Meta’s new virtual-reality headset, the Meta Quest Pro, is a whopping piece of technology – featuring a polished, high-end design and powerful VR possibilities. It can track users’ facial features and eye movements, providing a stronger sense of personalisation in virtual reality spaces. On top of this, it acts as a mixed-reality headset, blending both real-world objects and digital objects.
But at a hefty $1,499 price tag, analysts don’t believe it’s accessible for a large portion of people and will not be enough to get more consumers into Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse dream.
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Zuckerberg debuted the new high-end device at Meta’s Connect conference on Tuesday 11 October, and it’s been met with mixed responses.
“To get people joining the metaverse, the price point needs to be inclusive, not exclusive,” Philip Bacon, director at Bacon Marketing, told Verdict, “$1500 is going to be inaccessible to a large portion of people, especially when the need to upgrade will be every 18-24 months.”
However, it appears that the Meta Quest Pro, which is four times more expensive than the cheapest Quest 2 headset, is aimed more towards businesses than the average consumer.
Speaking to The Verge, Mark Zuckerberg described who the Meta Quest Pro was aimed at.
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By GlobalData“One is just people who want the best VR device that anyone has made. I think, if you want that, this is it. It is better than the Quest 2.
“It’s a lot more expensive, so it won’t be for everyone, but there’s some group of people who want that. The second is people who want basically a device that’s for productivity.
“I think there’s going to be a market around that, and people who are high-end professionals there, you’re already paying thousands of dollars for your workstations.”
It marks a major change in the strategy of Meta, which now seems to be pushing the very best of its VR technology to customers within business and enterprise.
“The expensive Meta Quest Pro headset is targeted at large businesses that want to join the metaverse,” Rupantar Guha, analyst at GlobalData, told Verdict.
“However, the quality of experience, the use cases, and comfort during prolonged use without headaches or nausea will determine the success of the Quest Pro headset.”
Guha claimed that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are “still looking for evidence of the metaverse’s utility.”
“Most SMEs will likely experiment with the affordable Quest 2 headsets to understand if VR-based metaverses suit their requirements,” he said.
Legs are coming soon!
The announcement of the Meta Quest Pro hasn’t brought much more confidence or hype for Zuckerberg’s metaverse, as graphics and features continue to be mocked relentlessly online.
As well as the announcement of this new high-end hardware, Meta revealed the truly groundbreaking news that legs would be being brought into the metaverse. Unsurprisingly, Twitter has had a field day.
“I’m shaking right now. I’ve been waiting for this forever and can’t believe it’s finally happening,” said one Twitter user.
Another wrote: “So embarrassing that you think this is something to be celebrated and wasn’t just there from the start. Congratulations on your minimum effort, company worth tens of billions.”
A third said: “Super hyped about legs, the metaverse seemed like a horrendous money-losing flop but people will flock to it now there are legs.”
GlobalData is the parent company of Verdict and its sister publications.
