Despite major layoffs from Meta, the company has affirmed that its next-gen consumer headset, Quest 3, is planned for release this year. While it will adopt some of the features from Quest Pro, not all will make the leap.

In November last year, Meta announced plans to reduce its workforce by 13%—a whopping 11,000 cut jobs. And though CEO Mark Zuckerberg said recently in the company’s latest earnings call that 2023 would be focused on streamlining the company, Meta continues to prioritize its VR headset lineup and plans to launch Quest 3 sometime this year.

Meta’s XR division, Reality Labs, is burning more money than ever in its pursuit of beating tech-sector rivals Apple, Google, et all to the metaverse and XR. And even though the company is slashing some XR projects, it’s still full-steam ahead with its consumer headset, says Zuckerberg.

“Later this year, we’re going to launch our next generation consumer headset, which will feature Meta Reality, [like Quest Pro], and I expect that this is going to establish this technology as the baseline for all headsets going forward, and eventually of course for AR glasses as well,” Zuckerberg told investors.

“Meta Reality,” as the company calls it, is Meta’s color passthrough AR solution which was first included with Quest Pron—meaning Quest 3 will include similar color passthrough AR capabilities.

SEE ALSO
VR MMO 'Zenith' Could Be in Dire Straits as Studio Operates at a Loss

While Quest 3 is likely to adopt the passthrough AR system of Quest Pro, it sounds like it won’t get the eye and face-tracking features of that headset. Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth said as much during a Q&A session on Instagram last week.

Replying to a question about when face-tracking would come to consumer-priced headsets, Boz noted, “it’s gonna be a little while… it’s gonna be years. The reason is simple: all those extra cameras and the compute power required to actually do the face-geometry and recognition has a lot of tradeoffs with it, and one of the main tradeoffs is cost.”

This lines up with leaks from last year that also pointed to a Quest 3 with color passthrough AR and no face-tracking; however the lauded ‘pancake’ lenses from Quest Pro may flip to the consumer side.

While the Quest headset line continues, not all of Meta’s hardware projects have been spared the axe. Last year Meta discontinued its Portal video-calling smart speakers, and reportedly cancelled two unreleased smartwatch projects, according to The Verge. That Meta is charging ahead with more headsets shows the company’s priorities remain focused on immersive devices.

Along with those cancellations, Zuckerberg during the earnings call told investors that he was marking 2023 as the “year of efficiency”; an effort to streamline the hulking company to be more nimble and get more done.

“We closed last year with some difficult layoffs and restructuring some teams. When we did this, I said clearly that this was the beginning of our focus on efficiency and not the end. Since then, we’ve taken some additional steps like working with our infrastructure team on how to deliver our roadmap while spending less on capex. Next, we’re working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster, as well as deploying AI tools to help our engineers be more productive. As part of this, we’re going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be as crucial, but my main focus is on increasing the efficiency of how we execute our top priorities.”

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • ViRGiN

    Boo, but muh employees! I sitll remember the internet mob cursing Meta company for even offering them employment in the first place, instead of employing them for life, just cause.
    You know who else fires people, even when they can afford to keep them jobless but paid? Valve.

    • Cless

      Dude, do you have to bring Valve into literally every post, even when its 100% irrelevant and nobody even mentioned them? :/

      • Anonymous

        Dude has an irrational hate towards Valve and PCVR in general. Although sometimes PCVR elitists and die-hard Meta haters often act more cancerous to VR as a whole.

        • Ookami

          Platform elitism of any kind is a cancer to the industry

          • Cless

            Couldn’t agree more!

          • ViRGiN

            Couldn’t care less!

          • Cless

            That was pretty uncalled for.

            But I guess that just means you are pro-platform elitists then.
            That makes you as “good” as those Gaben worshipping dudes you keep complaining about so much.

        • ViRGiN

          you have irrational virginophobia.
          valve does not care about vr, and pcvr is dead. how is that hateful you misognistic pig?

      • NL_VR

        stop feeding the trolls

      • ViRGiN

        Do you have to respond every time Valve is mentioned?
        Why you stay silent when I mention pimax when it’s “irrelevant”? WHY DOES VALVE RUBS 90% of the internet the wrong way? Sounds like fanboyish attitude to me. Especially when you know what I said is absolutetly true.

        • Cless

          >Do you have to respond every time Valve is mentioned?
          I really don’t, but when I started to notice you kept shoehorning it into almost all news comments section I started to mentioning it to you.

          >Why you stay silent when I mention pimax when it’s “irrelevant”?
          To be honest, because I haven’t read you doing that. I mean, I’ve seen you trashing them and stuff, but it was related to the subject at hand at the very least, so that read normal to me.

          What you are doing now with Valve now feels unnatural to be honest, like you are looking for literally any excuse to just trash on them.

          Like, I’m afraid of going to your home and seeing a big poster of Gaben’s face on your wall where you have cut out his eyes and have a knife stuck on his forehead kind of vibe.
          (Obviously joking here, but you know what I mean).

          And yeah, when Valve did lay off people last time, there was also an article around here and people talked about it in the comments for a while after that too, so no, Meta ain’t special here.

          • XRC

            The valve layoffs were misreported, valve have core staff at Bellevue, bolstered by several hundred contractor. They have 100 coders contracted to work on Steamdeck at moment.

            The layoffs were related to contracted engineering and production staff on fixed contracts, normal practice when starting an assembly line to manufacture a new product.

            Once production has started and stabilized, these staff are no longer required. This was read by some of evidence that valve had lost interest.

  • Nevets

    This is good news. Though I wonder how good the passthrough will be. Will it still be a fuzzy mess like Quest 2, albeit a little better? I hear Quest Pro isn’t fantastic.

    • sfmike

      I have low hopes and I have a Quest Pro to prove it. Since VR hasn’t been the billion dollar golden goose industry insider said it would those same insider/investor types have put all their hope on AR which will not be that golden goose either.

  • David Wilhelm

    Harder to rationalize this purchase once EchoVR shuts down.

  • Nevets

    Hopefully they are going to release them all when Q3 comes out

  • Jonathan Winters III

    “…Meta’s color passthrough AR solution which was first included with Quest Pron…”

    Freudian slip? ;)

    • My thought PRECISELY. lol
      Especially when you consider the “o” & “n” on a keyboard aren’t adjacent,
      thereby definitively ruling-out any perfectly legitimate typo errors ….
      Just sayin’.

      • Ante Vukorepa

        N is right above the space bar ;)

    • Or maybe that’s the name of another headset…which I guess will be very successful lol

  • Jonathan Winters III

    Eating and sleeping are overrated. Who needs reality when you can escape with a VR headset? ;)

    • Anonymous

      Sleeping maybe
      But until someone can replicate taste in VR or via BCI, I will never stop wanting to eat my wagyu burgers!

  • Nevets

    It’ll be interesting to finally see how GTA San Andreas shapes up in VR!

    • Sven Viking

      Hopefully. Also Assassin’s Creed VR. It would have been interesting to see how Splinter Cell VR was shaping up :/.

    • Tommy

      Lol, probably a Quest 4 title ;)

      • Peter vasseur

        Quest 10

  • Wormoxide

    True its much worse than “fuzzy mess”. 90s flip-phones have better resolution than the Q2.

  • Till Eulenspiegel

    If Meta wants to be original, they should make Quest 3 looks like this: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9bb1949e57ad56201d343eda46673b00fa0b304429b240ba530b560323eb9ecd.jpg

  • Rudl Za Vedno

    The problem VR is having in general is that the tech behind it is just not good enough for non enthusiasts to adopt and retain using it. I had Ody+, Quest 2m G2 now and all I can say that resolution, contrast and colors reproduction are still not good enough, even on G2, to continue using it over my flatscreen on daily basis, once VR wow factor faded away. Plus they are all quite uncomfortable to use for longer periods of time due to face pressure and being front heavy. I had to mod shit out of my headsets, to make them “wearable” for more than an hour or so. So if you ask me VR mass adoption is at least yrs away or more. Maybe 6th or 7th gen of “Quest” in 2030 will be appealing enough to see mass adoption IF Meta / Apple persist on VR path, but until then I don’t VR being the thing in broader consumer tech market.

    • G S.

      Agreed it is still far too difficult for non enthusiasts to adopt.

      When you think about it there hasn’t been many headsets aimed at non enthusiasts. Quest is made the best attempt so far but there has only been 2 of them and they still have too many issues. Even the original idea that you have to sign up with Facebook would kill any adoption.

      I think Apple has the only shot at being able to produce a device that is going to get wider adoption. Meta has been terrible so far in many regards. I mean people have had their devices almost bricked because they lost access to their Facebook account. It’s just beyond stupid on how they implement things.

      • sfmike

        Apple will only produce a massively overpriced product that will possibly be a hit with the Apple cult but not the masses. The hope will be that any Apple hype and innovation will trickle down to more reasonably priced units the way the Android phones did.

        • Arno van Wingerde

          Maybe… but don’t forget that the Apple cult is orders of magnitude larger tan the VR cult!

    • Andrew Jakobs

      I can wear my Vive Pro (1/wireless) for many hours without a problem or any mods.

      • Peter vasseur

        With lots of batteries, or else in 2 hours your waiting for it to charge.that’s nothing to brag about. Psvr is the most comfortable hmd out there And that’s old hat.

        • Andrew Jakobs

          I can get around 3-4 hours out of the standard battery, but I also have an extra very large battery for longer play, at least 6 hours on its own (but because it’s a lot heavier I tend not to start with it, and only use it when the other runs out).

        • JunkieXL

          That assumes you want to play ONLY on the battery alone. Sure, if that’s the case Q2 is abysmal. But honestly just keep it plugged in. Sure you have to deal with a cable, but you can get 6-12 feet ones and it stays charged, even in use.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            Or just use a thirdparty, much better, headstrap with hotswapable batterypack, don’t know why other the quest, pico, vive doesn’t use that system, it’s really brilliant.

          • Peter vasseur

            At that point why even bother with and inferior hmd. If you always run the cable and need a pc. I’d take a index over a quest 2. Beside who wants to support a evil company like meta. As far as I am concerned they can disappear off the face of the planet.

          • JunkieXL

            Just saw this. I have an Index, Reverb, Q2 and PSVR. Index is still the superior option due to its wide FoV which is far more immersive to me than outright raw resolution with a narrow FoV.

            PSVR is good, but you’re tied to the PS, much in the same way Index and Reverb are tied to the PC. However, PC makes up the majority of my game time, as I have a far deeper and complex library on that medium, plus modding.

            Quest2 is a good option for when you just want raw portability in an AIO HMD. Nothing about it is superior by any stretch.

      • Ossi Hurme

        Still waiting that wireless upgrade for Vive Pro 2. I guess that is dead and buried at this point :S

        • Andrew Jakobs

          uhh, the (current) wireless module from HTC is also for the Vive Pro 2. I would recommend buying it if it’s on sale, as the 409 euro’s is way too expensive, I bought it when it was on sale for half the price (but even then I thought it was steep), and when you buy it, also buy an extra batterypack (I bought an extra Verbatim Powerbank 20.000mh for 35 euro’s, and use that one when the original pack is drained as the original one comes with a clip and is lighter, but its also only for 3 hours with the Pro 1, so I imagine a little less with the Pro 2 because of the increased needed bandwidth).

          • Ossi Hurme

            It’s just that it doesn’t support Pro 2’s full refresh rate. There was supposed to be upgrade/update for it but no news since release of Pro 2. To be fair I think it’s more of an issue with bandwidth technology than HTC just not bothering.

          • Dario Cannone

            Hi Andrew my I ask you how can you use your hmd for hours without having any problem?I’m just curious, I love VR and I bought a Quest 2 but my main problem is that my eyes got heavily fatigued after one hour and using it like for two hours is my limit, it’s a real pain. I’m not talking about motion sickness, it’s just my eyes.
            Maybe it’s due to the lower quality of the display compared to your hmd?

          • Andrew Jakobs

            I don’t know if it’s the displays itself. I have the original Vive Pro, so only the deep blacks of the OLED are the better Quality, but resolution/lenses wise the Quest 2 should be superior. You really must make sure that the IPD is set as close to your eyes as possible.

          • Dario Cannone

            Ok thank you. I’ve just read that eyes fatigue is quite normal among users

    • david vincent

      VR will never see “mass adoption” because of friction (many people don’t want to wear a device on their face) but it’s ok, VR doesn’t need that to be successful.

    • david vincent

      If your headset is uncomfortable for you, you should look for a “halo strap” solution

    • Peter vasseur

      They all use junk lcd screens. Maybe if they used superior tech and not cheap stuff it wouldn’t be so bad. Plus your comparing all gen 1 vr hmds. We are finally moving into gen two. With Tue exception of quest mobile will be gen 1 for 10 years of more .

      • JunkieXL

        Yes but then there is the problem of costs. The Quest lineup is marketed towards the average joe and non-enthusiast as a low-cost pick up and go option. Not a tailored made bells and whistles headset that costs a price only a handful of the market will buy (See Quest Pro as example). To keep the price in a marketable range (<$500) its going to be made in a way that cuts corners with left over tech. Thats just economics.

        Every one wants bleeding edge revolutionary tech for a cheap price. Just just cant have it both ways.

        • Peter vasseur

          Bleeding edge psvr2 for $950 and better than pcvr and light years ahead of quest junk. Once you buy all the crap for quest two. To make it somewhat worthy you add hundreds in accessories at that point you may as well step into the next gen. Not stay locked into a dated hmd from a evil
          Company.

        • Mradr

          IT just goes to show we need another SKU from Meta… its just that simple. Quest – Quest Leet – Quest Pro.

    • Halo-Strap. Go get one.

    • Mradr

      Yes and no… main problem is that VR is no where near a level of “good enough” and yet Meta and the likes are already looking at “stable” updates/upgrades time scales. They really need to release two skus for the customer or start looking into release refreshes of hardware instead. The 3 year wait is going to be killer for VR in it self as it stales out with no news on the table nor the hardware to run newer/better games.

  • David Wilhelm

    Enjoy Horizons World!

  • Peter vasseur

    When quest 3 can catch of the pcvr or psvr2 level quality then it will be worth it weight. Until then it’s junk.

    • shadow9d9

      Quality is wireless freedom of movement in a large room. Lack of quality is an antiquated wire getting in the way and pulling and being forced into a room with breakable equipment, all for graphics.

    • Grateful Fred

      I had a Rift S and the Quest 2 image quality is pretty close to the Rift’s. I’d say that not having to invest in a high end PC or splash out on a PS5 is a damn good reason to support the Quest.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      It can, as you can use it for PCVR wireless.. no wired headset for me anymore, I’ll take the small reduced quality of streaming over that awful cable.

    • ViRGiN

      There will be something to catch to when Rec Room, Beat Saber and Gorilla Tag aren’t the MOST popular PCVR games ever made.

      Let me know if your next generation of RTX5090 can handle Resident Evil 4 on PC. As of now, PCVR got nothing on Quest standalone.

      • Peter vasseur

        Well I can’t help the low info sheepish gamers that enjoy the lowest quality vr games. Your argument that because people play games that can run on a quest makes pcvr crappy is nonsense. I’m not a pcvr gamer myself. I was a psvr1 user. And while the controls are dated and we’re the day it came out. It was and still is more powerful graphically then the quest2 and probably will be than quest 3.

        When it comes to psvr2 quest 1–3 is junk. You can have a hard on with the wireless. Fact is that most users end up plugging into a pc to play the good games anyways negating any advantage quest has. Then your left with inferior fov and screen tech.

        I used ask which would I rather have wireless or better go and resolution with more power. What good is wireless when the only games your hmd can run is what the bat level quality. That’s fine for entry of new tech into the space. But 8 years later it’s not. Quest is at the back of the buss and it looks like pcvr is as well. With the Pavlov dev claiming psvr2 runs 10% better than his rig running a 3090ti card. That’s a $1000 card that runs worse than a $500 Ps5.

        So go ahead and enjoy your dated quest 3 before it even arrives, I’ll be playing on a hmd that can run games better than. The three you Mentioned without having to compromise artifacts and lighting and whatever else. A mobile chipset wont ever be able to do, at the same time as a lvl vr or console based vr hmd.

        • ViRGiN

          Stop talking about PSVR1 being graphically more powerful, when that thing used like 960p per eye lol, and no amount of supersampling that psvr wasnt really capable of would make it anywhere near acceptable. I had better image quality from smartphone sbefore Gear VR was even a thing.

          ” Fact is that most users end up plugging into a pc ”
          LMAO! I am not reading anything after that. PCVR is so dead, even quest 1/2 did not help to grow PCVR. it’s just half of psvr users upgraded from their old rifts/vive to now wireless headset and continue to use it on steam. 6500 steamvr users online right now, across all games. ridiculous lol.

          pcvr is dead, psvr1 sucks, and psvr2 seems like a pcvr for people without pc, with like two exclusive “worth it” games and nothing on the horizon.

          • Peter vasseur

            You clearly fall into the low info gamer category. First of all I never said resolution. While resolution can make things less blurry. It does not affect the power of a system. Every game for quest is down graded. Looks at moss screens, the world is barren on quest but lush on a psvr1 and that’s just one example. The fact that you don’t know the difference between resolution and power doesn’t surprise me with the comments you make.

            I guess I would prefer better quality more realistic graphics then a lil higher rez screen, with cone and cylinder style graphics because that’s all the system can handle.

            Pcvr is never going to grow the market it’s to
            expensive. Doesn’t mean it’s junk. You’re not playing alyx on quest without that wire. Yes it is cheaper but you get what you pay for. A last gen hmd with no wire. As for your comment on psvr2 having nothing in the pipeline and only two exclusives, is another clear example that you have no clue what you’re talking about. Tell me what video game company blows it entire load right at launch? Give me an example Of any system launch having 5 plus exclusives? At Tue same time telling everyone about the 10-20 other
            exclusives that are coming the day of launch. You cant because it doesn’t work like that.

            Psvr2 launch lineup is pretty good and has three exclusives Re8, gt7 and horozon. Games your headset will never be able to Play without a wire
            To a pc. And when you do, it with a crappier fov, no haptics and a crappier screen res. So go ahead and pump up your dated hmd. You can enjoy
            Your number muncher quality vr. Psvr2 and pcvr can handle to big boy games.

          • ViRGiN

            there is no power in the system when its 960p per eye.
            it really does not matter. you need to get reality check.

          • Mradr

            Sorry what? Steam VR says other wise my dude.

          • ViRGiN

            the fuck steamvr says? check our new demo during our steam vr fest? lmao. cope harder.

        • Grateful Fred

          Meta Quest + WiFi = f++k you!

          • Mradr

            And yet you still have to a method to get back to the PC to make it worth it… think you miss understand what you are saying.

  • Ookami

    Maybe he feels like he can’t trust Meta and doesn’t want to sink more money into the eco-system when it’s clear Boz thinks of gaming the same as he does ads

    • shadow9d9

      He thinks that it makes sense to shut down a game with barely an audience left.. which is what all companies do.

      • Sven Viking

        If the #10 game on the Quest Store’s Most Popular Apps list has barely any audience we’re in more trouble than I thought.

      • Ookami

        10,000 players after three years of no updates is really good. If they supported it, it would likely have more players.
        The fact is, they committed publicly to continue supporting it, only to shut it down soon after. This isn’t the first time they’ve went against their word.
        The fact is Boz is a numbers guy, every comment he’s made about it is about numbers. He even referred to the developers as human capitol, which is a dehumanizing way of referring to talent.

        • David Wilhelm

          I have my own game, Bombyx, which Meta ignores because it’s currently PCVR only. So it’s published on Steam instead.

          If they are then going to shut down the *one game* on their Store that I regularly play (nearly 7000 games in Combat), then yeah.. it incentivizes me to support other platforms.

  • Tommy

    ……woot.

  • ViRGiN

    found the gaben footrest.
    dude who never even attempted to try quest pro, but believes in weeblybradley about deckard for the past 2-3 years. cope harder. you are the hated one here

  • Anonymous

    You must have been scammed, or they mixed non-wagyu beef into it.

    Go to Japan and try it yourself, much affordable there too. Now is really the best time to travel there due to the massive depreciation of yen.

  • Till Eulenspiegel

    It’s called the facehugger. It’s designed to attach very firmly to the face – better than the straps.

    • Eric Blair

      many women don’t like VR headsets as it pulls/pushes down on the face. Women are very in tune with avoiding/preventing pre-mature wrinkles. Just look at the billion dollar beauty industry’s focus on wrinkle creams and wrinkle treatments. My GF only wore the headset for 15 minutes before realizing it was pulling on her skin, and didn’t want to wear it again, no matter how much I adjusted, or tried counterweights on the back.

      • Till Eulenspiegel

        There’s also the hygiene issue, it’s like the toothbrush – you wouldn’t want to share it with others.

        That’s why current state of VR/AR is not widely adopted – unlike other wearable computing devices like smart watches, a device that attaches to your face will never be a common day-to-day tool.

  • Nothing we didn’t already know from a host of YouTubers, including that Bradly guy. The lack of eye tracking is still the most painful admission that continues to plague the Oculus/Meta line. You know, if the Quest Pro drops down to $800 to $900, it might actually be a pretty solid upgrade from the Quest 2.

    Of course, if that new chipset is really as powerful as Bradly thinks it’s going to be, maybe the Quest Pro might be left in the dust.

  • Snekertechie

    Would it be possible to have a smaller headset with just the screens and camera’s and a small cpu to handle only the position tracking, and move heavy battery, big compute unit and nice big fan and radiator to something on a wire we wear on the waistbelt? There must be a good reason this is not done, does anyone know why?

  • sfmike

    It’s pretty amazing that with all these employees they had before these recent lay offs they still couldn’t get out more AAA titles even after buying up half the VR developers out there and then not even using the talent they wanted and put out all that money on. They paid billions for these companies and now they lay off the people that came with these dubious investments. Another glaring example of how huge muti-billion corporations get bogged down in middle management and corporate politics to the point where nothing ever gets done. Sony seems to have a better handle on both the hardware and software side of things.

  • CharlesPowell#SnitchGang

    Meta is a joke

  • Mradr

    Bozo mad brad leak their headset and they’re getting bad press because of the features it will have xD

  • lolmao500

    Quest 3 not doing eye tracking foveated rendering? Thats some stupid ass decision, no wonder Carmack left.