Meta Quest 3 officially announced starting at $499

In a post on Mark Zuckerberg's Instagram, Meta has formally introduced its Quest 3 VR headset.

This fall, the headset will be available with a 128GB version for $499.99 and "an additional storage option for those who want more space" costing an unknown amount. While the Quest 3's design is lighter and more comfortable than its predecessor, the Quest 2, and has a "40 percent slimmer optic profile" (without taking into account its foam facial interface), a new Snapdragon chip within has twice the graphics capabilities.

It is also compatible with Quest 2 titles, which is advantageous given that the old headset is still available at a more affordable price. According to Meta, the Quest 2 will cost $100 less starting on June 4th for the 128GB version, going from $399.99 to $299.99, and $80 less for the 256GB version, going from $429.99 to $349.99. This reverses the base model's price increase from last year and lowers the price of the variant with more storage.

A future software update will also improve the CPU and GPU performance of the Quest 2 and Meta's more expensive Quest Pro, as well as enable Dynamic Resolution Scaling.

The head strap and three new sensor regions across the device's front that most distinguish it from past models are plainly displayed in the video. Two full-color cameras and two conventional cameras are distributed evenly between the left and right sides of the pill-shaped zones, according to Gurman, and there is one depth sensor in the center that might enhance the performance of the headset's augmented reality capabilities.

We also see the new Touch Plus controllers, which do away with the outdated positional tracking rings in favor of TruTouch haptics "for experiences you can feel." The sensor configuration was not covered in length in this announcement, but Meta verified that this time around hand tracking will be supported out of the box and that the depth sensor should function with the controllers.