Meta Quest 3: Price “Accessible to Many”
Meta has surprisingly strong quarterly figures. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg has refuted rumors of the company’s pivot away from the Metaverse.
Meta exceeded expectations in Q1 of 2023 and is once again experiencing revenue growth after three-quarters of disappointment. The social media giant also has other encouraging news: Facebook gained 37 million users YoY.
Wall Street reacted positively to the news: Meta’s stock value rose more than 10 percent after hours. The stock is now up 164 percent from its November 2022 low.
Stepping away from the Metaverse? Not exactly. Recent rumors suggested that Meta was moving away from its Metaverse vision and instead focusing more on AI. Zuckerberg refuted this claim in a Facebook post.
“There’s a narrative circulating that we’re somehow moving away from the Metaverse vision, but that’s not true. We’ve been focused on both AI and the Metaverse for years now, and we will continue to focus on both,” he wrote.
Meta’s numbers (see above) support this claim: Reality Labs, Meta’s Metaverse division, is still incurring high operating losses, which are increasing. Meta spent almost $4 billion on research and development in Q1 of 2023, up 50 percent YoY. Additionally, in 2022, Meta invested $13.7 billion in the Metaverse.
“The Metaverse is a long-term project, but the rationale for it remains unchanged, and we remain dedicated to it,” Zuckerberg stated.
Meta Quest 3 is on the horizon. Meta’s CEO reiterated that a “next-generation Quest headset,” most likely the Meta Quest 3, will be available later this year. He also revealed several new VR milestones:
More than a billion Meta Avatars have been created to date. Since last year, the number of Quest apps with at least $25 million in revenue has doubled. More than half of daily active Quest users spend over an hour on their devices. The CEO did not reveal the number of daily active users. The Wall Street Journal reported 6.37 million monthly Quest users as of October 2022.
Zuckerberg had this to say about the new Meta Quest:
“We launched Quest 2 almost three years ago now, and it was a significant advancement for VR. I’m thrilled to show the world all the improvements and new technology we’ve developed since then at a price point that will be affordable for many people.”
A March leak suggested that Meta Quest would be slightly more expensive than the $400 Meta Quest 2. At the same time, CTO Andrew Bosworth implied that the current headset could remain on the market for a little longer, indicating that it wouldn’t be immediately replaced by Meta Quest 3.
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