What the heck? Only I go and look for stuff like this? I'm the only one?
Most likely not but you are the only one that shares it in this thread...
Bonus points if you can guess who is wearing the strawberry panties today...
No way I could guess it just from the picture but the artwork tells me it's Ichii Yuka
The other day I was looking for upcoming VR headsets from Meta and what they are up to in general and since this thread is also about VR hardware I wanted to discuss it. Like me you might have picked up the news that the Quest 4 is delayed until at least 2027 and I was wondering why that's the case. My expectation was that they have a three year time window between generations like it was the case for Q2 to Q3. This might be interesting for you even if you don't use a Meta/Oculus headset or their Horizon OS because it give you an idea in which direction this technology is moving in general.
But first let's get some recent hardware release from Meta out of the way that has little influence on this delay, the Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition
It's basically a black/green Quest 3S with an elite strap, Xbox controller and 3 months of Xbox game pass. It will only be released in the US for $399. Not a bad price for this package but besides the value it's nothing interesting or innovative. Why is Meta releasing it? The best explaination I have found is that they try to offload the 3S hardware since the sales figures for 2024 are rather dissapointing for Meta. They've sold less VR headsets in 2024 compared to 2023 (around -30%) even though 3S was just released in 2024. For that reason it's also only a "Limited Edition" for one region. I guess they offload excess capacity and if they are done they stop selling this product. Besides that they strenghen the integration of Xbox and Horizon I guess. Maybe someone else that know more about it can explain if this changes anything for Xbox users.
In 2024 it was first announced that Meta wanted to integrate external hardware into their Horizon OS (code name 'Tarius'). According to leaks ASUS with their gaming focused ROG branding will release the first third party VR headset for Horizon OS:
- gaming focused, whatever that means
- QD-LCD or micro-OLED display which would be much better than what the Quest 3 offers
- eye and face tracking
Not much else is known about this headset nor do we have specs or a release date. My guess is that it will be stupidly expensive for the hardware that is offered. We are talking about ASUS after all. Also features like eye and face tracking will add a lot to the costs and have no value to me. Project tarius has also other products, for example from Lenovo but those are even less interesting to most of us since they are more business focused. These products give as the first hint for the delay of the Q4. Like I said before 3S sales aren't that great and Meta might be less willing to subsidize new hardware. They make money primarily with their store and software sales, not the headset. So why not outsource the hardware to different companies and see how it goes?
The last product I want to mention is also the most interesting to me. Under the code name 'Loma' Meta is developing a completely different VR headset that focuses on "media consumption"
Of course alongside this release they have also announced partnerships with Hollywood studios like Disney and A24 for them to develop specific content for VR consumption. This all is based on data they have collected on Quest users and I guess they have realized that many (almost) only use the VR headset for this specific use case. Here are some specifics:
- weights only around 150g compared to the Quest 3 which is at over 500g. So it will most likely look more like bigger glasses than a Quest but we have no pictures yet. They archive this by having the battery wired and you are supposed to put the battery pack in your pocket. This is kinda weird and I have to see how it turns out in practise before I can judge it
- no controller required, everything can be controlled with hand gestures and so on. Honestely I personally don't need controllers and would prefer hand gestures. I guess controllers are specifically optimized for gaming rather than just browsing and navigating within apps
- for the display I quote: “more powerful than the current Meta Quest” ... “better video quality”. It also includes passthrough and the already used pancake lenses from the Quest 3. This is a must for me. I mean why bother upgrading when you are not even getting a better picture? I was also hoping they would specifically say that it will have an OLED screen but after reading the infos the having given so far I doubt it
- price below $1000 so it's more of a premium product but it want's to be compared to the Apple Vision Pro which was $3500
- should be released in 2026
Under certain circumstances this could be my next VR device. It depends on the display and how well this external battery works and also the battery life is important. We also have no concrete specs of this device yet. I absolutely demand a headphone jack OR they finally include good bluetooth support.
If you are like me and basically only use your VR headset for "media consumption"
Loma actually sounds amazing. Just having a super lightweight device like that with a great display that can be used standalone sounds great. What do you guys think of Meta's strategy for VR and their devices? Btw. what is everyone using? I only know that
@Walle12 has a PlayStation VR2 and
@chewbaka a Quest 3 like me.
