Meta has recently announced its new Quest 3, a mixed-reality VR headset. It has a new Qualcomm Snapdragon XR Gen 2 chip, has significantly better graphics, and uses both AI and machine learning to improve its movement tracking – based on their presentation, Meta wants you to play outdoor sports inside your home.

Also, legs! Legs! When Meta first introduced their metaverse project and the Horizon Worlds, which featured avatars of Quest users, everyone was just a bunch of floating torsos. Now, with AI, these avatars have legs, which should make the experience less weird. 
With the Quest 3’s new specs sheet, developers now have more legroom to build things for the Quest. Plus, Xbox Cloud Gaming VR is coming to the Quest 3, which sounds intriguing. However, Meta itself doesn’t seem interested in putting more effort into building bigger blockbuster games specifically for VR. Maybe once the Quest has gained a solid foothold, we can expect to see a stronger rollout of VR-specific games with AAA blockbuster status. 

But for now, Meta seems content with the Quest 3 support from Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming. Of course, why invest in areas not your expertise when you can have a partner with decades of experience instead, right? 

What’s cool with the Quest 3 is now you can see the real world with passthrough cameras. Quest apps are overlaid and floating in front of you, like holograms, but with goggles. It’s a move that pushes MR – Mixed Reality – out into the industry.

Another aspect that makes the Quest 3 interesting is the $499 price, making it a decent entry point for enthusiasts or anyone brave enough to try the technology. 500 USD is about P28,000. It is, by no means, cheap, not even – in my opinion – close to being affordable, but for some, it is a manageable price. And compared to Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro, which kicks off with a hefty price tag of $3,500, I can imagine more people would at least start with a Quest to get a feel for VR or MR. 

Of course, it’s too early to tell if Apple’s Vision Pro will be a huge success. Let alone being a first-generation product. But let’s dive into the speculation that it may succeed, to a degree, or to whatever Apple says it’s a success. It will drive the interest of VR upwards, and whatever Apple brings to the table, competitors like Meta are bound to rival it and find some way to outdo it (for a much more approachable price tag).

This puts Meta in an exciting position. 

With the interest of VR, MR, and AR at the edge when it can potentially soar, Meta, having the more manageable price, has the advantage of bringing adoption to a broader audience beyond those who are already interested in the technology.

Apple will, no doubt, push for partnerships to help give its Vision Pro a boost. Their recent introduction of Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 4 Remake into the iPhone 15 Pro sounds like they will be eventually adding AAA blockbusters into the Vision Pro. A partnership with Disney would allow any Vision Pro user to experience any Marvel or Star Wars movie as if it were in the cinema or through ESPN, which would put users in a virtual bleacher while watching sports. 

Meta is now trying to establish itself by making Quest 3 more interactive. For instance, watching plants grow from the floor, animals being able to hide behind objects, and decorating real-life rooms with virtual items. All of this is fun and okay, but I can imagine the novelty of it wearing off really fast. 

Though they have over 500 immersive apps right now, including Assassin’s Creed Nexus, a first-person VR experience of the game, Meta hasn’t introduced any apps that would make the Quest 3 a thing. Meta may be holding back information or some critical features until Apple moves. After all, it is Meta, and that’s always been their playbook.