The Meta Quest 3’s release date has finally been confirmed at Meta’s Meta Connect Keynote, and it’s landing a lot sooner than you might have expected. You’ll be able to buy one of Meta’s new VR headsets from October 10. As confirmed before, the price will be $500.
The Meta Quest 3 is due to be similar to the Quest 2, but more. What do we mean by that? Essentially, it’s a full upgrade in pretty much every way, with increased performance and more advanced displays being some of the most notable improvements. The Quest 3 is powered by the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, a processor which Meta claims will make the newest Quest twice as powerful as the Quest 2, meaning lower loading times and more demanding games. Speaking of games, the Quest 3 is fully backwards compatible, so you can dive into any existing Quest library you might have.
The displays and lenses are more advanced than its predecessor. The Quest 3 supports resolutions up to 2064 x 2208 per eye, with a 90Hz refresh rate, and an experimental 120Hz mode to boot. The lenses are pancake lenses, last seen on the Quest Pro, making the entire unit more compact than otherwise. A new addition for the mainline Quest line is a pair of RGB passthrough cameras, a strong upgrade over the previously grayscale cameras on the Quest 2. Combined with the depth projector, you won’t need to take off your headset while moving around, giving you even more freedom than before.
We doubt you’ll be walking around with this on though. No matter the upgrades, this is still going to be a hefty piece of kit. No, the color passthrough cameras will power some additional mixed reality software, giving you the chance to play games with your house as the arena.
The Meta Quest 3 releases on October 10, and prices will start from $500 for the 128GB model, rising to $650 for 512GB model. There’s a bonus for buying it too, as every Quest 3 will come with a copy of Ashard's Wrath 2, a fantasy FPS melee adventure game, so you’ll have something to try out immediately.