Meta is once again reducing the price of Quest 2, this time bringing the 128GB version of its 2020-era standalone VR headset to just $200.

The company has made its new pricing scheme available at major retailers like Amazon:

The new low price can also be found at Walmart, Target, Best Buy, New Egg, and more, including direct from Meta. Notably, the deal on Walmart includes $50 digital credit to use on games and apps.

The price drop is also affecting a number of countries, as the 128GB version now goes for £200, €250, and ¥32,000, each of which is around $50 cheaper in their respective currencies.

It’s uncertain how long the deal will last, with some online third-party retailers indicating the sale ends as early as Saturday. As with many such ‘limited time’ deals though, the new pricing scheme has a way of becoming permanent; Meta initially dropped Quest 2 to $250 during the holiday season of 2023, which has stuck until today.

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As for the 256GB version, it’s been largely out of stock since the beginning of last year, other than the refurbished units noted above. That could suggest we’re not getting a restock, or price change from its $300 MSRP.

Whatever the case, it’s safe to say the company is looking to flush out stock of the headset, which was launched in late 2020—just two years prior to Quest Pro, a dev-centric headset that is largely considered as forerunner to Meta’s latest standalone, Quest 3.

This comes alongside rumors that Meta is currently prepping a prospective ‘Quest 3 Lite’, which it could be building in partnership with LG. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited the South Korean tech giant earlier this month in confirmation of the deal, however it’s also rumored the company is additionally prepping an Apple Vision Pro competitor for release in 2025, making a very busy near term hardware release schedule indeed.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.

  • You mean the Quest 3S…

  • Octogod

    These prices are where the hockey stick goes vertical.

  • Jarom Madsen

    Typo. You listed Quest 3 (256GB, refurbished) when you meant Quest 2 (256GB, refurbished). You got me excited for a second that the Quest 3 also got slashed in price lol.

  • xyzs

    A quest 3 Lite, like light on features, or light on weight ?

    If it’s the second only, that sounds interesting.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Light on features, like a single display with lower resolution and back to fresnellenses.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        And I still don’t see how it could use a XR2 Gen 2. The Quest 3 lite is rumored to cost

        • Blaexe

          Where do you get that info of the cost from? What we have is the cost analysis breakdown from Wellsenn. That says $90 for the SoC. $150 is every chip and cooling included.

          The Quest 3s is supposed to release at $299 which seems reasonable with fresnel lenses and a single panel. Maybe even the same optical stack as Quest 2. They can just subsidize it a bit more than Quest 3.

          Apparently they’re willing to sell the Q2 as low as $199, so why wouldn’t it work?

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            I don’t remember the SD835 source, but googling “SD8 Gen 2 USD 160” finds numerous articles from mid 2023 with comparisons to the Apple A16 on the same TSMC process with similar transistor count for only USD 120, which caused an outrage among Android phone manufacturers. While high end SoCs sold around USD 80 for years, Qualcomm started raising the prices with the SD8 line, with SD8 Gen 3 expected to cost USD 200. Unfortunately phone manufacturers had to buy SoCs from Qualcomm as the sole high end player to stay competitive with iPhones. Many now look at the Mediatek Dimensity with similar performance at lower efficiency and price.

            How this translates to XR2 is unclear. For one the config is somewhat different, and the lacking modem parts remove license costs. On the other hand it sells at much lower numbers. The XR2 Gen 1 is still based on the SD865 preceding Qualcomm’s price escalation. Most Quest 3 lite rumors expect a USD 199 price, and it would frankly be stupid for Meta to raise the now USD 200 baseline price by 50%. We saw how massively a USD 250 Quest 2 outsold the enthusiast USD 500 Quest 3 last Christmas, and a Quest 3 lite has to target the more price than feature sensitive masses. So slightly upgraded Quest 2 tech plus improved MR capabilities makes a lot more sense than trying to cut down the actually cheap (for the tech) Quest 3.

          • Blaexe

            Why do you use other sources and ignore the source that specifically talks about the XR2 Gen2 being $80? It’s manufactured on Samsungs process specifically to make it cheaper.

            Also there’s a source that was very reliable in the past saying it will launch at 349€/449€ which seems reasonable given controllers are included.

            The $199 leak is probably based on times when they were planning on launching without controllers. $199 is not a baseline. It’s just a clearance sale. And it’s smart – because then people who buy a Quest 2 will not be completely angry when the Q3s launches shortly after at a higher price.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            I have been referring to sources about the SD8 prices because I hadn’t seen the USD 80 estimate from WellsennXR. I have now looked it up, and based on that, I am going to continue to refer to the USD 160 SD8 Gen 2 price, because I have some serious issues with the WellsennXR analysis.

            The first thing that popped up is everybody who is giving a price for the XR2 Gen 2 is referring to the same WellsennXR teardown, there are no other sources. But a teardown doesn’t give you component prices. It gives you a list of component, and if you know their prices, that allows to calculate the build cost. I’ve read the (translated) teardown, and it never states where exactly the USD 90 (not USD 80) for the SoC comes from. In theory they could have insider information, but the teardown happened while only Meta had access to the XR2 Gen 2, so the typical logistics sources wouldn’t work. I don’t think they just blindly guessed. What’s more likely is an estimate by analogy. They already published a similar teardown for the 2020 Quest 2, which listed the XR2 Gen 1 at USD 80, so one way to get to USD 90 is “similar to the predecessor plus some increase due to inflation etc.”

            I cannot prove that the XR2 Gen 2 isn’t only USD 10/12.5% more expensive than the XR2 Gen 1, but that seems highly unlikely with the equivalent SD8 Gen 2 going for USD 160 and the SD865 for USD 85, a USD 75/88% difference. And no, you can’t just take a high end SoC, produce it on a less optimized/cheaper process node and miraculously half the price. Otherwise everybody would buy from Samsung instead of TSMC. You get increased die size (more expensive) and lower efficiency. There is a reason why SD8 Gen 2 and similarly sized A16 come from TSMC: they have to, because otherwise they cannot meet the performance/energy balance they need. Half the price only gives you a much smaller, slower and less efficient chip.

            Of course this is all estimates, rumors, analogies plus interpretation. We won’t know until Meta releases the Quest 3 lite. And unless we either get additional sources for the XR2 Gen 2 price, or WellsennXR at least says where the hell they got that number from, I will assume that the Quest 3 lite will be a USD 200 Quest 2 replacement using XR2 Gen 1 and Fresnel lenses with improved MR color passthrough cameras. Not because that’s what I want, but because that’s what the numbers allow, and what makes most sense for Meta’s product portfolio.

      • VR5

        Which is why I think they won’t actually call it lite as that would be misleading customers’ expectations.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      A perspective: Quest 2/3 are the same generation, with Quest 3 targeting enthusiasts, similar to PS4/PS4 Pro. Both offer controller/hand tracking and similar resolutions. Meta slides from the Quest 3 introduction show only a 16% CPU performance increase in GPU heavy apps like games, compared to a 250% GPU boost, so Quest 3 is intended to play the same games as Quest 2 with better graphics. Its main new feature is usable color passthrough, with Meta hoping to establish Mixed Reality as a main Quest selling point. Major changes like eye tracking or higher resolutions will only come in a future (true) generation.

      While all Quest games can target Quest 2 and 3, MR is mostly limited to Quest 3 selling in much lower numbers, not providing developers with much incentive to use it. So Meta needs an HMD targeting the larger Quest 2 audience, able to decently run MR apps. A Quest 3 lite could provide that by sticking mostly to Quest 2 technology while adding usable color passthrough. Combined with now available newer/cheaper components, this would allow for an even cheaper baseline model, and make all (current) Meta HMDs fully MR capable. So a Quest 3 lite would have less features than Quest 3, being mostly equal to Quest 2 while adding the main new Quest 3 feature. Compared to PS4/PS4 Pro, it would be a PS4 Slim, a cost reduced mid-gen refresh with some (MR) extras.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    An important factor may be Qualcomm’s pricing polity. They usually sells several generations of their SoCs in parallel, with the top model from the previous year targeting slower/cheaper devices and seeing a significant price drop once the newest one is available.

    Meta’s got six months of exclusive access to the XR2 Gen 2 used in the Quest 3, which released on 2023-10-10, six months and 11 days ago. The XR2 Gen 2 should now become available to others too, leading to a noticeable price drop for the XR2 Gen 1 used in Quest 2. Launch prices for the XR2s aren’t known, but Qualcomm charges USD 160 for the SD8 Gen 2 the XR2 Gen 2 is based on, almost double the USD 85 they asked for the 2017 SD835, which was probably already reduced in price when the Quest 1 using it launched in 2019.

    The SoC price is a significant part of the build costs, so this Quest 2 price drop isn’t necessarily a fire sale to get rid of existing inventory due to a looming Quest 3s/lite. It could simply be Meta keeping to their policy of selling hardware at cost, with the production cost just having fallen due to standard Qualcomm pricing changes.

    • As always, these are very nice reasonings. But if you sum the price drop, the rumors, and the lack of stock of one type of Quest 2, this sounds more like a sale to get rid of existing inventories.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        It’s possibly a mix, but from a marketing view, dropping the price just before releasing a successor isn’t clever. The Quest 2 was very impressive, because it introduced significantly improved tech while at the same time dropping the price. If they introduce a Quest 3 lite at USD 50 below Quest 2, this would create a similar impression, instead of it just being a tech upgrade, esp. if the Quest 3 lite turns out to be mostly based on Quest 2 technology.

        And I doubt that Meta accidentally built up so much excess inventory that they now need to quickly get rid of it. We saw Quest 2 outselling Quest 3 by a vast margin during the last holiday season, in what looked like larger numbers than during the previous years thanks to a halo effect from the Quest 3 launch and the Quest 2 being available as a similar alternative at half the price.

        For a limited number of Quest 2, the extra money they’d make from selling those now at USD 200 instead of even less after a Quest 3 lite has launched isn’t worth spoiling the “better AND cheaper” marketing opportunity. Which is why I expect this to be about reduced production costs rather than surplus inventory, and a Quest 3 lite launch not being just around the corner.

  • Hussain X

    Brand new Quest 2 128GB could effectively be had for as as low as $99, and in an environment where inflation has increased prices of everything else.

    How?
    Walmart price $199.
    With $50 credit, it’s $149.
    Use a referel link and get $25 credit, it’s $124.
    The person that referred you, hopefully he’s a good friend and kind enough to give you his $25 credit, so it’s now only costing you effectively $99. A brand new Quest 2 128GB with an XR2 Gen 1, two controllers, for only $99. Even if the XR2 chip is a little old and gets older, it’s still a fantastic wireless PCVR headset and media viewer.

    Wasn’t that long ago that a used single Quest 2 controller on its own on eBay cost about $80.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    Yep, but with the new SOC and some other minor improvements.

  • steve18624

    $150 ($200 – $50 digital credits) for a Quest 2 is an incredible deal. You have to consider the tradeoff of buying a better headset (e.g. Quest 3 or rumored Quest 3 Lite); however, $150!