset ¹. […] ¹ Note Xbox and VR are mutually exclusive. […]"
  – "Absolutely pointless when it does nothing that the regular model can't do […]"
  – "Of all the ways to play xcloud, this is the worst. […]"
  
  VR users like it better overall, but the main reasons are either the color, or the hope that it will draw more users to VR. Not sure the latter will work out.
  - VRDeveloper
    
    I’m referring to people I know, as well as comments on gaming channels I follow and social media in general. I’ve seen more negative comments from people in the VR community than from those outside of it — like GamertagVR, for example, who’s basically expressing hatred for the idea hahaha.
Andrew Jakobs

Well I like the color much better as the regular version, always hated the white versions.
ZarathustraDK

"Let me sell you a device to get you hooked on 2 SaaS-subscriptions…".
This is basically Farmer John calling Old Myrtle to the milking machine.
Rupert Jung

Is the controller tracked by the camera of the quest or "invisible" as soon as you have the headset on your head?
- Mateusz Jakubczyk
  
  I don't know about the official Xbox app, but for example the free app Fluid tracks the Xbox controller.
  - Rupert Jung
    
    That's acually very cool, did not know that this is even possible without infrared LEDs but only a camera picture. Very nice!
guest

RoadToVR is getting heavy-handed with the ads. That autoplay AI snake-oil video is creepy and those new sort of popups that take over when one selects and article! Not to mention the recent increase of more comments being taken down.
- XRC
  
  Yup seeing a lot of advertising it's often taking over my smartphone display and I'm having to refresh the browser to make it disappear as there often isn't a close button
Herbert Werters

Has anyone here ever used Gamepass or Virtual Desktop/Steam intensively for flat games in VR? I can't stand playing such a flat game for 5 minutes. Has anyone played through a blockbuster like this? I can't imagine it's really fun with the resolution and the screen door moving across the virtual screen all the time. It's like a mura effect and an absolute dealbreaker for me.
- Christian Schildwaechter
  
  TL;DR: in the end, convenience always wins.
  
  I've played a couple of hours of Assassin's Creed Origins with Geforce Now streaming in Quest 3 at 1080p, without getting bothered by the resolution being effectively reduced not only by the pixels not aligning due to head movement, but also pixel alignment with a flat rectangular image simply being impossible due to the pincushion distortion in the lenses. You need about 140% supersampling just to compensate for the pixel size distortion in VR, so yes, 1080p will (in parts of the image) always look like 720p when projected inside VR.
  
  Interestingly in the past I was sort of a pixel fanatic in AC Origins, reducing the framerate so I could play it on a flat display in 4K. Origins is still one of my favorite games esp. due to the lush environments, but these days I mostly play it on a 1st gen LCD Steam Deck at 1280*800 on a very small screen, so projected 1080p inside Quest 3 would still win regarding resolution, and dominate in image size. I still prefer the Steam Deck.
  
  So I'd agree with you that only a few players will go for Game Pass inside Quest 3S, but don't agree that the resolution is the main problem. For some it will be. For some it will be the inconvenience of VR with many remaining issues like heat on the face that leads to a very noticeable drop in current user numbers every summer. For others playing games is about hanging out on the sofa with friends, snacks and drinks. And for a certain group being able to carry around a large virtual display, so they can quickly jump into a Game Pass stream wherever they have fast enough internet access, will be more important than resolution, latency, isolation or other aspects. We just don't know how many.
  - Herbert Werters
    
    Yes, exactly. The resolution is just one example or my personal reason why I would never play a game with it.
Derek Kent

I want it because it looks cool.

I have a 3S already. its the best thing ever.

I want the black one.