Meta announces its Quest 3 VR headset | Hacker News Reader

Meta announces its Quest 3 VR headset

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328 pointsmfiguiere572 comments

I'm surprised that more isn't done to sell these. I'm a tech enthusiast with disposable income, but the last headset I tried was an old Oculus one about a decade ago. I could see the promise of the tech but need convincing that it's come far enough for me to buy one.

And yet... trying these out just doesn't seem to be a thing anywhere. I can walk into any tech store and see a non-working unit in a glass case, or if I'm lucky pick up a slightly sticky broken controller, but I can't try one out for 5 minutes to see if I like it.

I'd bet that Apple's headset will be announced with a store experience to go along with it. I'm sure it'll be by appointment only to begin with as they'll have many more people wanting to try it than who will want to buy, but I'm sure there will be a way to experience them before buying. The Apple Watch was effectively a new product category where people needed a new level of persuasion, and Apple had fitting appointments that were very well done, and Apple Stores have always been known for being primarily focused on using the products, even letting you try AirPods, so I can't imagine these will be stuck in a glass case.

Well, they've sold 20 million Quest headsets [1]. This compares with ~38 million PS5s, and ~18.5 million Xbox Series X/S.

That's multiple generations of headsets, but given they iterate quicker than consoles, that still seems a somewhat fair comparison.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons...

It's more impressive than many people think, but in context:

- The PS5 sales have been notoriously hampered by supply constraints

- The XBox numbers are considered to be a major disappointment [1]

- The Quest continues to be crushed by the Nintendo Switch, which counted selling 18m unites in a year to be a disappointing result of supply constraints [2]

[1] https://kotaku.com/xbox-series-x-s-sales-microsoft-next-gen-...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/09/nintendo-full-year-earnings-...

That number seems astonishingly high. I’d be curious to see info on the demographics who buy these headsets (compared to PS5 for example).

That's a fair point, but I still feel like the sales pitch is lackluster. I only know 1 person with one of these (or who talks about it), despite being surrounded by high earning tech workers.

On the other hand when I think back to the Apple Watch launch, despite early models not selling that well compared to other Apple devices I remember plenty of friends having them.

The problem for Quest is not units sold, but retention.

Why must people continue to use the term "headsets"? You sound like you're 80 years old

Games sell game controllers, not the other way around.

When a sufficiently good experience is available for VR, which isn't usable without VR, then VR headsets will sell.

I've tried all the VR apps and games, and they all underwhelm.

For me Beat Saber is that game. With mods and community-made songs/beatmaps which can be quite intense and it's how I get in some cardio on a regular schedule (~1h30m on a two-days-on-one-day-off cycle).

Currently I do this with a Quest 2 attached to a Vive Deluxe Audio headstrap with 3D printed adapters and a counterweight on the back to take pressure off my face (a setup dubbed "frankenquest"). It works well enough but there's a lot of room for improvement.

I largely agree with you, however Superhot is the closest thing I've experienced to the "can't do it outside VR" games. I did previously play the browser version of the same game, and it was fantastic still, but there's something different about moving around in space like that.

HL:Alyx got close to the "only in VR" sort of mechanics, but change 2-3 big set pieces, and it could very much be done on a 2D screen.

Some games give me that experience:

1. Thrill of the Fight. Boxing standing up throwing fists and blocking with precision just doesn’t exist with controllers.

2. Blaston believe it or not. I really enjoyed hiding behind barriers dodging shots and leaping out to grab power ups.

3. The table tennis game. Swinging my arm like a real paddle was so realistic and the shots are just not reproducible with such precision.

4. Golf with the cut down iron shaft. Again, the fidelity of the shots just isn’t possible otherwise. You can get the same thing at some sports bars but it costs way more :)

There is a killer app for VR which isn't usable without VR, it's just NSFW.

I think vehicle sims are the best case for these things. They really do play better in vr.

Yet even so, of course you can still use a monitor, and of course that's good enough.

It's hard to imagine what a vr exclusive that couldn't be enjoyable on a monitor or TV might actually look like.

Beat Saber, Echo VR and Walkabout Minigolf are standouts

I see your point but I think both need to happen. My guess is that the best VR games will only show their real appeal when played, because people don't have a great frame of reference otherwise.

I can look at a PS5 game and decide to buy a PS5, because I know what controller based consoles are like, I know the types of games, I know what I like. I can't do any of that with a VR game because I don't know what sort of headset I like, how it feels, what's important in a VR game that isn't in others and vice-versa.

I’m still waiting for a good immersive VR game that I can just play while sitting on a couch… all those games that require me to move my entire body all the time get exhausting really fast.

Into the Radius is that game I think.. It is like Stalker Shadows of Chernobyl in VR .. I just think lots of people don't know about it. But its the game

You need to play Demeo.

They have a Non-VR version now so people without headsets can get in on the fun, but it's just not the same.

What have you tried?

aka, there is no killer app in VR.

I agree but I understand why it's not happening. It takes money and experts to set up and maintain headsets in dedicated test areas, resetting them, maintaining hygiene since these touch your hair so hair products seep into the strap and people's faces sweat into the goggle frames, etc.

Apple will be able to do that easily in its own stores. But it's a lot harder for Meta to get Best Buy and other retailers to do it -- not only will they have to pay them a lot of money, but they just won't be able to ensure the quality.

What is funny is that Meta did go through all the expense of setting this up with Best Buy for the Meta Quest Pro, and nobody even realized it was an option because they advertised it so poorly[1].

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/10/meta-quest-pro-hands-...

Absolutely, this is definitely hard, especially for Meta as they don't have an existing network of stores. But it still seems like a big miss that they've seemingly not even tried to make this a thing.

Maybe they should have partnered retailers, maybe they should have pop-up demo spaces, maybe they should be giving these things away to places like libraries or other public venues. They could also define what a good sales experience looks like, provide disposable or reusable pieces for contact, and so on. There is all sorts they could be doing!

Before the pandemic, Microsoft had retail stores were you could demo the Oculus Rift.

However with physical retail generally on the decline, who would be the partner now? Best Buy isn't doing that great.

I wonder if the apple vr headset is just a way to get people to visit their stores and buy something else

Hygiene is a problem. These things are not really comfortable, so put one on and you will inevitably start sweating into the facial interface. Safety is another issue; casually putting a headset on a member of the public led to a lot of injuries when it was tried in the past.

They come with a silcone "condom" for the facial cushion now which is easily washed :) Unlike real condoms these are reusable.

It wasn't the most glorious solution for their allergy problem IMO. But it does have auxiliary benefits.

Apple lets you try airpods in their shop

Anytime I look, the game library is sub par. I am a pretty regular console gamer and own different platforms. I would love to have one but anytime I look at to games, the list is years old and looks like like a dead ecosystem.

Also, if you want to play games on Steam, you need a PC capable of running them so if I am dumping a few thousand into a PC as well, would rather get the higher rated Steam headset for a few hundred more than the Meta.

Lastly, I don’t trust Facebook at all. I think the recent update was the first you didn’t need an account but some people I talk to like me are sketched out of a device staring at your face and expressions and wasn’t rated too high for privacy.

Here in Barcelona there is a display area at the local FNAC in the city center where you could try them out. The display area is still there (including huge marketing wallpaper) but the attendants are gone so perhaps it didn't work out. There was always a queue while they were doing it though.

I think part of the problem was it was during the end of the pandemic and perhaps people were feeling bad about sharing a headset, though they were rubbing it down with alcohol in between.

But considering the area is still there: Perhaps they are not doing demos all day. I'm not there very often.

You can buy a unit and return it if you don't like it.

In fact, that's a good way of actually telling Meta that you are not happy with it. Not buying doesn't tell them much.

That’s what I did. It’s cool but to own it I’ll wait one or two generations. Maybe I’m picky as a PC gamer but it was kind of a blurry, ghosting, unfocused experience no matter what I did.

This is possible only in the US, I think. In most of the world, you cannot return a working device that you just decided you didn't like or want.

Agree. I have a Quest 2, and two friends have since purchased them after trying mine out. If potential customers could just demo the damn thing, many of them would convert into sales. There is very much a "wow factor" after trying it out, even if many users do eventually get bored.

In December 2016 I tried a demo of an HTC Vive at a Microsoft Store (remember those?), and a few days later did a demo of an Oculus Rift at a Best Buy. The demo at the Microsoft Store was well set up - they had an associate handling the demo, an area set aside to do the demo, a speaker, and a display to show observers what was being shown in the VR set. The Best Buy demo was not as put together but was still OK.

Not sure why they seemed to be demoing it more then than now.

Quest 2 has been fun for me, but only because a handful of game. My kid played beatsaber for a while. I played paintball - a mini game inside recroom. And I still play a team sport called Echo VR which is shutting down in August.

We've tried a few others but nothing else really stood out. If there is a compelling sequel to Echo I hope I don't need to upgrade hardware and will just quit.

With most technology these days you know what you are getting, you don't have to go play with the new iPhone in the store to see how good it is, you just know. But with VR it's different in that it's still pretty new (in the context of everyday consumers) so being able to try it out before you buy is crucial.

Exactly, at the beginning of a tech cycle the public need convincing that it's even a product category they need. Currently I'm not seeing much from Meta or others to sell to the masses, only to those who are already convinced they need a headset.

Yeah, like toy and electronics stores had console demo stations out so the kids could line up and try different games.

I have no idea how you’d do this at scale, but you’re not wrong. I bought a Quest 1 around when they were released after trying a friend’s headset, I’d been on the fence before that, but afterwards I was totally sold.

It used to be easier before Covid. I was able to try both the Quest and Vive in a Best Buy in 2019.

The PSVR2 is pretty decent hardware, with great controllers, but a lackluster game library at the moment. It's bulkier than the Quest 3 but it also has good haptic feedback (in the headset too) so I guess that evens it out.

I think there's significant fear that the first time experience can be a little jarring and will just scare people away. That said, given the right support from a retailer, this could be a huge boon.

> I'm sure it'll be by appointment only to begin with as they'll have many more people wanting to try it than who will want to buy

The sweat is going to be disgusting.

> Apple Stores have always been known for being primarily focused on using the products, even letting you try AirPods

No Apple Store in asia let’s you try AirPods…

For one thing it's not being released until September. Also, they did so a lot of hands on demos of Meta Quest Pro when it came out some time ago.

If they had a store where everyone could try out headsets they would probably have to invent some sort of one-time forhead cover.

Have you been in an arcade recently? These already exist

This is an edge that Apple may have.

If it’s glasses instead of a helmet - that’s already going to remove a lot of friction to put it on and test it

> more isn't done to sell these.

Do they still require a FB account?

> And yet... trying these out just doesn't seem to be a thing anywhere.

If the experience of using them was actually marketable, it would be more of a thing.

I think they missed the mark with that trailer.

They promote it like it’s a skateboard: cool tricks, fast paced, hip and happy. I don’t think that’s why you want a VR headset at all, it’s actually the opposite: immersion, sinking into a another world, it’s concious dreaming.

The D&D pitch could be perfect. I’d love to play a VR/AR d&d game. But in the video, the first thing he does is take off the headset and smile? It makes no sense. He should be totally enraptured, not happy to take it off.

It’s like they don’t get their own product.

I think it's very interesting to just compare it to a wii ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTsF_v66HhI

I think it comes off as a lot more immersive. Look at the woman bowling. The ad really makes it feel like she is bowling and throwing the ball that is 1:1 with the screen (more than the actual game tbh). Compare it to the images of the guy jerking his arms around the one minute mark. The bit of the japanese dudes just stepping back and helping themselves to lemonade in t he background is funny and smart as hell.

We don't see what the VR guy is doing. He is alone while doing it. The content they do show is clearly fake, like the dnd.

High fidelity motion tracking has a lot of disadvantages tbh. Like wii bowling. You can't waggle the ball in front of you. It more or less just detects your swing. It does feel your toss is... "real" because if you don't do it the intended way it just doesn't work and if you do it right, it works great. See the number of VR games that try to implement awful "throwing" mechanics where it's just you releasing an attachment to the ball and letting the physics do the rest. Hard problem.

> We don't see what the VR guy is doing. He is alone while doing it. The content they do show is clearly fake, like the dnd.

I think this is lazy marketing indeed. Fb didn’t need to sales these and you can still feel it.

I still remember that Wii ad from when it first aired, which shows how good it was.

I disagree with you. That trailer makes it a lot more appealing to a broader audience.

It gave me strong vibes of Nintendo's ads for the Switch and Wii.

Even if they can sell VR as a fully immersive experience, I doubt that would be something that drives more sales than a bunch of people smiling after they've experience what the headset offers.

If Meta wants this thing to be big, they can't just capture people that want fully immersive experiences.

If that was the intent, I think they failed miserably. Nothing in that trailer looked even a fraction as fun or high quality as a Nintendo experience. In fact it just reaffirmed why I'd much rather play Mario or Zelda on Switch for a fraction of the price.

> It gave me strong vibes of Nintendo's ads for the Switch and Wii.

Nintendo doesn't make fully immersive games. They make fun games with often cartoon graphics and logic.

Which happens to be how people play "immersive" games anyway. The number of glitched GTA5 videos I've seen proves that its not really about immersion as much as it is about seeing if the physics engine of GTA5 can handle a car hopping across the skyscrapers or not.

Nintendo's entire pitch is: "Here's something we found fun", and it works. Because its not very clear that anyone else is focusing on ya know, fun things.

Considering the dozens of billions of USD already spent, instead of playing half-way, Facebook could have considered to have a fully immersive experience by choosing the same path as Neuralink; connecting directly within the brain, or in some areas nearby (like one company that Neuralink allegedly tried to purchase).

If it is possible to read your mind, then it will be possible to inject game and ads at some point.

Facebook could open a gigantic business model: "we are directly in the brain of our users, our users are happy and are connected to the Matrix (Meta), you will not find better ad placement than here".

I think it is just a challenge to market the experience. Immersion doesn’t look like immersion from the outside — all you know is you can’t see most of the actor’s face.

You also can’t accurately show what the user is experiencing because your advertising surface is typically not a VR device.

If someone can’t crack it then I guess the method will just involve grinding away at getting more users each generation so you can map their ad onto your own experience.

I think you're making an assumption that what you want from VR is what everyone wants. For me the last thing I need is total escapism or "conscious dreaming". The coolest thing I have done on VR is Superhot, an action game. And my main use case would be sim racing.

> He should be totally enraptured, not happy to take it off.

Most gamers don't want to make gaming their whole life. I want to have fun for 45-90 minutes and walk away.

They also don't do a good job marketing their metaverse.

Also: switch it up?

It basically doesn't say anything about what's new (besides color passthrough), that's rather annoying.

I love my Meta Quest 2, and I'll blindly buy Quest 3 as soon as available. It's an awesome game console, and the games' quality is very consistent (I also do PC VR, and even though PC VR has some neat stuff, it's much more effort. I usually can do PC VR only 1 hour in a row because any frame jitter gives nausea, while Quest manages 1 frame drops per hour).

That being said, I'm expecting to be let down: - No more Carmack. I'm pretty confident he helped push quality forward, and quality is really what puts Quest 2 ahead of its league. You must really have 0 head tracking issue and 0 frame drop. - the design with camera islands screams at "designers wanted a say", but they forgot practical use. Quest 2 was smooth, which makes it easy to put into a bag and out, and camera' lenses were kinda protected. Here you've got the worst part of all. If my smartphones are any reference, the ones with islands are scratched within 6 months. My Quest 2 is 2 years old and looks to be able to sustain 5 years without a hitch. I'm not optimistic about Quest 3.

>I love my Meta Quest 2, and I'll blindly buy Quest 3 as soon as available

As another happy Quest 2 owner, please wait for some reviews before puling the trigger. It seems most of the Quest 3 improvements come on the AR side, which I honestly don't care for, as I just want escapism out of my apartment in the form of immersive VR games.

Also, the Quest 2 will be getting extra performance via a SW update, so don't throw it away just yet:

"In an upcoming software update, we’re updating the Quest 2 and Quest Pro GPU and CPU. Quest 2 and Pro will see an up-to 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19% GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro."[1]

I'm honestly impressed how much graphic performance they can squeeze out of that old-ish smartphone SOC. Wish all SW companies would put in such efort in continuous performance optimizations, especially on the PC side (the Electron Windows 11 weather app uses 500MB RAM lol)

[1] https://about.fb.com/news/2023/06/meta-quest-3-coming-this-f...

Yup I completely agree with you. Quest 2 is an awesome game console because of the immersion. I expect AR to be as gimmick as it has been on smartphones (though I'll probably find a game or two that will be fun for few hours), but passthrough is a useful feature. My expectations on Quest 3 is exclusively better performance, to have a wider range of games.

I perfectly agree that the amount and quality games that can be squeezed on Quest 2's GPU is freaking awesome, but still PCs have better games, and I'm not just speaking of graphics. For instance "open world" games like Derail Valley doesn't seem possible when I see performance of Synthriderz on long "experiences". It looks like loading anything that isn't already in RAM is painful (which is weird for a unified memory architecture, but anyway)

The Quest 3 looks slimmer and lighter in weight, that might be a big win in itself if it is just as good as the Quest 2 (and doesn't regress like the Pro).

What are your favorite games? I’ve enjoyed super hot and beat saber. Those two have been the most compelling so far. Do you recommend some others?

I'm not GP, but here are the ones I've played the most:

- Walkabout mini golf (20h). Great for unwinding and the ball physics are nearly perfect.

- I Expect You To Die, 1 & 2 (15h). If you like puzzle games, these are fantastic. Super addicting the first time you play, but little replay value.

- Demeo. Like D&D-lite (10h). Can play co-op with other Quest users or with Steam on PC.

- Half Life 2 VR mod and Half-Life: Alyx (10h). I loved HL2 when it first came out so there's a massive nostalgia bonus, but Alyx is widely acclaimed.

- Pistol Whip (2h, but getting into it). This is a spiritual successor to beat saber.

The "I Expect You to Die" games are really good, there's a third one coming out soon (if I had to guess as a launch title for the 3).

Pistol Whip is an evolution of Beat Saber-esque rhythm games. Very fun, probably my most-played title.

The Last Clockwinder is a brilliant puzzle/action game that would probably be impossible to implement outside of VR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUVjNLc_X2M

As a metal music listener with fond memories of Guitar Hero, I’ve enjoyed Ragnarock a ton.

You play as the drummer on a viking boat, hitting the notes (similar to GH) to the tune of power metal. Nice workout, especially if you really get into it and start exaggerating your movements.

The trailer gives a better impression than I can.

I have no killer game, but I enjoyed many games. The most notables for me were I expected you to die series, A Fisherman's tale series, the last clockwinder, Synth Riders, Superhot

Personal favorite: Cosmodread. It’s a procedurally generated spaceship horror game where you must gather resources and not get killed by monsters to escape.

My first thought was - wait this sounds exactly like Quest Pro but a $1000 cheapwr

Same here.

I tried a Quest Pro for 30 days, but returned for various reasons - too heavy, poor battery time, rigid support, no top strap, no prescription lenses (at the time), etc. I was expecting Quest 3 to come at a much more reasonable price tag, and incorporate similar specs.

Jury still out, but it seems to be the case. Looking forward to testing it.

It even has a depth sensor that the pro is missing to gave better AR. The only thing that’s missing is face and eye tracking. No one cares about face tracking but foveated rendering is now supported for PCVR and it improved some standalone games too

Apparently, Meta sold as many Quest 2s as Microsoft sold Xbox Series X/S consoles (~20 million).

The metaverse is nonsense, and the Quest Pro flopped. But apparently the main Quest devices are pretty compelling toys.

I wonder if this is a high point, or if they’ll maintain the momentum. Also interested to see if they can ever really build out + monetize their game library .

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_co...

Yeah the Quest 2 was amazing, my first VR headset. I got my wife one, and she enjoyed messing around with it so much I ended up getting one, and we often play games together in VR.

Mostly though we use it for various workout apps.

It's my third headset, and yeah, it's amazing. My HTC Vive and Oculus Rift both just sit in a box somewhere. I just took the Vive lighthouses off my walls last week because it's obvious I'm not going to use it again.

If the Quest 3 can do every thing the 2 can do with better optics and controls, I'm 100% sold on it. They didn't mention linking it to the computer, but I have to assume that'll still be a thing.

What are your favorite workout apps?

It's so strange to me - so many devices sold yet I don't hear much about them at all. I hear about Xboxes somewhat, but maybe that's because I got one mainly as a Blu-ray player.

I hear about Beatsaber way more than I hear about anything Xbox exclusive.

The metaverse stuff (both the stuff directly attributable to meta and the way the NFT people grabbed onto the term) made it all mildly embarrassing to the masses and killed the pretty significant uptake they had.

Quest 2 had an extremely strong first few months. I'd be interested in seeing how spread out the sales have been

The thing about the Quest is two things matter for VR: - Ease of setup. Quest has always been great about this. - Content / library. Again, Quest has typically had the most content and titles.

I am excited for the Quest 3, more than anything from Apple. I spent hundreds of hours with the Quest 2. Most people didn't spend that much time with it, but there is an audience for this and I am one of them.

Quest 2 + virtual desktop to wirelessly stream from the PC is perfection.

My son uses the quest 2 daily to play Blade & Sorcery.

Not being locked down by cables is basically a requirement to me now.. I was in from the very first DK1 but once I got a Quest2 the cable free reigns supreme, even though I'm giving up a little bit of tracking compromise (cameras on device vs the steam/vive room tracking).

"Meta said that starting June 4th, the Quest 2 will drop its price by $100 to $299.99 for the 128GB version"

Ah, what a deal. The same price it was 1 year ago.

https://twitter.com/metaquestvr/status/1551975828442910720

In the meantime there's been inflation, the CPU and GPU are getting clocked up, and I believe the other SKU of the Quest 2 is the cheapest its ever been

Not cheap enough considering the competition are light-years ahead in terms of brand recognition.

They've lost $15b already, it's shocking that they're trying to break even on hardware instead of subsidizing adoption.

Considering 10% inflation in the meantime, that's actually a standard tech price drop.

According to this website it’s really only a $7-8 difference.

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=300&year1=2022...

That price is gonna look amazing in a week when Apple announces their weird expensive thing.

773 ppi vs >4000 ppi

It launched at 299 for the 64GB version, not the 128GB version.

Plus, there's actually been quite a bit of inflation since then.

Recognize that upon launch the 128gb version was $350 - they had a 64gb version that they don’t make anymore that was $300

Meta is moving the state of the art in headsets. It's great to see that the 15-20 billion per year isn't completely wasted.

However, its still a headset and so far the vast populace hasn't been interested in putting a headset on for hours. Clearly Meta is betting this is a "at the margins" issue, that by making the headset slimmer, cooler, and lighter that more people will start using them. I'm not sure, my guess is that the form base form factor is an issue.

Second, there is no user experience that is shockingly compelling yet. I have hope that generative AI can help here, but it looks like we are still a little ways off.

I think Mark knew he had to get away from Apple as they are a horrific partner, and he needed a platform, but the technology is too far off. He's using billions to jam a round peg into a square hole (IMO).

>I think Mark knew he had to get away from Apple as they are a horrific partner

Facebook is the company that almost single-handedly gutted the media industry over the past ten years with such smash hits as "just post all of your news stories directly on Facebook" and "pivot to video based on these absolutely fabricated numbers!" so I suppose he does indeed have some insight on what makes a horrific partner.

> I'm not sure, my guess is that the form base form factor is an issue.

It is for me. Having to wear a headset is a huge ask, no matter how slim and light it is. I'd do it for a compelling enough reason, but nothing in the VR space is anywhere near compelling enough for me (yet).

But I won't buy one from Facebook, no matter how awesome it may be.

> so far the vast populace hasn't been interested in putting a headset on for hours

It doesn't have to be "for hours" to sell a headset. I am happy to play games for 45-90 minutes at a time and I spend a lot on my gaming setup to do so.

If you think there is nothing compelling then maybe you have never tried Demo, Eleven Labs, or anything in this device which hasn't been released yet.

Hm he has a custom version of Android now with its own app store with millions of users. Wondering what one could do with it...

All use cases in the video are games.

I think that is the reason why I don't feel anything towards VR headsets. While I am totally into technology, I'm just not interested in games.

Actually, I am not interested in entertainment at all.

I wonder what makes people different, so that some are very much into entertainment and some are not?

> I am not interested in entertainment at all

This makes no sense to me. You don’t enjoy music? Movies? Books? Dance? Sports? Plays? Museums of any kind?

Have you always been that way? When I was very young I could entertain myself for hours in my backyard looking at shadows and insects.

When I watch a movie, I do enjoy it. But there are so much way more interesting and exciting things to do than to watch a movie. So I rarely watch one.

Books? Loooooove books. But they are usually about the real world. Science, biographies, theories ... I wouldn't call them "entertainment".

Never been much into dancing.

Doing sport is super awesome. But is that really counted as "entertainment"? Or do you mean watching sports? I find watching sports pretty boring.

Plays - whats that?

Museums? Hell yeah! But I never heard someone call museums part of the entertainment industry.

I feel the same way as the parent. Just about everything touted in the entertainment industry fails to hold my attention or generate any desire. I haven't felt the urge to watch a movie, play a game, or really engage with much marketed media in a while. Don't mistake me for being depressed too, I am quite happy.

I get a lot of fulfillment in life from fairly mundane things: work, socializing, exercise, reading about whatever niche I am interested in the moment. I don't think it's abnormal either.

The coolest thing I saw on the Quest was a 3D YouTube video - it was something educational ish about the universe maybe. Very immersive but they only had a few good ones

Its hard to make other use cases work when text is barely readable. The resolution just isn't there for productivity apps.

I'd be surprised if Apple doesn't lean into that angle with their new headset. Pixel density on phones was a problem before the iPhone 4, and they sold the heck out of the retina display. If Apple can make small text readable in VR they'll enable a whole world of new VR applications.

> text is barely readable.

I understand what you're saying, and I agree, but it's like saying a party is boring because there are no books.

The whole "meta" concept is that you're socializing in VR and it feels as if you're talking to your friend directly. I'm sure the resolution has improved in the new model, but even still, super sharp text isn't as important as you'd think to make the fundamental social use cases work

One day, there will be a VR desktop environment with floating windows that I can use.

People have been playing with it - but it's got a ways to go still. I would love working in VR with many, many floating windows all around, instead of contained within the 2 viewing panes in front of me IRL.

Floating windows are cool but VR operating systems will be much more interesting when they start integrating 3d tactile widgets and mixed reality. For example, to access your disk it could look like a shelf you pull down from above or something which renders each directory as nested boxes.

Or a collection of retro games could display in mixed reality as if it were real boxed games on a shelf along your real wall.

Or it could be integrated with a smart home control system so you could just point at a light to turn it on.

I bought the new HTC Vive XR Elite last month for just this use case. I had never tried VR before so I really didn't have a feel for whether it would work. It did not. There was so much glare and blurriness that I had to scale the font to huge headline size to read without strain. I returned the system. I'm more than willing to try again if there's a chance it might work.

In real life I do not have issues with motion sickness or claustrophobia. Both of these hit me when wearing the headset, particularly the claustrophobia. The nausea was mild but definite.

Even so it was an extraordinary experience, and I may be more excited about the potential of AR than before.

Lots of people are complete shut ins and/or tech fanatics. People with a life outside of computers aren't really interested in VR, it's a nice gimmick for a dinner at a friend's place but that's about it. I'd go even as far as to say even full blown basement dwellers aren't so interested in VR

I was really into it ~10 years ago when I was a shut in nerd, back then they were announcing the revolution, fast forward 10 years and literally nothing changed, it's still a gimmick for 99.9% of people.

Not necessarily true. There are some "productivity" apps, as well as streaming (does anyone use that though?), and also exercise apps (admittedly probably falls under the game categeory). And, honestly, I don't see this changing until inputs change. Things like coding, spreadsheets, writing, all generally require a keyboard and mouse. At minimum a keyboard. Maybe GPT powered headset that can really understand you and has the ability manipulate things / OS level access might eventually come about.

SimulaVR markets themselves as a productivity VR headset. Essentially, have as many terminals and other windows as you want floating in the air around you while still having the pass through cameras to see around them. The review copies are just being made now, though. Not really out yet. It is supposed to fit my huge noggin unlike almost every other headset, though, so I certainly preordered.

https://simulavr.com/

Adult content is a huge market for this imho.

There are a lot of use cases in B2B with VR but they are not easy to sell.

I remember a long time ago Silicon Graphics used to build Reality Centers. Their best sales pitch was some Oil company was building an Oil rig and using VR they could find - from blueprints - some valves were installed too high and that saved them a lot of money.

I worked for a company that had a software to scan train tunnels for inspection. It was cheaper and quicker than sending technicians there, but the interface -built on PowerBI was a pain. VR could be much better...

... but you need an easy way to build that App.

(btw if someone knows about it, just drop me message)

What did you really expect for this sort of venue? B2B clips would muddy the consumer announcement.

Are movies entertainment? There are movies that would probably count as the best hours of your life.

Dont get distracted by labels. Human talent gets expressed in many ways.

The important skill is to filter the crap.

If VR headsets had the resolution to be giant virtual monitors then that seems like a really cool use case.

What do you consider entertainment? Do you not do any activities or consume any media that entertains you?

Out of interest do you have strong interests elsewhere? Or is it just entertainment?

Have you tried Eleven Table Tennis in VR or any of the other sports titles?

The problem is two fold because the VR video games are boring.

Apple's strategy suddenly became clear to me while watching the Quest 3 promo video: they are delivering a platform, xrOS – an operating system – and not simply a high-spec VR headset.

The strength of the ecosystem will encourage it to be smoothly integrated into daily use, as opposed to being an awkward gaming device you pick up when you want to mess around in VR.

We'll see. Exciting times, the surprise announcement makes me optimistic for the quality of Apple's offering – Zuckerberg is worried.

I think Zuckerberg is excited. Apple will only expand the market. I think it will be strictly beneficial to Quest regardless of what the blog/tech comparisons say.

Apple expanded the market for smartphones, Blackberry couldn't take advantage. I see similarities here.

Zuckerberg should have gone with AR to begin with, VR is too much of a shift for people to context switch easily.

That's especially true since they won't actual compete since they'll be 5 times the price of the other. The Quest will be the demo for the Apple VR headset, and the Apple VR headset will give VR hype that will boost Quest. If they weren't just FAANG amplifying FAANG, I'd be happy to see such a win-win.

After we got used to multitask screen input in our lifes for years, VR is a huge bet that we somehow prefer single-focus-session in an environment controlled by someone else. No more checking messages in between, no more friendly distractions, and the VR companies have full control what we see during a session, including ads. This kind of hyperfocus is rare in most use cases, especially at work. I wonder how their UX reasearch justified the effort.

The Quest line of headsets support multiple applications open and usable at once. So does every headset that uses a PC.

but it is still a controlled environment, the amount of context switching with a vr headset is limited to a) digital content / applications and b) only to the extend that the VR headset manufacturer allows.

Consider how meta originally marketed it in a business setting - would the "virtual office" application allow you to check your private messages in between? This can be built in of course, but currently it looks like an afterthought at best.

I talked to some trainers in a company about VR trainings (my previous company produced such a course). Some trainers were interested in VR because it "keeps trainees from looking at their damn phones"

it's true but this seems mostly a software limitation, especially with quest pro / 3 which are true mixed reality headsets they could have you seamlessly blend in and out from reality. Other devices could also be integrated, like a virtual, mirrored version of your phone you could seamlessly use while exploring a foreign planet in No Man's Sky, you could mirror mail, discord or browser windows into the virtual world or get notifications synced from your phone and desktop, take voice or video (in avatar form) calls though your phone etc.

To extremely varying degrees some of this is already somewhat possible, but at the end of the day the Quest is just a low to mid-range phone running a proprietary nailed-shut android OS that's barely hold together by duct-tape. So Meta can't do much with the foundation they built, just like a tablet device its just a toy you aren't supposed to do anything real with it. Some of that is also the reason why Carmack left [1].

[1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/john-carmack-leaves-meta-criti...

Have you even used one? It has multitasking and notifications and all that. It's mostly just Android.

My previous company built VR learning apps (among other things). Immersive learning for trainees, but customers preferred implementations where trainees were prevented from doing anything else. That was not possible before

In fact it is Android.

VR covers your entire field of view, so not sure why you’d claim that it precludes multitasking, even if the current iterations aren’t yet geared toward that.

Lots of that field of view on most headsets is covered with a black abyss.

Multitasking as in, checking stuff on your phone in between, looking out of the window or at your cat etc

I can't help but hate that OLED has been replaced by LCD. I actually sold my Quest 2 and kept the 1 just because of this despite the 2 being better in virtually every other metric. I guess I'll have to wait and see how the 3 LCD compares. Note: I primarily use the Quest for streaming from my PC and low graphic games so I could live with the other tradeoffs. I would paid more for an OLED version of the 2 or 3 so I would eat the cost.

Pre-announcing something? Days before an expected Apple announcement in the same market?

Someone is getting nervous.

Sadly, it seems like all announcements get announcements now. I can't even draw conclusions about it, other than that the marketing people have really got their hooks in.

They don’t appear to have said anything other than it’s coming and better than the Meta Quest 2 (duh).

I hate the trend of pre-announcements too. It’s one of the things I like about Apple (though the rumor mill does it for them).

Even worse is the trend of announcing announcements. It’s been in politics for a while (“Today candidate Smith announced he will announce he’s running for President on the 12th.”), but we’re starting to see it with announcements for when details will be given about upcoming games, which is basically the same thing.

Link to press release: https://about.fb.com/news/2023/06/meta-quest-3-coming-this-f...

* 40% slimmer optic profile (without foam) * full color passthrough for AR

Is this just the Quest Pro rebranded?

Weird trailer. None of those games looked all that appealing, and more time was spent showing a person wearing the headset and making exaggerated gestures than the actual software or experience.

I'm not sure who this was for but it did nothing to make me interested in their headset and just confirmed what I already assumed about it.

I've never liked the English language trailers they use. The Japanese ones are pretty cool and worth checking out. Here are a couple examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Lp3rRjtfk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv0nAHRtBDw

> I'm not sure who this was for

Probably rushed to get something out before Apple. But given their Super Bowl ad two years ago, even with all the time in the world to prepare I wouldn't expect much.

I’m sure I sound like an old man yelling at clouds but I don’t get why there’s such a push for these platforms.

I got an email from Apple about their event this month, and it said “Code New Worlds”, which in my mind seems to confirm they’re actually going ahead with an AR/VR device. Why?

Where is the market? How many of these things sell? What do people actually do with them?

I like the idea of an AR experience for enabling better work environments, even as a programmer, but my sense is that these technologies are very far in the future still. These will be toys for a while yet.

So what’s the motivation to get into this space? What is the opportunity that Apple sees, for example?

Part of me is optimistic that there’s some incredible application around the corner and it’ll be an exciting moment in the digital space. The other part of me feels like we’re really grasping here, and it’s just a toy (albeit a pretty cool one).

I'm super sceptical about VR for anything outside of "dock" games like car racing and spaceship simulators and still am. I have however, got a pair of Xreal "AR" glasses that are basically a pair of sunglasses that allow you to have a 120" projector monitor (or set of monitors) wherever you want and they are absolutely awesome and I can definitely see that kind of product becoming the new normal. The ergonomics, price ($399), flexibility to take wherever you want and productivity are just so much better than traditional monitors and televisions.

It is absolutely amazing to just plug in a pair to your phone/tablet/computer laid down in bed and watch a film projected on to your ceiling. People are hooking them up to Steam Decks and they also say it's amazing just being able to play whatever game they want, wherever they want, on a massive screen. Going to be a game changer for anyone who spends a lot of time travelling or commuting on public transport but will definitely filter into the general office and home spaces as well. Will save both companies and consumers a substantial amount of money.

These glasses have been such a game changer for me that I now have ordered a Steam Deck and, depending on how well I get on with SteamOS and Linux, may end up selling my Macbook Pro which would be the first time I've not had an Apple computer since around 2008/9 (save for a few years when I was super poor and couldn't afford one).

I mean, have you ever tried one? That seems to be missing from your post.

Some people think stereoscopic depth in visual mediums is more entertaining or interesting than flat images. The same way some people preferred color television over black and white when it became available.

Adding a z-axis (depth) is a higher resolution, higher bandwidth signal.

> I like the idea of an AR experience for enabling better work environments

Same here, but I don't think the ecosystem/market is ready for serious work, it's all too brittle and the UX isn't nearly there yet. So I'm waiting.

> Where is the market? How many of these things sell? What do people actually do with them?

But I do own a HP Reverb G2, mainly for playing simulation games like flight simulators, and racing simulators. Once you get used to having a spatial understanding of the environment because of virtual reality, it's near impossible to go back to using traditional monitors against. The immersion is 100x better and your skill increases as well, just with a VR headset (in the genres I play).

But outside of simulation gaming, I have 0 use cases for VR, it's basically a fun toy at this time. But I think probably in the future there will be more use cases, but remains to be seen.

My teenager plays the Quest 2 daily. Sample size of one (sorta), but he plays with all of his friends. He's in our living-room for a few sessions each day. And, FWIW, it seems like an intense cardio workout for him each time, which I like.

> So what’s the motivation to get into this space? What is the opportunity that Apple sees, for example?

I think for Apple, it's just another new personal computing platform. Just like personal media devices, phones, tablets, TVs, smartwatches etc. They may not necessarily see a big opportunity. They simply cannot afford to ignore a new computing platform.

My fear of buying any of these is the lock in. I expect them to be like my TV. I plug in my streaming service, PS, xbox or any other input and it transforms my world. But now I have to choose if I want VR for my PS games or if I want to enter Meta's new game collection. By I already know what games I like, I don't want to adopt new ones because of my VR platform choice. If I want it all I need to pay $400 x 3? No. They can keep their ecosystems.

I think the tech is not there yet, but imagine you could do everything you can do with a smartphone, but without holding a physical device, except maybe for input. Your entire vision is the screen. Virtual objects are seamlessly embedded into the environment. It's unobtrusive and ubiquitous.

I think that is the endgame for AR. And I think it'll be the next major platform, replacing smartphones.

Personal computers were considered just toys with very little real-world value for a long time too. And you might be limiting your thinking with VR/AR. Do you or anyone you know use face filters? That's AR. Lots of the rising generation are already stoked in VR/AR. Also Meta Quest 2 has sold 15 million headsets, that's hardly something to scoff at.

It's an entirely new category. When you're an Apple or Facebook, there isn't much further you can go with mobile phones or violating users' privacy respectively, so you need to explore new markets to expand.

IMO AR is the truly useful application of the technology, but the hardware needs to be basically goggles that can stay on your head all day and we're nowhere near that. VR is primarily useful for videogames and porn. Lots of money in gaming and porn, but not widely applicable like a HUD visible at all times.

They want to surveil what you see so they can sell it back to you as ads

Probably the first company that creates somewhat usable AR will secure a good share of future market

I absolutely must have one to display on my bookcase

I guess the market isn't there because most of the devices kinda suck. They are bulky and ugly, glasses compatibility is not 100%, some people still get vertigo. Those devices are not attractive to the buyers at all IMO.

I'm kinda curious about the Apple VR headset - I expect it to be marketed more towards creative professional audience and less towards gamers. The few VR games I've tried have been unimpressive, but maybe there is some future for this tech in other areas?

Meta hopes that this could be their Windows 3.0 moment.

With desktop GUIs, Apple created the market and built a beautiful product that was also expensive and closed (the Mac II).

Microsoft's cheap GUI environment seemed like a pointless also-ran for years, until suddenly the software and hardware stars aligned and it was good enough to power 95% of apps that people wanted, for a fraction of what Apple charged.

Of course we haven't yet seen what Apple Reality Pro actually does. Looking forward to it!

Hopefully this one has better speakers. The speakers in the Quest 2 were actually worse than in Quest 1. I don't mean from a sound quality perspective, but from a usability perspective: they literally tickle my skin and I wonder if there is something about my head shape that makes this happen or if everyone experiences it and just lives with it, it's super horrible and distracting.

Using earbuds with the Quest gives a much better experience.

Would never strap anything under Meta control to my face, but would love to see a deGoogled/deFacebooked Android rom for an affordable headset like this one.

Carmack pushed for this on the Oculus Go while he worked at Meta: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/27/22696030/oculus-go-root-a...

It's extremely unlikely they would do this for the Quest ecosystem, but it would be the ultimate act of goodwill towards the community. Who knows though, I think they still officially support sideloading so technically anything is possible.

Has anyone here built a business around the Quest 2? A game or app, or custom development? I actually love the device, but I’m not sure how easy the ecosystem is for developers, nor how much traction the device has (or could have) as a non-game app platform.

Yeah. It's extremely difficult to impossible without existing connections, being an incumbent VR app, popping off independently, or being an established game development studio. Even harder if it's a non-game as Quest 2 is treated like a console.

You can put your marbles in, but your fate will depend on Meta opening the gates for you, and that's a risky proposition.

They have their own sideloading channel, App Lab, but it's where apps go to die. Very few will rise up to the official store.

My intuition based on previous Facebook-based business is that depending on anything by Meta makes for a very risky proposition - it might be doing great at any one moment and be completely shut down or just made non-viable the next.

This is not really true? The Oculus Quest lets you sideload whatever apps you want. If Facebook spurns you and deletes all your dev account data, you can still build, deploy, test, sell and distribute your app or game without them.

If Apple's headset looks anything like their phones, it will probably be the more fragile platform to depend on.

This is what I was afraid to hear, thanks for sharing this. My guess is that if you want to build on their platform, you’ll have to kiss the ring of social networking, which is something I’m not too interested in.

The primary advantage of the Quest 2 was the price, so I hope they don't discontinue it given that the Quest 3 is apparently $200 more expensive. It is still likely to have the biggest disadvantage of the Quest 2, which was the mandatory Facebook/Meta/Horizon Worlds stuff and the absolute headache that came from their account migration/connection shenanigans.

> It is still likely to have the biggest disadvantage of the Quest 2, which was the mandatory Facebook/Meta/Horizon Worlds stuff and the absolute headache that came from their account migration/connection shenanigans.

The Facebook account thing ended in August 2022. https://about.fb.com/news/2022/07/meta-accounts-and-horizon-...

You still have to have a Meta account, which to many people (including me) is essentially the same thing. No thanks.

The account management is still breathtakingly complex and confusing. The switchover in August '22 was a nightmare. I'm sure there are still people who are locked out of their headsets because they couldn't figure it out. And this is on top of the mess they created when they forced the Facebook account integration.

It's worse than the Mojang->Microsoft account mess, and that's saying something.

They did a price drop on it, seems like it will stick around until they can make the Quest 3 a more consumer-friendly price.

Wow, no eye tracking.

My prediction is that eye contact will be the “killer app” of VR. I keep waiting for someone to release an affordable headset that would let you make eye contact with your family/colleagues.

But here we are, 4 generations in and Meta isn’t doing it.

Kinda bizarre, but the future can wait I guess. Hopefully the Quest Pro will prove out the use case at least for the business market.

Indeed, it's an odd move, because they've gone all in on mixed reality which must have pushed the cost up considerably, but left out the one piece of hardware that was actually essential for their "metaverse" vision to really succeed. That means it'll be years now before there's even a viable piece of hardware for it.

It honestly feels like Zuckerberg is chasing Apple here (which is a weird thing to say when Apple hasn't even released anything). He doesn't want to lose the race to true AR. But at the same time they have absolutely failed to release anything at all compelling in the mixed reality space for the Quest Pro. It all feels very unfocused / uncoordinated.

I think they would have been far better off dropping mixed reality, putting basic eye tracking in and selling it at $399.

You think it is a good idea to track how eye subconsciously moves, and to trust that data with Meta? Don't mind if I skip that tech lane.

Does that thing still requires a facebook account to be used?

IIRC there was a famous article here some time ago, how some folk got banned on facebook and got locked out of his Oculus.

Last I heard it requires a Meta account now. Which is a totally different thing because it has a different name.

It is different in the sense that you can sign up for it without having a Facebook account and actually not have them connected at all. It's good enough for me. What was not good enough was having your Messenger friends randomly inside your VR headset, and that has been fixed.

Then I think I'm not interested.

If I need to have a Meta account to enjoy this, it can stay on a shelf.

There were two potential concerns about accounts and one of them has been resolved:

1. Requiring an FB account resulted in users who were banned on FB not being able to use their Quests. This has been resolved since users only need a Meta account now.

2. Concerns about having any account with Meta. I doubt this will ever change since they're selling the headsets at such a low price and obviously want to make some money selling users software/games.

During the pandemic I would hang out on calls with a few buddies that got the Q2 or had the Q1. We played some games, but by far my favourite was a cheap Google Streetview browser app called "Wander". We would get on a call (the audio was crystal clear on the Q2s, but not on the Q1s) and go as a group in the app. We would "walk" around different places and talk about a mix of the place and general chit chat. Sometimes a person would show others where they grew up, or spent some time living, share interesting tidbits about that places. Other times, we'd play a game where one person would select a place on the map and the others would try to guess where in the world they were.

Anyway, I didn't care much for VR games and I wouldn't be surprised if mainstream use of VR is not games. Meetings are way better than Zoom/Meet whatever, watching movies on planes and such is way better than on a phone or tablet, with better resolution working would be viable and passthrough would enable things like redesigning your home in a way that's simply not possible with any other screen. There's tons of great non-gaming use cases for VR that's significantly better than any other platform.

Also announced here: https://www.meta.com/us/en/quest/quest-3/

$499.99, no hardware details yet?

Most curious about FOV and resolution.

I believe it is a "Snapdragon XR2"-based headset. So you can look up the specs on that I guess.

I still don't understand why I would want one of these. There's no killer app that makes any sense to me.

I mean, I absolutely do not want one from Facebook, or anything else from Zuck, but even if a company not founded on advertising revenue offered one I don't know why I'd want it.

Pretty much the only app I use is the Wander app (Google Street View browser). I don't see the appeal of games but for static stuff i d say it has a lot of use cases (Architecture etc)

I pretty much only use it for games with friends. Some of the Mini Golf, Ping Pong and Chess games are pretty good.

I don't want one of these because I want to be invested in games, not immersed. The first time a Gloom Spawn jumped out at me in TotK was bad enough and that was without a headset putting me in the position of actually having my life-force drained from me by shrieky-hydra-hands.

I play about 4 days a week, the game Population One is awesome. I'll buy Quest 3 as soon as its available.

I don't want one either but I'd imagine porn is 'killer app'.

"But that’s not all! In an upcoming software update, we’re updating the Quest 2 and Quest Pro GPU and CPU. Quest 2 and Pro will see an up-to 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19% GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro."

I have a Quest 2 and use it occasionally, I have basically relegated it to only gaming. The displays are just too low resolution to try productivity, not to mention passthrough being barely usable to find something on your desk. So this seems like it should improve on the issues I had with the first gen with higher resolution displays, color passthrough, and improved performance.

I am a bit confused on the placement of this device in comparison to the Quest Pro now though, does this have better resolution? Processor? Passthrough?

Definitely an interesting month for the VR/AR world with Apple's announcement coming next week.

I don’t think you can compare the quest2 to the displays and optics this thing probably has. I have a quest pro and the display and optics are like night and day compared to the 2. The problem I see is the application stack is terrible on the quest platform.

I find it interesting just how quickly the interest in VR/AR, NFTs and the Metaverse dried up. 1 year ago this announcement would have made waves around the tech and gadget space, now its an in-other-news story.

To be fair, this is a pretty lackluster "announcement". They basically said "hey, here is some new hardware that is a bit better than last years model"...and forgot to say "hey, here are a bunch of new ways this will actually improve your life".

Better resolution...great. Am I actually going to be able to read text comfortably for extended periods to do work within the headset? Better passthrough...cool, but does that enable any new mixed reality setups? Can I use other devices around me or sip my coffee without taking the headset off?

I expect next week we will see a lot more interesting experiences from Apple's announcement.

Well, now it's all about AI... people seriously believe ChatGPT may exterminate human life.

That's the thing about hype: it eventually evaporates, leaving just disappointment.

> Meta has officially announced its Quest 3 VR headset in a post on Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram.

The future is weird.

My biggest complaint about my OG Quest is the weight against my face, so the 3rd gen being thinner and lighter is great news.

As a side note, I miss the Oculus branding. Meta Quest never sounds right to my ears.

Agreed, the Oculus brand always felt great to me and seemed to have a lot of goodwill from early adopters. "Meta Quest" never parses right for me, neither do any other "Meta <brand>" names as I hear terms with "meta" at the beginning too much.

I wonder if "Quest, by Meta" would work better in branding.

Did they solved the problem of needing a Facebook account to use it and when you create one just for it they ban it for violating the TOS and you’re left with an expensive paperweight?

Yes. There's a new account type called a Meta account which doesn't require a real name and isn't tied to a Facebook account.

This gets asked a dozen times in every comment thread about the Quest. Maybe a bot should automatically post this information at the top of the comments to avoid the noise.

You can try Quest headsets at retail stores like Best Buy.

Having eagerly bought the Quest 2 as a first-time VR enthusiast, I don't think I'll be buying the Quest 3, or any other headset for a while.

The problem is the software. There just isn't enough high quality software of it being released.

It kind of reminds me of the Xbox. It's like, this capable platform. But it just has no games that I'm interested in, as opposed to the Playstation or Nintendo.

Announcing it now, with no specs and no release date, and only a promise of discussing it more in September...clearly meant to draw attention away from whatever Apple announces next week.

As far as VR goes in general, HN is extremely crotchety. I love VR. I love games in VR. I love sculpting in VR. I love hanging in VR. But what I'm really excited about, as someone with a tendency to change seating locations constantly throughout the day, is working in VR. I want a multi-monitor setup in bed. I want one on the couch. I want one on an airplane, in an Uber, etc.

I was hopeful with the Oculus Pro, but I've heard that the resolution just isn't there, for programming tasks it feels like you're reading text on a 720p CRT.

I have high hopes for this space, and am very excited to hear more about this, as well as what Apple announces. What I don't have high hopes for are the responses to my VR enthusiasm. I understand that you would never strap something Facebook makes to your head, or that you just don't like the one or two gimmick games you tried, that's okay.

Me and my kids are excited for it. We've had our Quest2 for a few years and really enjoy it despite a few Meta-related annoyances. One thing I really wished for was better was the passthrough and I hope this delivers. There are a lot of cool game tech demos out there held back by current passthrough quality. Local multiplayer passthrough VR just sounds like a lot of fun.

This looks like a great improvement over the Quest 2! It will be interesting to see Apple's headset in comparison. Beyond the obvious price difference, I'm guessing Apple will focus more on personal communication (FaceTime) and productivity (floating iPad apps). Will it be a hard sell when the Quest 3 is pretty good? Guess we'll find out…

The thing that matters is a huge portion of the existing mobile apps will work.

That seems like a massive oversight by Meta to not work on supporting Android apps. Since it's actually similar to Android under the hood I believe.

Another surprise front-running tactic from Meta to derail Apple's headset announcement; just like what Microsoft did to Google 3 months ago.

Given they decided to announce this earlier they must have looked at the Apple XR spec leaks and will undercut Apple's efforts to attempt to sell their headset. The first new form factor of an Apple product is the worst one to buy (Unless you are a collector)

Meta is clearly far ahead in AI, XR and vision research than Apple is. But then the goal is obvious and it is the AR glasses. Either way, the death of Meta Platforms Inc. (Formerly Facebook) has been greatly exaggerated here.

We'll see about Apple's headset but the leaks only show that the hardware and the price is very underwhelming. The most important thing to look out for is the software. But no doubt that Apple will try to justify the high price at the last minute.

Quest 2 screens are 773 ppi. The leaks say Apple's will be 4000.

I'm not sure how that comes across as underwhelming to you – it seems to me like Apple (unsurprisingly) is going for the high end market with specs to match.

> just like what Microsoft did to Google 3 months ago.

Except MS actually did steal Google's thunder. This trailer did nothing but confirm how boring Meta seems and just made me more curious about what Apple's offering will look like.

> what Microsoft did to Google 3 months ago.

And what Meta did to openAI with Llamas

It's use cases not software.

Gaming with headsets is sweaty but fun and Sony is the best company for that (PS5).

For business who will style themselves and than will use a headset like this?

As usual I'm very very curious about the anouncment.

I can see are/vr in the long-term for being cheap enough that you buy one for a main unique purpose like building your house and potentially for the regular online game session but not as something which will change our environment.

> In July 2022, Meta raised the price of the entry-level Quest 2 from $299 to $399, citing a rise in the costs to manufacture and ship the device. It said on Thursday it will lower the price of that headset back down to $299 beginning June 4.

That's interesting, are prices coming down now?

Isn’t it just because a new model is going to be released?

How’s the privacy with this? Do you need a Facebook login?

You used to but fortunately they've walked back on that. You still need a login but it's separate from a FB account

You can make a one off meta account but the purchases would be associated with that account. You could do side loaded things though, no problem.

No. You do need a Meta account which isn't tied to your real identity.

I've been hoping that Valve or another manufacturer would release an untethered headset, but I might pick one up if that doesn't happen soon. I'm not a fan of the Facebook/Meta ecosystem, but I stopped using and never upgraded from my Rift due to space issues which are worsened by tethering and sensor placement requirements, and getting tangled up in the wire when turning and moving around.

How (in)convenient is streaming to it from a PC/Steam? How about from a different room, is it very sensitive to signal strength? Is the added latency noticeable?

How does one go about becoming a distributor of Quest products in countries which arent served at all by Meta? Considering I can leverage existing infrastructure and network connections to bring it to market?

The overwhelming positivity of the youtube comment section is suspect for me

There's a small but passionate group of VR enthusiasts, more so than most other consumer tech categories in my experience

The games are nice but noone mentions the fitness apps. I use my quest 2 for cardio/workout and some of those apps get my heart rate up faster than running or other forms of exercise.

How do you prevent the straps and padding from getting nasty with sweat?

You gotta wonder how many generations of hardware can they got through before people stop feeling like its reasonable to point at beat saber (2018) as an example of the platform being good.

Can someone please tell me how do these headsets work for high-powered glassess? I would love to buy one but I'm afraid I can't switch to contacts for these.

Depends on whether this new device follows the Quest 2 design or the Quest Pro. I suspect it’ll be like the 2, judging by it having a full gasket.

For the Quest 2: you can purchase premade lens kits with your prescription that snap on over the fresnel lenses. If you want to save a decent chunk of money, there’s DIY kits you can 3D print/Etsy. You also CAN use your glasses in a pinch, but it’s an unenjoyable experience imo (and can be impossible if you have really chonky frames).

For the Quest Pro: it feels almost like the thing was made with glasses-users in mind - provided you don’t use the light gaskets (which I personally rarely do). I believe there’s also the same aftermarket lens adapters like on the Quest 2, but I’ve been quite fine using my glasses so I can’t confirm it.

there is also this., https://www.meta.com/quest/accessories/quest-2-virtuclear-le... I use something like this for my Quest 1 and its good

I own both the Quest 2 and the Pico 4. The Pico is significantly better across the board. Better screens, much lighter, better controls, runs cooler. I can easily use it until the battery runs out whereas the Quest 2 would give me headaches because of the neck strain. It's too heavy!

Things I would love to know is:

- How does it compare to the Pico 4? - Screen specs - FOV specs - Pass-through, is it better than the Pico 4's?

Looks great to be honest. The worst thing about the Quest 2 was the size and crappy pass-through.

Will be interesting to see how Apple's headset compares.

I think an underappreciated hurdle is how silly headsets look. I don't want to embody/identify as someone with a computer strapped over my eyes like a blindfold. It's a bad, even dystopian image. Personally, I think a helmet would be much more appealing form factor, and you have the digital astronaut/crusader allusions.

You never take your quest out in public. Being “stylish” would be a waste since no one is going to see it outside of your home.

I’m not sure how major of an upgrade this will be. From a gaming perspective, 2x the GPU will help. The Quest 2 graphics are pretty basic but they get the job done. The MR seems like it’s a solution searching for a problem.

I’m waiting for a headset that I can use during travel in place of an external monitor, but I don’t think this is it yet.

External monitors is more of the Quest Pro schtick. If you look at the marketing materials, Quest 2/3 is all games while Quest Pro is all work stuff.

I’m actually excited for the MR use cases - I love playing board games online+phone with friends. Would be super cool if I could see them/the board in a more real way.

I'm pretty sure timing of this announcement is not accidental, it's basically the last chance before WWDC.

If Apple announces at VR/AR headset that looks comparable to the Quest, I think the choice is a no-brainer if you care about privacy. And if you're already in the Apple ecosystem, I can only assume that my Apple headset would work seamlessly with my Mac/iPhone/iWatch/iPad.

Perhaps but I think it is quite unlikely the Apple headset is going to be anywhere close to $499. $1499 is more likely. Knowing Apple it will be higher than my guesstimate but we will know soon enough I guess.

As for this new Meta Quest headset. There is nothing Meta make I would touch with a 10 foot pole for personal use. I don't use Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp and I don't plan to change that anytime soon.

Hell I have all of Meta's known domains blocked at both the network and browser level so I don't stumble onto something.

Meta, to me, is toxic.

Based on current rumors, the Apple headset will have better display tech, but no controllers (only hand gestures), a separate battery, limited software, and a much, much higher price. For casual game-oriented use, the Quest will be the better choice for most.

What if valve released a standalone VR headset? For me that would be the no-brainer.. a (most likely) open platform + large library.

Eye tracking is hardly mentioned in this press release but I think is a Huge Deal. Will allow foveated rendering (huge optimization) as well as increased emotional connection in face to face experiences.

"The eyes are the window to the soul."

edit: My mistake, I misread the PR, quest 3 does not have eye tracking. Boo.

Eye tracking isn't mentioned at all. I don't think it has eye tracking.

The Bloomberg report seemed to imply that this one won't have eye tracking.

No eye tracking based on all the leaks, which appear to have been 100% accurate.

I wonder if Quest 2 sales have tanked enough that they don't mind Osborne'ing themselves.

Did they tank? Judging from what I've seen it looks like they're shipping ~5 million units a year:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/16/22785469/meta-oculus-que...

https://www.uploadvr.com/quest-2-sold-almost-15-million-idc/

https://www.uploadvr.com/meta-sold-20-million-quests/

Wonder if this was released at this particular moment to time it with apples upcoming AR device.

I like my Quest 1 for fitness games, but what bothers me most is the low resolution/screen door effect. No mention of any spec improvements in that area. Looks like the official announcement only mentions "higher resolution".

Quest 2 improved the visuals and Quest 3 improves it more. That has not been a secret.

Nintendo should be worried...

then again, they tried something like this already. but it never took off.

virtual boy (iirc?) I was still a kid... the technology has come a long way, they should be already working on doing something in this space... again.

They did a shy little experiment with Nintendo Labo VR, it has also a little integration with Zelda Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey. I would expect Nintendo to be the last player into VR because 1) the association with Virtual Boy 2) Nintendo's long history of only jumping into a technology after it is well established.

They did in 2019

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/nintendos-first-vr-pr...

The VirtualBoy was famously a disaster for Nintendo. They slashed its price from $180 to $100 within a year of release, and I got one brand new from Toys R' Us later in the year for $30. I actually still have it, though I no longer have the stand or the eye shield.

I've been solodevving a VR game on the side since half-life alyx came out. Honestly the pace of hardware advancement is a bit demoralizing as my game is effectively tuned for Quest1 graphics

I still think they need to come down considerably on the weight. Until it is as light as wearing sunglasses, I think it's going to cause fatigue, especially for children.

It's not a solution to drive adoption, but if fatigue due to the weight is an issue for today, one solution is to add more weight on the other side of your head.

I bought some head-mounted night vision gear a couple of years ago, and found that even a single PVS-14 (easily <1/2 the weight of a Quest 2) mounted in front of your eye is heavy enough to cause neck strain after an hour or two, especially if you're moving around a lot. A properly fitted helmet with a chin strap helped keep it in place, but the neck fatigue remained. I added a small sandbag on the back of my helmet to offset the weight of the optic, and the problem was almost entirely resolved.

With my Quest 2, I replaced the OEM strap with a "comfort head strap" From KIWI design. I then found a USB-C power bank that weighs about the same as the Quest headset, and 3D printed a holder for it to attach to the hard plastic frame of the head strap in the middle of the back. Not only has that resolved my neck fatigue issues, but the battery pack means that I can use the Quest 2 all day if I wanted without having to recharge, and without being wired to an electrical outlet.

I personally have 4 quests and the only use case I use somewhat regularly is shapesxr. Everything else is decent but not really compelling. Have spent about 200 on games

Still no word on the GTA: San Andreas port despite it being announced 2 years ago by Zuckerberg himself :'(

I was hoping for some news during this gaming showcase.

Can we use one of these without a Facebook account?

I think I'll get back into Beat Saber with this, loved the game on CV1 but the cables were a nuisance so ended up selling the goggles.

BTW the main Beat Saber guy left Meta recently https://twitter.com/JaroslavBeck/status/1659245376300302336

I have a Valve Index. Should I be looking at these as an upgrade, or still not yet? (I don't care about wireless that much.)

How do they expect VR/Metaverse to ever take off with such expensive hardware? It is understandable that laptops, desktops, phones cost a lot since the demand is high and people will pay a premium. But, there is little to no demand for VR headsets. Maybe if somehow they ever made the metaverse a must have thing, they could charge $500 for a headset, but right now? They should be digging into their deep coffers and giving the things away.

> It is understandable that laptops, desktops, phones cost a lot since the demand is high and people will pay a premium.

This is sort of historical revisionism. PCs and laptops were historically expensive, limited use devices and they've become relatively more inexpensive over time due to a huge increase in supply.

I assume they're trying to take the same approach most game consoles take (Nintendo is an exception here from what I understand) where they sell the hardware at a loss, and make their profit on licensing on game publishers. Here that'd be monetizing the "metaverse" to make their money. It's the razor and blades business model.

It's a whole other thing whether this will actually work out for them, because it depends on there being a captive market for the profitable half of the business model (the "metaverse" content).

Losing close to $4B per year, it’s safe to say they are already giving away the hardware.

I'll buy one when it matches the resolution on my monitor (which isn't even ridiculously high).

Apple's will next week. The whole next gen of these headsets will probably hit that mark due to hi-res micro OLED displays that are coming to market now.

I can't even imagine what kind of dystopian societal destruction they are still capable of.

The power of this tech to distort reality is scary but what really chills me to my core is the how easy it was. To see so many trying to escape reality itself is pretty bad but that they would so willingly hand over the reins to _Facebook_?! Yikes.

Porn is really amazing on the Quest. I look forward to seeing what Apple can do with it.

The next step - that I'm frankly surprised is taking this long - is "light field" video.

Instead of being a fixed tripod, you can be in the space. You can move a foot or two in every direction, and you can rotate your head without overlapping each eye's perspective.

This demo from a 2020 paper is incredible: https://augmentedperception.github.io/deepviewvideo/

Just in time to get rekt

Am I the only one who thought of the GrubHub ad music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-T3qKl6y-c) when watching the linked video?

the competition for vr is a 27” 1440p 240hz monitor.

perhaps someday vr will be competitive, but not today.

I want to play Diablo IV there!

now I have to buy Quest3 and trash it, just like Quest2...

battery usage is totally problem

twice gpu performance.

pancake headset.

OMG

More comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36151355

We've merged that thread hither. Thanks!

same old bulky headset, similar price point. Where is the innovation?

It's smaller, they claim 40% in the title of the video linked

Meta seem desperate, for announcing this device, 4 days before Apple will reveal their product

Reply on news.ycombinator.com