Meta
During Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote speech at Meta Connect 2024 on Wednesday, the Facebook co-founder and Meta CEO announced a new Meta Quest 3 headset priced at just $299. This officially marks an era where Facebook has become THE force to be reckoned with in the VR headset world.
I was actually fortunate enough to get hands-on with the Meta Quest 3S on Tuesday, a day ahead of the major announcement, during a demo day on the Meta campus and I was instantly convinced of this being the hottest-selling VR headset ever built after hearing that price point.
For starters, the Meta Quest 3 headset will have the same high-res full-color mixed reality capabilities/performance as the original Meta Quest 3 but at a price point several hundred dollars less. The Meta Quest 3 lineup is actually growing to include multiple new offerings…
The Meta Quest 3S will start at just $299 for the 128GB and pre-orders open on September 25th with first models hitting shelves on October 15th, months ahead of the Christmas rush. A 256GB Meta Quest 3S will retail for $399 and the 512GB Quest 3 model will now sell for a reduced price of just $499.99.
Meta
During demo day ahead of Meta Connect 2024, I got to experience the new gameplay of Batman: Arkham Shadow which comes bundled with any of the Quest 3 models and my dudes, this gameplay was insane. It had me gripping bars with my actual hands to climb up/down ladders. I was pulling aside hidden crawlspaces, fighting bad buys, all playing as Batman. I WAS BATMAN. YOU CAN BE BATMAN. Apologies to anyone out there who has had their eye-opening VR/Immersive Reality experience already but this completely blew my doors off.
I was also able to check out the new Meta Quest 3s Horizon World’s and watched a Jack Harlow concert and a Sabrina Carpenter concert as if I was standing on stage with them in full high-def visibility. There was a walk-thru of the multi-panel experience where you can have a web browser in one tab, YouTube in another, and Amazon Music playing as well.
There was a boxing workout I tried out which had me throwing uppercuts and jabs, switching up my stances, and breaking a sweat in no time… It sounds kind of silly but my biggest takeaway was this headset can go everywhere in life with you. Sitting in bed to watch TV where you can adjust the size of the screen so you get a full wall-sized TV experience, or on a plane where you can zone out in your chair, or while working, or on the couch for gaming, in the gym to break a sweat.
Meta
The Quest 3S comes with Prime Video, Twitch, YouTube, and Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta), Netflix with HD in Browser and the all-new Theater View experience is better than my 3D projector room at home and I’m saying this as someone who has a literal movie theater room in their house. It outperformed that!
I’ve been sort of lukewarm on the possibilities of VR headset and immersive reality for a while but sampling all of Meta’s latest offerings immediately converted me into an evangelist of how incredible these are. The Xbox integration
With every new feature I was introduced to all I could think about is how this new headset was worth a LOT more than it was priced at and that’s all before I heard of the new $299 price tag on the 128GB Meta Quest 3S. In addition to Batman: Arkham Shadow coming bundled with every Meta Quest 3 headset, the existing suite of games will all get performance upgrades. Games like Asgard’s Wrath 2, Red Matter 2, and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners that received Quest 3-specific performance updates will also work on the Quest 3S with upgraded svisuals and faster load times.
Meta
Ultimately, here’s where I’m at on this: I’ve tested out the Apple Vision Pro and it looks slick but when Mark Zuckerberg tested it himself back in February and ripped it apart as inferior to the Meta Quest 3 he was 10000% correct.
Not only is the Meta Quest 3S just a better overall product with game offerings, entertainment offerings, resolution, functionality, and every other feature…it’s also significantly more affordable.
As mentioned above, pre-orders begin on September 25th with the Meta Quest 3S hitting shelves on October 15th. I’m going to go on the record as saying this should and will likely be the hottest selling Christmas gift of the year.