Meta Quest 3 demand allegedly 5 million units below expected level

Yea, there's no way I'm strapping Facebook to my forehead.
VR is nice, but Meta can suck it.

Meta is just short for metastasis because they're cancer.

I wonder if it's cuz milk costs $4

All luxury goods are bombing right now. Walmart hitting record numbers.... kinda tells you something about the state of people's finances.
- The PS5 is selling like gangbusters, outpacing PS4 sales from what I understand, however VR is a much more niche product.
Probably the >$1K US per GPU pricing - can’t move headsets if nobody can afford a capable enough GPU.
- Quest headsets work independently. You can also hook them up to a PC but they don't need one.

The technology is cool. I will say that.

But Meta/Zuckerberg is squandering it. There is a huge disconnect between the price of thing (OVER $500) and the value proposition. It's bad at gaming. It's still less powerful than even current-gen smart phones, let alone modern consoles or gaming PCs... and what little gaming content is out there makes that abundantly clear. Asgard's Wrath 2 does it no favors given those realities. And what are the uses beyond gaming?

Exercise could be a compelling value proposition, but they aren't leveraging even that obvious marketing angle. "You can do your supernatural workouts!" How many people know what that is? I do, but ask a rando on the street. They have no idea. And what are the other options beside Supernatural workouts? Oh, nothing? Nothing for my stationary bike? Nothing for a rowing machine? Nothing for treadmills? With all those funds, they are not exploring the practical applications at all and the product is failing as a result. Instead, Zuck STILL hasn't given up on his Metaverse/Horizons MMO idea.

And that's before we even get into Meta/Facebook's inherent creepiness as a company.

Good. Facebook tried so hard to be the leading VR company and it would've been terrible if they succeeded.

None of my friends have a Meta Quest (or any VR headsets for that matter). On the extremely few occasions the headsets are brought up, all the conversations are the same; “it’s kind of cool but it’s made by Facebook”.

I wonder how many people would be in the market for a relatively cheaper headset like the Meta Quest if it wasn’t a Mark Zuckerberg project

Its a mixed bag. The Pico headsets are around the same price point but at that price point, you are typically paying with your user data as well. Its just a question of who you are giving it to facebook or some random ass Chinese company. While Facebook trying to own "VR" for itself is bad I will at least thank them for making headsets that make it more likely people are willing to dip their feet into VR. While facebook sucks, only having to pay 300 to 400 to get into something you may absolutely hate. They make for great "starter" headsets that you can probably easily find on the 2nd hand market for sub 200. Try out VR on a quest and if you like the concept and feelings of it probably invest more on a better headset. Hopefully we will hear more about Valve's Deckard soon.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention PSVR 2 which is pretty damn good but for 550, I don't think it will have a massive appeal to console games seeing as they are gaming on something funnily worth less than that headset. It being locked to only the PS5 is also a massive penalty against it and there is no news of a fan made driver for it on pc.
- They're not just entry level headsets. You can link them to a powerful gaming computer through Steam Link and then they're the equivalent of a $1200 headset from Valve or HTC.
I'd probably buy one if it worked okay on Linux and wasn't made by Facebook.

This is what happens when you stop focusing on building immersive VR gaming experiences and go towards mobile quality graphics and stupid metaverse / workplace productivity improvements. When will these companies ever learn to focus on the games? Sony learned it with the PS3, MS with the Xbone, and now Meta.

I am a VR fanatic but even I won't buy a Quest 3 because there's just no quality VR games that make me want to upgrade. The fact that no game has yet matched Half-Life: Alyx in terms of immersiveness is just sad.

Lone echo was pretty amazing. and still is
- You mean the Lone Echo series and Echo VR? Yeah I thoroughly enjoyed those games, but those were released so long ago. Definitely up there with HL: Alyx for me though.
Into The Radius

I'm not suprised. On one hand, there wasn't exactly a lot of marketing around it. I didn't even know it was announced until last week, and I follow gaming news and some VR news. On top of this, its an expensive, casual device - the sort of thing a kid will ask for after seeing someone else using it, not something people are lining up day-one to buy. At least something like the Valve Index, for all its disadvantages, very clearly targets enthusiasts who will go out of their way to seek out newer or better products. If Valve decided to release a Valve Index 2 (or for a more direct comparison, a Valve Index Pro) I'd be willing to bet their day-one numbers would look better, even if their overall market is much smaller.

I had/have the first two quests. But needing a Facebook account was one thing I had to think hard about when I got it because I wanted to delete my account. With Facebook getting worse and worse it means I have zero desire to get a new one.

And to address the article, I would say it isn't that interest in VR is decreasing, people don't want meta VR or anything tied to Zuckerberg. I would love a valve index personally, just need to wait to afford it.

I would already own a quest if just about any other company made it
- It's kind of in a weird spot, because it's a niche enthusiast market, owned by a company tech enthusiasts know enough to fucking despise.
- Hard agree.
  
  If it wasn’t made by Facebook, I’d have bought quest 1, 2, and pro. Easily.
  
  But that’s not the case so I have an OG vive and a psvr2. I don’t really do much PC VR these days.

Lol what did they even expect... Their VR team has to be dysfunctional in some way. Like my quest2 somehow got worse after a new upgrade. They added these stupid ass cartoon arms (which cannot be disabled!!) and also your headset is used as a controller after your controllers idle for 5 minutes, which became a huge pain in the ass when watching movies. (Also can't be disabled btw)

Idc about all that Facebook shit (although it'll be way nicer to not have it), but everything about the quest except the hardware is just so fucking stupid. I have way higher expectation on Apple's device... Say what you want about them, but they don't have braindead product design (most of the time hehe)

And you can't reject an update. They won't even let you use your headset if there's an update available. I haven't used mine in months because every time I try to use it the battery is dead, then once I get it charged it needs an update, and by the time that's done I don't have any time left.
- Hahahah fr... Like all I want is to play some simple games (eleven vr for example) and watch movies. Why tf you gotta add all these extra bs. But I guess that's just them as a company. Rift S is so much easier to use
Omg I thought I was the only one who hated the arms. Nothing worse than putting down your controllers on the table and then having those stupid arms spaz out around your screen as it tries to resolve how your hand could possibly be in that position.

I totally agree. Each firmware upgrade has just made my Quest 2 worse and worse.
- Haha it seems like a common complaint on Reddit at least. The virtual environment stuff in Oculus is such a shitshow lmao
Lolwut, cartoon arms? This I gotta see. xD Gonna trawl YouTube for examples.

The expected number was seven million.

When's the last time you heard the word metaverse? Love all the companies that tried to immediately follow, assuming it was going to be a thing. They're probably on to AI now.

I mean, the VR hype from a few years ago has mostly tapered off. Meta clinged onto it for quite a while with their Metaverse idea, but even they seem to have given up on it earlier this year, as LLMs stole the last bit of spotlight they had.

And the PS VR 2 launched earlier this year, too, was generally well-regarded from a hardware viewpoint, but the lack of hype means there's still not terribly many games being released for it.

It also is an expensive investment and people aren't exactly flush with money, thanks to inflation + countermeasures. So, if there is a chance, they buy this headset and no games get released for it, many people will hold off on that.

It's fascinating how quickly the PSVR2 dropped out of all conversation after launch.
- Not so surprising to me. The same thing happened to the PSVR 1.
I think we’re still YEARS away from this tech taking off. It’s too expensive, it’s too bulky, and it’s not powerful enough.

I think the Apple Vision headset will be the first meaningful step forward since the CV1, and even that is just one step on a journey that could take another decade.
- Personally, I have no trouble believing that. Thing is, these companies' investors don't really benefit from long-term plans. So, if it does not pay out in the next two or so years, I expect them to scrap that endeavour altogether.
  
  I just find it weird that Apple decided to jump on that train now, but it's also possible that they started development at the peak of the hype and finished only just now.

History is filled with inventions too early for their time... Still kinda weird VR seems to have shown up like 6 times now and never sticks tho

I have the quest 2 and imho VR has 2 problems:

a lot of people suffers from motion sickness, and that totally ruins the experience

most of the software is unispired shit or just bad games. I've tried a parkour game for example (don't remember the name) and it was absolutely crap, it was impossible to do what you wanted, because controls just didn't work how they should
It seems like it's sticking around this time, but will take a few more gens to become a mainstream product with appeal to people beyond tech nerds.

The problem with previous vr is that the compent parts weren't ready to combine into a good experience. Computers couldn't produce realistic enough graphics at the 90+FPS needed for smooth gameplay, screens didn't have the resolution and colour depth to recreate the real world, the processing units made the headsets huge and bulky.

This time it started at a decent base experience and has been getting better since, a few more gens for it to become easy and quick to use and it will pick right up.
Yeah... I tried the htc vive back when it came out and the experience was incredible but ultimately there's not much it can do other than be a cool experience. Maybe vr will find its footing one day but it's a really hard thing to get right

I want one for VR chat. Definitely a place I want to experience.

So the complaint is that sales are not as large as the inflated projections. Have these clowns in three piece suits even tried their shitshow of a product?

Everyone I know with a quest speaks quite highly of it and how freeing it is compared to tethered headsets.
- Because the tether for the quest isn't a physical one but a digital one.