19 ms·

Meta is raising the price of the Quest 2 to 400 USD

158 points by aero-glide2 4y ago

desireco42 4y ago
This is how inflation looks like, instead of being cheaper, it is getting more expensive. I am early adopter, had Oculus for a long time... Very few things to do with it unfortunatelly.
- babyshake 4y ago
  I'm wondering how much of this is inflation vs. supply chain constraints. I can't think of the last time I saw an electronics product like this with a substantial price increase so long after it has been released. The only comparable examples all involves supply crunches.
causi 4y ago
The fuck? It's a two year old electronics product. They should be dropping the price, not raising it.
yonaguska 4y ago
As much as I wanted to get into VR, Meta taking over the Quest has thankfully saved me countless sunken dollars and hours.
- roody15 4y ago
  Lol exactly. Really wanted to play Half Life / Alex but not about to give Meta any money … absolutely not going to use a facebook account to use a VR device.
  - Jalad 4y ago
    To be fair, if you want to play Alyx you can also use the Valve Index. So no Meta involved
    - shahar2k 4y ago
      or an HP reverb G2, or HTC vive or one of dozens of other non meta vr sets... that said a cheap quest 2 second hand with virtual desktop makes for probably the best wireless experience / dollar you can have
      - Schinken_ 4y ago
        To add to that: Even though the Pico brand is now owned by Bytedance (TikTok) I really enjoy their Pico Neo 3 (it's a hardware equivalent to the Quest 2, actually due to active cooling it has a bit more performance headroom). The wireless streaming works great. There is no account setup whatsoever. Null, nada, nichts. You can just boot up the HMD and you're good to go.
        GekkePrutser 4y ago
        I find it strange when people hail them as a more privacy-friendly alternative to Meta though. Personally I think ByteDance (and TikTok in particular) is an even worse company than Facebook ever was. It's like they learned from Facebook and made it worse.
    - giobox 4y ago
      At typically more than 2x the cost. I've played Alyx on both, the Index is absolutely not a 2x better experience. I'm no fan of their corporate parent either, but the value proposition on Quest 2 for general purpose PC VR gaming (especially prior to this price increase) was remarkable given size of subsidy Meta were prepared to make on price.
      - MikusR 4y ago
        It was 3x the cost now only 2.5x.
      - jsheard 4y ago
        It's a bit baffling that the Index is still as expensive as it is, it's three years old and has never gone on sale even once nevermind had a permanent price cut. In a vacuum it's worth what people are willing to pay, but Valve are a software company selling hardware to promote their ecosystem, which they're ceding to the much more affordable Oculus ecosystem by keeping the premium price. It's still a nice headset but it's showing it's age, the Quest 2 has higher resolution screens and the ability to stream PC VR wirelessly is a killer feature which the Index doesn't support.
  - pathartl 4y ago
    Alyx is probably one of the greatest gaming experiences I've had... but I was also able to borrow a Vive from a friend to play it. I'm a Half-Life nut so I would have bought a headset anyway, but I'm glad I haven't bought a Quest.
    - YellowTech 4y ago
      You can use a Oculus Account (not connected to facebook) and then use Virtual Desktop to stream the game from SteamVR over Wifi. If you have a Wifi 6 router it's the best PC VR experience you can have (wireless, no base stations, really high resolution, very low latency) and besides the Quest 2 and Virtual Desktop you are not giving any money to Meta. If you are worried about battery life, I already player with a battery bank in small backpack without any problems! Absolutely awesome.
      - rblatz 4y ago
        You don't even need Virtual Desktop, the Quest 2 supports wireless VR natively.
    - echelon 4y ago
      The immersiveness is fantastic, but movement feels like trying to use a 1970's pong controller while something is strapped to your head. I want standard joystick-based movement. I suppose too many get motion sickness, or that joysticks are ergonomically awkward to place onto motion controllers while maintaining the "pointing" and "picking up" metaphors. VR's "aim and teleport" mechanic is the worst, though. It ruins the entire experience for me. I just want to walk in a direction - easy with a game controller. But instead you have to aim, judge distance, and click. It's so weird and feels gross.
      - papito 4y ago
        Alyx "smooth motion" is in settings - game settings, not Oculus or anything, and yes, you have to be careful. Sometimes I can barely maintain my footing if something happens too fast.
      - 4y ago
  - break_the_bank 4y ago
    They dropped the requirement to have a Facebook account for Meta Quest 2 a few weeks ago.
    - Schinken_ 4y ago
      Yes, from a Facebook Account to a Meta Account...
      - jdgoesmarching 4y ago
        Don’t worry, they renamed the tables and everything!
    - amluto 4y ago
      By requiring a Meta account as I recall. Not much of an improvement.
      - LadyCailin 4y ago
        Presumably this would mean if you’re banned on Facebook, that wouldn’t lock you out of your device. That was one of the bigger sticking points at least.
        reaperducer 4y ago
        If Meta is anything like Google (and it is), we're not far off from getting locked out of Facebook bricking your VR gear. HN is lousy with stories about people getting tagged by faulty "AI" in one Google program and getting blitzed out of all the others. The risk is too high that Meta will follow suit one day soon.
        munk-a 4y ago
        Personally, I never want Meta to leverage my game usage on Facebook or any of their other platforms. I like Steam being an independent platform that has no motivation to share my information with socials - I really don't want random relatives asking me about my gaming habits. The fact that it was made by Facebook was worrying - the fact that it required a Facebook account made it a non-starter. For the same reason, while I do enjoy the occasional twitch stream - some of my favorite streamers have moved to FB... thus I have stopped watching them because I don't like making it easy for socials to track and broadcast my every waking moment.
  - deleted 4y ago
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- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  VR wouldn’t even be a thing anymore without their efforts. PC Tower VR is a dead end where the complexity and hardware costs will never take it the customer base size that justifies developing non-indie content. I don’t think Valve would have even bothered building Index without the Oculus threat.
  - upupandup 4y ago
    What?! You give Meta way too much credit
  - Dracophoenix 4y ago
    Valve partnered with HTC on the Vive. While HTC has now decided to pivot away from consumer/enthusiast VR headsets, Valve never gave up.
  - terafo 4y ago
    5 millions PSVR sold beg to differ.
    - ceeplusplus 4y ago
      That's an estimated 1/3 of what Quest 2 sold [1]. And Sony already has a huge install base of subsidized consoles to sell into, whereas high end PCs required to run VR are a rarity. [1] https://uploadvr.com/quest-2-sold-almost-15-million-idc https://uploadvr.com/quest-2-sold-almost-15-million-idc
      - terafo 4y ago
        I was disproving his point about VR being dead without Oculus. Prior to Quest 2 launch they weren't even the leader, 1.5 years after that launch they are basically only game in town(not for long, PSVR2, next gen Valve headset and Apple are coming soon). And VR-capable PCs aren't that rare, you basically need performance of 1060 and half of Steam userbase have that.
    - deleted 4y ago
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- dmix 4y ago
  You're missing out, Quest 2 was one of the best purchases I've made in the last year. I also don't think VR is good enough to be worth investing $1k+ into a VR headset like Vive. $300 seemed like a very high return on investment for what I got. Not sure about $400 since I already have one but I'd probably still do it. I also made a fake, empty Facebook account to use the Oculus store, so I don't feel like it's a privacy invasion.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    For me it isn't even so much about the privacy invasion or having to have a Facebook account, it's being locked into one store. PCVR doesn't have that problem.
    - nickthegreek 4y ago
      You can play any of your steam vr games on the quest 2.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
        Sure, with some hackery. I'd rather pay for something that doesn't require me to work around it like that. Why pay for this in-headset computer if I'm not using it?
        nickthegreek 4y ago
        no hackery required. it works wireless as well.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
        You're correct, it used to require hackery, not it appears it is an included beta feature.
        Auracle 4y ago
- FractalHQ 4y ago
  I bought two recently for my parents and they don’t use them. I tried to use them but there are no real VR games to play. All of the games are arcade-style mini games with 20 year-old graphics. They get boring after a couple minutes. Huge disappointment! Around 10 years ago I gave up on VR and decided to wait for the VR game market to grow. It was a huge bummer to learn that nothing has changed after all this time. I think it will take another decade or two for hardware power and costs to catch up to modern game engines. For me, the only VR experience worth experiencing right now is probably a $1000 Valve Index with Half-Life Alyx running on my $4000 PC.
  - rblatz 4y ago
    I'm not surprised that a casual level gaming device didn't meet the expectations of someone with a $4,000 gaming rig. You aren't the target market for this device.
  - ilaksh 4y ago
    Eleven Table Tennis VR -- very realistic table tennis Golf+ -- fairly realistic Golf and also TopGolf setup. Demeo -- like a really casual HeroQuest that you can jump into at any time (multiplayer, automatic). Ancient Dungeon -- procedurally generated roguelike. The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners -- really good zombie game
  - notjustanymike 4y ago
    With an Index, don't miss out on Into the Radius, and VTOL VR. Or get a wheel and try Project Cars 2 or iRacing.
- SCUSKU 4y ago
  Couldn't agree more. Two or so years ago I was thinking about getting into VR, but once I saw the Quest required Facebook login, I said no thanks.
- JeremyNT 4y ago
  Facebook/Meta has some really great advertising and branding, but there are now good alternatives out there too even if they aren't as well known. I have the HP Reverb 2 which is a pretty interesting device in its own right. Which is to say, you can definitely still throw away your time and money on this fad without supporting Facebook/Meta :)
zhoujianfu 4y ago
Noooo!! Why?!!!?! Arrrrrgh!!
archildress 4y ago
Sold my barely used Quest 2 a few weeks ago and had a real hard time getting even $235 for it.
- de6u99er 4y ago
  I believe the main issue is content. Not only us it more difficult to create content for VR, it's at least twice as expensive. VR will IMHO have the same fate as 3D TV"s had. Fancy and interesting in the beginning, but too much of a hassle on the long run. Did I get it right?
  - intrasight 4y ago
    3D is still TV - with only a small improvement. VR isn't a small improvement on something you already have. It's a whole new thing. I, for one, expect it to be as revolutionary as the WWW - which also lacked for content in the early days.
  - rjh29 4y ago
    I agree that content creation is difficult and there is a lack of longer experiences, but OTOH people are willing to pay more per hour of content for these experiences - comparable to movies - and there are also plenty of multiplayer/roguelike games for those who want more hours per dollar. The proof is in the pudding - the Quest has sold a lot and there are many games in the store already.
- zlsa 4y ago
  That's not surprising considering the brand-new price is $299, and refurb units are semi-regularly available for $250.
  - archildress 4y ago
    Yeah, it's not a super steep discount; I wound up getting $235 for it. Sales tax would've been about another $30 here so it was about $100 off sticker price with probably 10 hours of play.
- 4y ago
mark_l_watson 4y ago
It seems strange to raise the price of something that has been on the market for a while, right? I do love my Quest 2.
- balls187 4y ago
  What do you love about it? I have a Quest 2, and it still seems very niche for me.
  - mark_l_watson 4y ago
    I do the Thai Chi lessons everyday. I find the ping pong game is a great way to unwind, a 5 minute game is enough. I enjoyed the Star Wars Vader Immortal series. I use my quest for about 1 hour a week, so I am not a heavy user - but I do enjoy it. BTW, I worked in the VR field about 25 years ago for SAIC and Disney.
    - balls187 4y ago
      I too enjoy the VR experience, and to me, it scratches a similar itch as going to a high-end arcade and playing Mechwarrior. Fun to do occasionally, but not how I spend a majority of my entertainment hours. > BTW, I worked in the VR field about 25 years ago for SAIC and Disney. Nice. I remember my first VR experience was about 30 years ago at the local kids science center.
  - rjh29 4y ago
    I like Beat Saber (play daily), Walkabout Golf (feels like minigolf, can play with friends anywhere in the world) and Resident Evil 4 (a classic game excellently ported into immersive VR). Also the price. Before the Quest I'd have needed to buy a gaming PC and expensive headset like the Vive or Index. And it's wireless and doesn't need any sensor units placed around you. The tracking works great and it tells you when you're about to leave a safe area. It can even do hand tracking so you don't need controllers.
    - balls187 4y ago
baggy_trough 4y ago
I wouldn’t use one for free right now. There just isn’t a compelling experience there yet.
- joshlemer 4y ago
  There's honestly just hardly even any games on it at all. And all of the games are really expensive. I like how on the Nintendo Switch there are big budget games but also thousands of games for like $2
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - balls187 4y ago
    Have you tried wireless streaming VR games from a PC?
    - spywaregorilla 4y ago
      There's not much of note on steam either. It's pretty much the same games in the top 10 every month.
  - ParanoidShroom 4y ago
    I guess that will change if they get ads in games right. The problem is real, a lot of games are really not worth the money
  - andybak 4y ago
    "Hardly any games" seems like an exaggeration. Are you including AppLab and SideQuest or just counting the main store? Even so... Also bear in mind that Meta have been extremely aggressive in restricting access to the main store. Unless you're a big name dev, can show strong sales on other VR platforms or you have good contacts with someone inside Meta then it's very hard to get in.
    - 4y ago
trixie_ 4y ago
It's a strange move given Facebook changed their name to promote VR and the Quest is their flagship device. Also surprised that after mass producing this device for almost 2 years their manufacturing and supply chain costs aren't dialed in enough to maintain the current price. The message here is that VR is 'failing'. I hope it's not, but that's the message with this backwards move.
- azinman2 4y ago
  We don’t know how much their BOM increased. They likely were either losing money or not much margin, and with the market going downward they probably couldn’t afford to offset it as much anymore.
  - noncoml 4y ago
    Imagine where Uber would be today if they wanted to stop losing money so early in the game.
    - azinman2 4y ago
      Early? They’ve been selling in the market for over 6 years now.
      - noncoml 4y ago
        Yeah early as in early in market domination.
        spywaregorilla 4y ago
        And they're still losing money with no path towards profitability or market domination?
        noncoml 4y ago
        Yeah don’t disagree. But how will increasing the price help them?
emadabdulrahim 4y ago
I feel like an old grumpy man saying this, but I hate the idea of wearing a device on my face to literally hijack one of the precious senses one has. I'm sure over time I'll look back and laugh at myself for thinking that way.
- vlunkr 4y ago
  I've been railing against VR for years, because I'm really picky about video games, but I was converted. It's really worth a try. It's not a replacement for current video games, nor do I see myself wearing one for hours at a time to hang out in some corporate dystopia (which seems to be what Meta wants), but there are some really cool and unique experiences. I think VR game design is still pretty immature, but in a way I find that refreshing. most of these games are simple enough that any casual player can pick them up, which hasn't really been the case since the Wii came out ages ago.
- rgovostes 4y ago
  Do you ever wear headphones?
  - emadabdulrahim 4y ago
    I do, but I'm not entirely deaf when I wear them. I can hear my surroundings easily if I wanted to. Is there a mode in those VR headsets where one can see what's in front of them without taking them off? I'm ignorant about the tech of VR.
    - rg111 4y ago
      That becomes AR then, I guess?
      - agloeregrets 4y ago
        I've seen the mix of VR and Ar called XR, or Extended Reality. That is what Quest Pro is.
    - 4y ago
908087 4y ago
sillysaurusx 4y ago
I'm shocked that there aren't more multiplayer VR experiences. Yes, sure, there's Pavlov and VR Chat. But unless you have a friend who's into VR Chat, it's remarkably difficult to find a game that can immerse two different people at the same time. It felt a bit ironic that mini golf was one of the most fun multiplayer party games. My wife was like "You should bring over your quest 2!" to our new house -- she already has an Index and some other high end headset. I asked "But why?" and we couldn't think of a good reason. Maybe the epitome of VR is always going to be a bunch of friends sitting around watching one person play it, but it felt like there could be something more. Something like a Star Trek bridge experience or... something.
- f0e4c2f7 4y ago
  Pokerstars is pretty good as a social experience. Eleven table tennis can be fun too.
- xd1936 4y ago
  Spending hours in Echo VR[1] playing Zero-G Frisbee was partly what got me through the pandemic. My friends and sister would hang out in the lobby and just talk while throwing the frisbee around, or play competitive games together, and it felt like really radical and transformational gaming experience. I can't recommend it enough. It's even free-to-play. 1. https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2215004568539258 https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2215004568539258
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  Absolutely it should be. An VRMMORPG will definitely be the way of the future for these consoles
- AceJohnny2 4y ago
  Tangentially, there's Acron [1], which is an interesting mixed-mode multiplayer game, where the one VR player is the defender, and iOS/Android players are the attackers trying to steal from the defender. It's a pretty fun party game, (though beginners get confused easily). I hope the concept gets expanded. [1] https://www.resolutiongames.com/acron https://www.resolutiongames.com/acron
lekevicius 4y ago
I've always felt they did Xbox / PlayStation strategy, selling headset below cost and earning on game store fees. Perhaps the math is not working out?
- msbarnett 4y ago
  > Perhaps the math is not working out? Bad sign for a company betting it all on "the metaverse".
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  They’re losing 3 billion a quarter on their vr business. Earnings this week, I suspect that number will be even higher. They’re doing the Uber strategy right now, pay customers to use your product hoping to lock them in.
- Damogran6 4y ago
  Literally everything is $20+ on their store, with very little demo-like content. The software isn't worth $20+...
vlunkr 4y ago
That's a significant increase. Can any game historians here tell us if a price hike this large has ever happened before? It's not a good look for something that seemed to be gaining a lot of traction.
- sidibe 4y ago
  It seems to be a very popular product that they were selling at a loss. I think I'd still get one for $400, it is much more useful and fun than most much more expensive AR/VR products right now
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  Price at Launch: PS1 -> PS2 -> PS3 $299 -> $299 -> $499-$599
  - vlunkr 4y ago
    Those are each distinct consoles.
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  Previous console makers haven't done this. If they ever did increase prices for a console it would be wrapped up in some incremental improvement of the hardware. I don't recall ever seeing a price increase on the same hardware.
kringo 4y ago
What, why? Running out of money or cost-cutting?
- terafo 4y ago
  Cost-cutting, ever since meta started loosing users they started cutting R&D.
  - kringo 4y ago
    They were throwing money at the problem, everything has to come down at the end lol
dougmwne 4y ago
I assume that Meta is done subsidizing the sales of the Quest. They have likely sold about 10 million units at a loss. I wonder if they have decided that the Quest is not yet the feature complete product that will run whatever they want the metaverse to be. Quest was basically an experiment and it seems they have learned what they need to. Their next headset, the Quest Pro, will have eye and face tracking cameras with the specific purpose to drive social avatars and make VR social more natural. Meta’s interest was always social and while the Quest might be great for gaming, that is not the addressable market they are going for. And yeah, I realize that most people here are going to be a hard no on Meta owning their face data, but strategically this is what they are going for.
- deleted 4y ago
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- namelessoracle 4y ago
  Alternatively, they are projecting reduction in advertising revenue due to recession and feel they cant take the hit the same way anymore but would have continued if everything else remained the same.
  - nomel 4y ago
    And, perhaps they're trying to soften the blow for the increased price of their newer headsets, which rumors say is in early stages of production.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    or due to the Digital Markets Act
- tootie 4y ago
  We bought one in the pandemic frenzy and played with it a ton. Family of four and we all found something fun. We fought over turns playing it for a few months, but now it spends most of its time on the cradle. It's still mostly a gimmick with barely a handful of interesting experiences. The Quest 2 is inexpensive, self-contained, has decent power and battery life with good hand tracking. There's not a lot of major technical barriers left to overcome. There just aren't enough clever ideas to make it worth strapping to my head.
digdugdirk 4y ago
Is VR broken out on the Meta balance sheets in a way that we can track profit/loss/expenditures that are associated to VR specifically? Anyone at Meta with a vague idea of how much of the company is working on VR specifically? It seems odd, like the "vision" is "VR Everything", but the reality is more "We bought Quest and don't know what else to do". Does anyone have any insight on how it feels inside the org?
- pavlov 4y ago
  Yes, Meta reports the AR/VR unit separately as Reality Labs. It lost $3 billion in Q1 this year, and about $10 billion in 2021. The number of employees working in this pillar exceeds 10,000, I believe. For the past years Meta has been building the entire stack: chips, novel controllers like wrist neural interaction, a new operating system... But the ambition level has been somewhat reduced recently. The new OS project (XROS) was scrapped last winter, for example.
  - TMWNN 4y ago
    It's definitely a passion project on Zuckerberg's part. Were he not CEO and controlling shareholder, it's definitely the kind of thing that a new CEO would cut. (Just like Blue Origin is a Bezos-personal-investment thing, not an Amazon thing.)
noncoml 4y ago
I don’t understand.. I thought Silicone Valley’s playbook was to give everything away for free until you people are hooked up or you drive everyone else out of the market, and then raise the prices as much as you want given you are a monopoly. How is this going to help them capture the market?
doublerabbit 4y ago
$400 for a headset and EAC to VRChat. the metaverse isn't exactly achieving much success.
nanna 4y ago
Am I the only one who struggles to take the name 'Meta' seriously, and still calls Zuckerberg's empire Facebook? Its a name that straddles pretentiousness and inanity ('That is sooo meta.') too acutely, and I resent them adopting a name of a broader movement of engineering for themselves. Or rather stealing it from https://meta.is/ https://meta.is/ .
- dieselgate 4y ago
  You’re not the only one although I think it’s cool (albeit contrary to personal preferences) to see comments on this thread from people who have positive VR experiences
- cheeze 4y ago
  Yeah - it's pretty poor branding IMO It's not Meta. It's Facebook. Meta feels like... an SNL skit or something.
- LordDragonfang 4y ago
  That has pretty much been the consensus opinion since the name change, so no, you are not the only one. The only people who I see consistently calling Zuckerberg's empire "Meta" are financial types that care about name of the company granting shares and on the stock ticker, and reporters who have to do copy editing.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  Not at all. Slightly tangential, but I still see news headlines use "Facebook" where it technically should be "Meta". I assume this is because only techies know what Meta is; everybody knows what Facebook is.
  - akavi 4y ago
    It's been 7 years since Google rebranded and everyone still calls it Google.
    - elwell 4y ago
drumhead 4y ago
The "metaverse" is swiftly fading into the distance now.
- andybak 4y ago
  Is "VR" and "metaverse" synonomous by your definition? I've always been cold on the metaverse hype whilst at the same time remaining a big fan of VR. However, I don't think VR is about to become mass market in the way some people hype it - and I don't think it needs to. It can remain a healthy niche and things would probably work out better that way.
kypro 4y ago
Lots of commenters here saying they're surprised by this move, but isn't the Quest 2 a loss leader for Meta? If I had to guess this move is probably to reduce the loss they're taking on each unit sold. The reason they're doing it now is probably because of the digital ad slow down and investor fears around Meta's metaverse cashburn.
- bredren 4y ago
  It has to be. When I ordered a few months ago the device arrived the next day. I couldn't believe it. Even though the hardware is somewhat aged and the platform still has bugs the overall quality, delivery and onboarding experience was good. The accessories to flesh out the kit were also inexpensive. The whole thing feels underpriced, however average people are definitely not ready to put on a headset. This is MUCH different from the flip-phone to smartphone transition. Pricing has to be low because there's major adoption friction to overcome. I've said it before, but I loathe facebook and can not support Meta or its aims until it splits off a company that can not and will not use data built from Facebook / Instagram or any other entity connected to FB. The only thing that gave me solace in adding data to my shadow profile was that I knew the purchase was costing them much more than was sustainable.
caslon 4y ago
It should be noted that they got rid of their cheapest Quest 2; the 64GB, which was initially at the $299 price point.
- aero-glide2 4y ago
  The 128GB was also $299
chpmrc 4y ago
If anyone is looking for a great VR multiplayer game with original mechanics, I highly recommend Hyper Dash: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3070239359662935/ https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3070239359662935/
andybak 4y ago
I would like to declare a new internet law: "VR will have become mainstream when someone posts a VR-related link to HN and the resultant discussion is about the article itself rather than VR in general"
- kranke155 4y ago
  VR will never become mainstream. I’ve been working in VR since 2015 and I don’t use it daily. I don’t know a single person who uses it daily. Maybe if you’re mildly autistic or remarkably introspective it works for you. For most people it’s a fundamentally alienating experience, like taking LSD but with none of the joy. VR is fundamentally an industrial technology, good for training and other purposes. For entertainment or home use it’s purposeless. Ask anyone (non techy) who has one. They don’t use it. The focus on VR is how I know Zuckerberg has no idea what he’s doing. VR is never going to work, not in its current incarnation. It just demonstrated that he has no idea how normal people work, and that he’s decided (for some reason) to completely ignore whatever data they have, which would show him that people just don’t use it.
  - andybak 4y ago
    See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32241770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32241770 I think you're overstating things but I agree to some extent. It's a niche product but there's more niches than just "industrial". There's still a lot of interest from the arts and creative sectors for example.
    - kranke155 4y ago
      I agree. The only true sustained usage I’ve seen it is industrial training which is why I mentioned it. But yes there are other uses for it. It’s mind boggling to me why or how Zuckerberg decided to invest so much on it. I wonder if it’s just a screen for the stock price not to collapse as he loses DAUs, and certainly young people, to TikTok and other apps. Because otherwise it doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.
ryanmcbride 4y ago
Not surprising unfortunately. When it first came out with its lower price I was pretty sure they were taking some losses in order to lower the barrier of entry to VR. VR has become way more established in the last few years, to the point that having a headset is no longer a conversation piece, so they can raise the entry barrier a little bit now that a lot of people already got through.
asciimov 4y ago
Well that's one way to kill platform adoption momentum. My biggest problem with VR is I've never been able to use it. I've been to One Microsoft store about 3 years ago that had some VR setup, but they refused to let me try it out. I don't understand why Meta doesn't have these to try out in stores. I'm not gonna buy something I can't see, touch, and try first.
- HatchedLake721 4y ago
  You can return it if you don’t like it, what’s the problem?
  - asciimov 4y ago
    I prefer to have an idea what I am getting into before I drop money on a big ticket item.
- par 4y ago
  I also have never tried it, and i actually work for meta.
- deleted 4y ago
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unicornmama 4y ago
All they need is a few more decades and billions of cash to burn to turn this into a viable mass-market conusmer product. Most new technologies fail. Except for some reason techies won't let VR just die.
jdlyga 4y ago
I view the Oculus Quest in the same category as 3D TV right now. Yes, it's REALLY COOL. But 3D TV was also really cool, especially watching Pixar movies which I did all the time when I had one. It has potential, but it's just not there beyond some initial great stuff.
- par 4y ago
  i dont think 3d tv was ever "really cool".
- smoldesu 4y ago
  I think you're making a bit of a WiiU-to-Switch comparison here. 3D TV's limitations were overtly prohibitive: not only were the units much more expensive than standard TVs, but they also required additional hardware/headsets. Then there's the problem with resolution and color accuracy, display shimmering, bad viewing angles... 3D TV was never meant to be anything besides a slick demo at your local Best Buy. VR I'm skeptical of, but most of the sticking points I can imagine have been fixed. For $400 you can get a fully-featured plug-and-play headset. That's less than most iPads! That headset will have controllers, inside-out tracking, 6DOF, video passthrough, wireless/standalone capabilities... Meta/Facebook certainly isn't a saint, but the Quest is amazing from a hardware standpoint. Even with the new price bump, these devices still feel oddly undervalued. I bought my Quest 1 a few years ago for the same price, and don't regret it at all.
jjcon 4y ago
Worth noting that this really only equates to a $50 increase on the base model compared to release since it was originally released as a 64GB set and now only 128GB is sold.
- epicide 4y ago
  The 128GB model was selling for $300 before this hike. Source: looking at a Best Buy listing right now for it (no sales or anything like that mentioned).
  - jjcon 4y ago
    Understood - just worth noting the comparison to the original release msrp I think. It’s not quite as bed if that is kept in mind
- TMWNN 4y ago
  When Quest 2 came out in September 2020, 64GB was $299 and 256GB was $399. A year ago the Quest 2 was recalled for a minor issue with the foam inserts. Oculus used the temporary discontinuation to replace the 64GB with a 128GB model for the same $299 price when sales began again in August.
throwaway092832 4y ago
Not worth it, as somehow who owns the quest 2. The runtime performance is garbage with frequent hitches in frame rate. The in-game resolution is poor with many games having extremely low texture quality and "jaggies" which could be solved with some sort of anti-aliasing. There are also barely any games worth to play in VR, the ecosystem just isn't there yet to warrant a VR purchase, especially at this price. VR experience is greatly improved if you can render it on your PC and stream it to a VR headset so you can get consistent frame rate and 120hz. I play beat saber which the quest 2 cannot reliably render without performance drops. You can fix this if you render it on a PC though. Now that the market rate went up, I will probably sell it to a pay pig. My graphics card is still up 200% over what I paid for it 4 years ago. EDIT: You need to place the headset in some faraday box, as it will still stay on even when turned off sometimes. It maps your entire house to know exactly where the safe play zones are. It's incredibly creepy, but also convenient, since you don't need to redraw the play area.
- jandrese 4y ago
  I have a Quest 2 and I've not noticed framerate hitches with Beat Saber. But I do a fair bit of wireless streaming off of PC (but not Beat Saber), and one of the things that surprises me is that it seems like battery life is worse when streaming from PC than when the Quest 2 is doing its own rendering. In any case the battery life does leave a bit to be desired. I expect the Quest 3 to be not much faster, but to have a significantly more efficient processor so it lasts more than an hour or two. My final note is that if you're going to stream wireless is the way to go. I was worried it would have noticeable latency or hitching but the experience has been basically perfect. You do need a fast modern 5Ghz WiFi router and the PC on Ethernet however. Dealing with cables that have fragile USB connectors on the end while you are blindly swinging your arms around is not worth it.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    Eh, I still use a Rift I bought off a friend, which requires a USB3 and HDMI for itself plus 3x USB3 for the base stations. While this is a tragically more complicated setup than I'd like, and getting all three base stations to behave was painful, I can't say that the cables themselves have really given me any trouble.
blitz_skull 4y ago
Lol if you have to spell out how “positive” and “undeniable” your product is, there’s a very solid chance it’s neither.
deleted 4y ago
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m00dy 4y ago
I am playing Population One on Quest2 and it is an amazing experience. So much worthy than 400usd.
m1gu3l 4y ago
As much as some of y’all want to pretend it is a flex to “not give meta/fb more money” it really isn’t.
permo-w 4y ago
is this a direct response to the Digital Markets Act? they're gonna be legally required to open up the devices in a year or two, so that's future potential tracking/ad revenue down by a double digit %, which was subsidising the cost of the devices in the first place
iwebdevfromhome 4y ago
Too bad, I wish more people have the opportunity to play a game changing experience like Half-life Alyx. If I have to describe it, it's like playing Mario 64 for the first time back in the day.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  As someone who thought Alyx was really underwhelming, what makes you say that? The only thing I thought Alyx did well was the pick up system and the healing station. The healing had a cool physicality to it. But there was basically nothing else in the game that achieved that. Alyx would have been just as good on the wii imo.
ourcat 4y ago
I assume this is to cover any losses from them soon making it possible to use the Quest without a Facebook account? ie: The data they will not be able to sell.
alkonaut 4y ago
So they no longer feel they need to subsidize it because there are no competitors in the segment and they sold enough to maintain the ecosystem?
ChildOfChaos 4y ago
I still have a quest 1. I use it daily for fitness. I really love it, it's changed my life, and the exercise I get from it really makes me feel good, particularly someone that spends most of my weeks inside and working at a computer. I've not enjoyed any other form of exercise but I really love this when combined with some of the fitness options such as FitXR. It's a real shame this has gone up so much, wow it's a large increase, not even a small one, however this was the price of the Quest 1, the Quest 2 featured a price drop due to some cutbacks they made with the hardware, but it's still disappointing to see them do this, particularly with it being such a large raise in price. I'm hoping my headset holds out until the Q3 or perhaps other options start coming on the market, perhaps from Apple. I don't care about VR gaming without a fitness element at the moment, as the games are a bit boring / not so fun for me, but for fitness it has been great.
belval 4y ago
As someone who owns a Quest 2 yet never actually bought a Quest 2 game (I use it for PCVR with AirLink) I think this makes sense. While I don't have numbers, a Quest 2 is roughly equivalent to a very expensive phone (beefy CPU + lots of RAM + high-res screen) that comes with two controllers. Even at 400USD they are probably still far from breaking even.

158 points by aero-glide2 4y ago

This is how inflation looks like, instead of being cheaper, it is getting more expensive. I am early adopter, had Oculus for a long time... Very few things to do with it unfortunatelly.

babyshake 4y ago
I'm wondering how much of this is inflation vs. supply chain constraints. I can't think of the last time I saw an electronics product like this with a substantial price increase so long after it has been released. The only comparable examples all involves supply crunches.

causi 4y ago

The fuck? It's a two year old electronics product. They should be dropping the price, not raising it.

yonaguska 4y ago

As much as I wanted to get into VR, Meta taking over the Quest has thankfully saved me countless sunken dollars and hours.

roody15 4y ago
Lol exactly. Really wanted to play Half Life / Alex but not about to give Meta any money … absolutely not going to use a facebook account to use a VR device.
- Jalad 4y ago
  To be fair, if you want to play Alyx you can also use the Valve Index. So no Meta involved
  - shahar2k 4y ago
    or an HP reverb G2, or HTC vive or one of dozens of other non meta vr sets... that said a cheap quest 2 second hand with virtual desktop makes for probably the best wireless experience / dollar you can have
    - Schinken_ 4y ago
      To add to that: Even though the Pico brand is now owned by Bytedance (TikTok) I really enjoy their Pico Neo 3 (it's a hardware equivalent to the Quest 2, actually due to active cooling it has a bit more performance headroom). The wireless streaming works great. There is no account setup whatsoever. Null, nada, nichts. You can just boot up the HMD and you're good to go.
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        I find it strange when people hail them as a more privacy-friendly alternative to Meta though. Personally I think ByteDance (and TikTok in particular) is an even worse company than Facebook ever was. It's like they learned from Facebook and made it worse.
  - giobox 4y ago
    At typically more than 2x the cost. I've played Alyx on both, the Index is absolutely not a 2x better experience. I'm no fan of their corporate parent either, but the value proposition on Quest 2 for general purpose PC VR gaming (especially prior to this price increase) was remarkable given size of subsidy Meta were prepared to make on price.
    - MikusR 4y ago
      It was 3x the cost now only 2.5x.
    - jsheard 4y ago
      It's a bit baffling that the Index is still as expensive as it is, it's three years old and has never gone on sale even once nevermind had a permanent price cut. In a vacuum it's worth what people are willing to pay, but Valve are a software company selling hardware to promote their ecosystem, which they're ceding to the much more affordable Oculus ecosystem by keeping the premium price. It's still a nice headset but it's showing it's age, the Quest 2 has higher resolution screens and the ability to stream PC VR wirelessly is a killer feature which the Index doesn't support.
- pathartl 4y ago
  Alyx is probably one of the greatest gaming experiences I've had... but I was also able to borrow a Vive from a friend to play it. I'm a Half-Life nut so I would have bought a headset anyway, but I'm glad I haven't bought a Quest.
  - YellowTech 4y ago
    You can use a Oculus Account (not connected to facebook) and then use Virtual Desktop to stream the game from SteamVR over Wifi. If you have a Wifi 6 router it's the best PC VR experience you can have (wireless, no base stations, really high resolution, very low latency) and besides the Quest 2 and Virtual Desktop you are not giving any money to Meta. If you are worried about battery life, I already player with a battery bank in small backpack without any problems! Absolutely awesome.
    - rblatz 4y ago
      You don't even need Virtual Desktop, the Quest 2 supports wireless VR natively.
  - echelon 4y ago
    The immersiveness is fantastic, but movement feels like trying to use a 1970's pong controller while something is strapped to your head. I want standard joystick-based movement. I suppose too many get motion sickness, or that joysticks are ergonomically awkward to place onto motion controllers while maintaining the "pointing" and "picking up" metaphors. VR's "aim and teleport" mechanic is the worst, though. It ruins the entire experience for me. I just want to walk in a direction - easy with a game controller. But instead you have to aim, judge distance, and click. It's so weird and feels gross.
    - papito 4y ago
      Alyx "smooth motion" is in settings - game settings, not Oculus or anything, and yes, you have to be careful. Sometimes I can barely maintain my footing if something happens too fast.
    - 4y ago
- break_the_bank 4y ago
  They dropped the requirement to have a Facebook account for Meta Quest 2 a few weeks ago.
  - Schinken_ 4y ago
    Yes, from a Facebook Account to a Meta Account...
    - jdgoesmarching 4y ago
      Don’t worry, they renamed the tables and everything!
  - amluto 4y ago
    By requiring a Meta account as I recall. Not much of an improvement.
    - LadyCailin 4y ago
      Presumably this would mean if you’re banned on Facebook, that wouldn’t lock you out of your device. That was one of the bigger sticking points at least.
      - reaperducer 4y ago
        If Meta is anything like Google (and it is), we're not far off from getting locked out of Facebook bricking your VR gear. HN is lousy with stories about people getting tagged by faulty "AI" in one Google program and getting blitzed out of all the others. The risk is too high that Meta will follow suit one day soon.
      - munk-a 4y ago
        Personally, I never want Meta to leverage my game usage on Facebook or any of their other platforms. I like Steam being an independent platform that has no motivation to share my information with socials - I really don't want random relatives asking me about my gaming habits. The fact that it was made by Facebook was worrying - the fact that it required a Facebook account made it a non-starter. For the same reason, while I do enjoy the occasional twitch stream - some of my favorite streamers have moved to FB... thus I have stopped watching them because I don't like making it easy for socials to track and broadcast my every waking moment.
- deleted 4y ago
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whywhywhywhy 4y ago
VR wouldn’t even be a thing anymore without their efforts. PC Tower VR is a dead end where the complexity and hardware costs will never take it the customer base size that justifies developing non-indie content. I don’t think Valve would have even bothered building Index without the Oculus threat.
- upupandup 4y ago
  What?! You give Meta way too much credit
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  Valve partnered with HTC on the Vive. While HTC has now decided to pivot away from consumer/enthusiast VR headsets, Valve never gave up.
- terafo 4y ago
  5 millions PSVR sold beg to differ.
  - ceeplusplus 4y ago
    That's an estimated 1/3 of what Quest 2 sold [1]. And Sony already has a huge install base of subsidized consoles to sell into, whereas high end PCs required to run VR are a rarity. [1] https://uploadvr.com/quest-2-sold-almost-15-million-idc https://uploadvr.com/quest-2-sold-almost-15-million-idc
    - terafo 4y ago
      I was disproving his point about VR being dead without Oculus. Prior to Quest 2 launch they weren't even the leader, 1.5 years after that launch they are basically only game in town(not for long, PSVR2, next gen Valve headset and Apple are coming soon). And VR-capable PCs aren't that rare, you basically need performance of 1060 and half of Steam userbase have that.
  - deleted 4y ago
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dmix 4y ago
You're missing out, Quest 2 was one of the best purchases I've made in the last year. I also don't think VR is good enough to be worth investing $1k+ into a VR headset like Vive. $300 seemed like a very high return on investment for what I got. Not sure about $400 since I already have one but I'd probably still do it. I also made a fake, empty Facebook account to use the Oculus store, so I don't feel like it's a privacy invasion.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  For me it isn't even so much about the privacy invasion or having to have a Facebook account, it's being locked into one store. PCVR doesn't have that problem.
  - nickthegreek 4y ago
    You can play any of your steam vr games on the quest 2.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
      Sure, with some hackery. I'd rather pay for something that doesn't require me to work around it like that. Why pay for this in-headset computer if I'm not using it?
      - nickthegreek 4y ago
        no hackery required. it works wireless as well.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
        You're correct, it used to require hackery, not it appears it is an included beta feature.
        Auracle 4y ago
FractalHQ 4y ago
I bought two recently for my parents and they don’t use them. I tried to use them but there are no real VR games to play. All of the games are arcade-style mini games with 20 year-old graphics. They get boring after a couple minutes. Huge disappointment! Around 10 years ago I gave up on VR and decided to wait for the VR game market to grow. It was a huge bummer to learn that nothing has changed after all this time. I think it will take another decade or two for hardware power and costs to catch up to modern game engines. For me, the only VR experience worth experiencing right now is probably a $1000 Valve Index with Half-Life Alyx running on my $4000 PC.
- rblatz 4y ago
  I'm not surprised that a casual level gaming device didn't meet the expectations of someone with a $4,000 gaming rig. You aren't the target market for this device.
- ilaksh 4y ago
  Eleven Table Tennis VR -- very realistic table tennis Golf+ -- fairly realistic Golf and also TopGolf setup. Demeo -- like a really casual HeroQuest that you can jump into at any time (multiplayer, automatic). Ancient Dungeon -- procedurally generated roguelike. The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners -- really good zombie game
- notjustanymike 4y ago
  With an Index, don't miss out on Into the Radius, and VTOL VR. Or get a wheel and try Project Cars 2 or iRacing.
SCUSKU 4y ago
Couldn't agree more. Two or so years ago I was thinking about getting into VR, but once I saw the Quest required Facebook login, I said no thanks.
JeremyNT 4y ago
Facebook/Meta has some really great advertising and branding, but there are now good alternatives out there too even if they aren't as well known. I have the HP Reverb 2 which is a pretty interesting device in its own right. Which is to say, you can definitely still throw away your time and money on this fad without supporting Facebook/Meta :)

zhoujianfu 4y ago

Noooo!! Why?!!!?! Arrrrrgh!!

archildress 4y ago

Sold my barely used Quest 2 a few weeks ago and had a real hard time getting even $235 for it.

de6u99er 4y ago
I believe the main issue is content. Not only us it more difficult to create content for VR, it's at least twice as expensive. VR will IMHO have the same fate as 3D TV"s had. Fancy and interesting in the beginning, but too much of a hassle on the long run. Did I get it right?
- intrasight 4y ago
  3D is still TV - with only a small improvement. VR isn't a small improvement on something you already have. It's a whole new thing. I, for one, expect it to be as revolutionary as the WWW - which also lacked for content in the early days.
- rjh29 4y ago
  I agree that content creation is difficult and there is a lack of longer experiences, but OTOH people are willing to pay more per hour of content for these experiences - comparable to movies - and there are also plenty of multiplayer/roguelike games for those who want more hours per dollar. The proof is in the pudding - the Quest has sold a lot and there are many games in the store already.
zlsa 4y ago
That's not surprising considering the brand-new price is $299, and refurb units are semi-regularly available for $250.
- archildress 4y ago
  Yeah, it's not a super steep discount; I wound up getting $235 for it. Sales tax would've been about another $30 here so it was about $100 off sticker price with probably 10 hours of play.
4y ago

mark_l_watson 4y ago

It seems strange to raise the price of something that has been on the market for a while, right? I do love my Quest 2.

balls187 4y ago
What do you love about it? I have a Quest 2, and it still seems very niche for me.
- mark_l_watson 4y ago
  I do the Thai Chi lessons everyday. I find the ping pong game is a great way to unwind, a 5 minute game is enough. I enjoyed the Star Wars Vader Immortal series. I use my quest for about 1 hour a week, so I am not a heavy user - but I do enjoy it. BTW, I worked in the VR field about 25 years ago for SAIC and Disney.
  - balls187 4y ago
    I too enjoy the VR experience, and to me, it scratches a similar itch as going to a high-end arcade and playing Mechwarrior. Fun to do occasionally, but not how I spend a majority of my entertainment hours. > BTW, I worked in the VR field about 25 years ago for SAIC and Disney. Nice. I remember my first VR experience was about 30 years ago at the local kids science center.
- rjh29 4y ago
  I like Beat Saber (play daily), Walkabout Golf (feels like minigolf, can play with friends anywhere in the world) and Resident Evil 4 (a classic game excellently ported into immersive VR). Also the price. Before the Quest I'd have needed to buy a gaming PC and expensive headset like the Vive or Index. And it's wireless and doesn't need any sensor units placed around you. The tracking works great and it tells you when you're about to leave a safe area. It can even do hand tracking so you don't need controllers.
  - balls187 4y ago

baggy_trough 4y ago

I wouldn’t use one for free right now. There just isn’t a compelling experience there yet.

joshlemer 4y ago
There's honestly just hardly even any games on it at all. And all of the games are really expensive. I like how on the Nintendo Switch there are big budget games but also thousands of games for like $2
- deleted 4y ago
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- balls187 4y ago
  Have you tried wireless streaming VR games from a PC?
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    There's not much of note on steam either. It's pretty much the same games in the top 10 every month.
- ParanoidShroom 4y ago
  I guess that will change if they get ads in games right. The problem is real, a lot of games are really not worth the money
- andybak 4y ago
  "Hardly any games" seems like an exaggeration. Are you including AppLab and SideQuest or just counting the main store? Even so... Also bear in mind that Meta have been extremely aggressive in restricting access to the main store. Unless you're a big name dev, can show strong sales on other VR platforms or you have good contacts with someone inside Meta then it's very hard to get in.
  - 4y ago

trixie_ 4y ago

It's a strange move given Facebook changed their name to promote VR and the Quest is their flagship device. Also surprised that after mass producing this device for almost 2 years their manufacturing and supply chain costs aren't dialed in enough to maintain the current price. The message here is that VR is 'failing'. I hope it's not, but that's the message with this backwards move.

azinman2 4y ago
We don’t know how much their BOM increased. They likely were either losing money or not much margin, and with the market going downward they probably couldn’t afford to offset it as much anymore.
- noncoml 4y ago
  Imagine where Uber would be today if they wanted to stop losing money so early in the game.
  - azinman2 4y ago
    Early? They’ve been selling in the market for over 6 years now.
    - noncoml 4y ago
      Yeah early as in early in market domination.
      - spywaregorilla 4y ago
        And they're still losing money with no path towards profitability or market domination?
        noncoml 4y ago
        Yeah don’t disagree. But how will increasing the price help them?

emadabdulrahim 4y ago

I feel like an old grumpy man saying this, but I hate the idea of wearing a device on my face to literally hijack one of the precious senses one has. I'm sure over time I'll look back and laugh at myself for thinking that way.

vlunkr 4y ago
I've been railing against VR for years, because I'm really picky about video games, but I was converted. It's really worth a try. It's not a replacement for current video games, nor do I see myself wearing one for hours at a time to hang out in some corporate dystopia (which seems to be what Meta wants), but there are some really cool and unique experiences. I think VR game design is still pretty immature, but in a way I find that refreshing. most of these games are simple enough that any casual player can pick them up, which hasn't really been the case since the Wii came out ages ago.
rgovostes 4y ago
Do you ever wear headphones?
- emadabdulrahim 4y ago
  I do, but I'm not entirely deaf when I wear them. I can hear my surroundings easily if I wanted to. Is there a mode in those VR headsets where one can see what's in front of them without taking them off? I'm ignorant about the tech of VR.
  - rg111 4y ago
    That becomes AR then, I guess?
    - agloeregrets 4y ago
      I've seen the mix of VR and Ar called XR, or Extended Reality. That is what Quest Pro is.
  - 4y ago

908087 4y ago

sillysaurusx 4y ago

I'm shocked that there aren't more multiplayer VR experiences. Yes, sure, there's Pavlov and VR Chat. But unless you have a friend who's into VR Chat, it's remarkably difficult to find a game that can immerse two different people at the same time. It felt a bit ironic that mini golf was one of the most fun multiplayer party games. My wife was like "You should bring over your quest 2!" to our new house -- she already has an Index and some other high end headset. I asked "But why?" and we couldn't think of a good reason. Maybe the epitome of VR is always going to be a bunch of friends sitting around watching one person play it, but it felt like there could be something more. Something like a Star Trek bridge experience or... something.

f0e4c2f7 4y ago
Pokerstars is pretty good as a social experience. Eleven table tennis can be fun too.
xd1936 4y ago
Spending hours in Echo VR[1] playing Zero-G Frisbee was partly what got me through the pandemic. My friends and sister would hang out in the lobby and just talk while throwing the frisbee around, or play competitive games together, and it felt like really radical and transformational gaming experience. I can't recommend it enough. It's even free-to-play. 1. https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2215004568539258 https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2215004568539258
Ancalagon 4y ago
Absolutely it should be. An VRMMORPG will definitely be the way of the future for these consoles
AceJohnny2 4y ago
Tangentially, there's Acron [1], which is an interesting mixed-mode multiplayer game, where the one VR player is the defender, and iOS/Android players are the attackers trying to steal from the defender. It's a pretty fun party game, (though beginners get confused easily). I hope the concept gets expanded. [1] https://www.resolutiongames.com/acron https://www.resolutiongames.com/acron

lekevicius 4y ago

I've always felt they did Xbox / PlayStation strategy, selling headset below cost and earning on game store fees. Perhaps the math is not working out?

msbarnett 4y ago
> Perhaps the math is not working out? Bad sign for a company betting it all on "the metaverse".
colinmhayes 4y ago
They’re losing 3 billion a quarter on their vr business. Earnings this week, I suspect that number will be even higher. They’re doing the Uber strategy right now, pay customers to use your product hoping to lock them in.
Damogran6 4y ago
Literally everything is $20+ on their store, with very little demo-like content. The software isn't worth $20+...

vlunkr 4y ago

That's a significant increase. Can any game historians here tell us if a price hike this large has ever happened before? It's not a good look for something that seemed to be gaining a lot of traction.

sidibe 4y ago
It seems to be a very popular product that they were selling at a loss. I think I'd still get one for $400, it is much more useful and fun than most much more expensive AR/VR products right now
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
Price at Launch: PS1 -> PS2 -> PS3 $299 -> $299 -> $499-$599
- vlunkr 4y ago
  Those are each distinct consoles.
Tiktaalik 4y ago
Previous console makers haven't done this. If they ever did increase prices for a console it would be wrapped up in some incremental improvement of the hardware. I don't recall ever seeing a price increase on the same hardware.

kringo 4y ago

What, why? Running out of money or cost-cutting?

terafo 4y ago
Cost-cutting, ever since meta started loosing users they started cutting R&D.
- kringo 4y ago
  They were throwing money at the problem, everything has to come down at the end lol

dougmwne 4y ago

I assume that Meta is done subsidizing the sales of the Quest. They have likely sold about 10 million units at a loss. I wonder if they have decided that the Quest is not yet the feature complete product that will run whatever they want the metaverse to be. Quest was basically an experiment and it seems they have learned what they need to. Their next headset, the Quest Pro, will have eye and face tracking cameras with the specific purpose to drive social avatars and make VR social more natural. Meta’s interest was always social and while the Quest might be great for gaming, that is not the addressable market they are going for. And yeah, I realize that most people here are going to be a hard no on Meta owning their face data, but strategically this is what they are going for.

deleted 4y ago
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namelessoracle 4y ago
Alternatively, they are projecting reduction in advertising revenue due to recession and feel they cant take the hit the same way anymore but would have continued if everything else remained the same.
- nomel 4y ago
  And, perhaps they're trying to soften the blow for the increased price of their newer headsets, which rumors say is in early stages of production.
- permo-w 4y ago
  or due to the Digital Markets Act
tootie 4y ago
We bought one in the pandemic frenzy and played with it a ton. Family of four and we all found something fun. We fought over turns playing it for a few months, but now it spends most of its time on the cradle. It's still mostly a gimmick with barely a handful of interesting experiences. The Quest 2 is inexpensive, self-contained, has decent power and battery life with good hand tracking. There's not a lot of major technical barriers left to overcome. There just aren't enough clever ideas to make it worth strapping to my head.

digdugdirk 4y ago

Is VR broken out on the Meta balance sheets in a way that we can track profit/loss/expenditures that are associated to VR specifically? Anyone at Meta with a vague idea of how much of the company is working on VR specifically? It seems odd, like the "vision" is "VR Everything", but the reality is more "We bought Quest and don't know what else to do". Does anyone have any insight on how it feels inside the org?

pavlov 4y ago
Yes, Meta reports the AR/VR unit separately as Reality Labs. It lost $3 billion in Q1 this year, and about $10 billion in 2021. The number of employees working in this pillar exceeds 10,000, I believe. For the past years Meta has been building the entire stack: chips, novel controllers like wrist neural interaction, a new operating system... But the ambition level has been somewhat reduced recently. The new OS project (XROS) was scrapped last winter, for example.
- TMWNN 4y ago
  It's definitely a passion project on Zuckerberg's part. Were he not CEO and controlling shareholder, it's definitely the kind of thing that a new CEO would cut. (Just like Blue Origin is a Bezos-personal-investment thing, not an Amazon thing.)

noncoml 4y ago

I don’t understand.. I thought Silicone Valley’s playbook was to give everything away for free until you people are hooked up or you drive everyone else out of the market, and then raise the prices as much as you want given you are a monopoly. How is this going to help them capture the market?

doublerabbit 4y ago

$400 for a headset and EAC to VRChat. the metaverse isn't exactly achieving much success.

nanna 4y ago

Am I the only one who struggles to take the name 'Meta' seriously, and still calls Zuckerberg's empire Facebook? Its a name that straddles pretentiousness and inanity ('That is sooo meta.') too acutely, and I resent them adopting a name of a broader movement of engineering for themselves. Or rather stealing it from https://meta.is/ https://meta.is/ .

dieselgate 4y ago
You’re not the only one although I think it’s cool (albeit contrary to personal preferences) to see comments on this thread from people who have positive VR experiences
cheeze 4y ago
Yeah - it's pretty poor branding IMO It's not Meta. It's Facebook. Meta feels like... an SNL skit or something.
LordDragonfang 4y ago
That has pretty much been the consensus opinion since the name change, so no, you are not the only one. The only people who I see consistently calling Zuckerberg's empire "Meta" are financial types that care about name of the company granting shares and on the stock ticker, and reporters who have to do copy editing.
KerrAvon 4y ago
Not at all. Slightly tangential, but I still see news headlines use "Facebook" where it technically should be "Meta". I assume this is because only techies know what Meta is; everybody knows what Facebook is.
- akavi 4y ago
  It's been 7 years since Google rebranded and everyone still calls it Google.
  - elwell 4y ago

drumhead 4y ago

The "metaverse" is swiftly fading into the distance now.

andybak 4y ago
Is "VR" and "metaverse" synonomous by your definition? I've always been cold on the metaverse hype whilst at the same time remaining a big fan of VR. However, I don't think VR is about to become mass market in the way some people hype it - and I don't think it needs to. It can remain a healthy niche and things would probably work out better that way.

kypro 4y ago

Lots of commenters here saying they're surprised by this move, but isn't the Quest 2 a loss leader for Meta? If I had to guess this move is probably to reduce the loss they're taking on each unit sold. The reason they're doing it now is probably because of the digital ad slow down and investor fears around Meta's metaverse cashburn.

bredren 4y ago
It has to be. When I ordered a few months ago the device arrived the next day. I couldn't believe it. Even though the hardware is somewhat aged and the platform still has bugs the overall quality, delivery and onboarding experience was good. The accessories to flesh out the kit were also inexpensive. The whole thing feels underpriced, however average people are definitely not ready to put on a headset. This is MUCH different from the flip-phone to smartphone transition. Pricing has to be low because there's major adoption friction to overcome. I've said it before, but I loathe facebook and can not support Meta or its aims until it splits off a company that can not and will not use data built from Facebook / Instagram or any other entity connected to FB. The only thing that gave me solace in adding data to my shadow profile was that I knew the purchase was costing them much more than was sustainable.

caslon 4y ago

It should be noted that they got rid of their cheapest Quest 2; the 64GB, which was initially at the $299 price point.

aero-glide2 4y ago
The 128GB was also $299

chpmrc 4y ago

If anyone is looking for a great VR multiplayer game with original mechanics, I highly recommend Hyper Dash: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3070239359662935/ https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3070239359662935/

andybak 4y ago

I would like to declare a new internet law: "VR will have become mainstream when someone posts a VR-related link to HN and the resultant discussion is about the article itself rather than VR in general"

kranke155 4y ago
VR will never become mainstream. I’ve been working in VR since 2015 and I don’t use it daily. I don’t know a single person who uses it daily. Maybe if you’re mildly autistic or remarkably introspective it works for you. For most people it’s a fundamentally alienating experience, like taking LSD but with none of the joy. VR is fundamentally an industrial technology, good for training and other purposes. For entertainment or home use it’s purposeless. Ask anyone (non techy) who has one. They don’t use it. The focus on VR is how I know Zuckerberg has no idea what he’s doing. VR is never going to work, not in its current incarnation. It just demonstrated that he has no idea how normal people work, and that he’s decided (for some reason) to completely ignore whatever data they have, which would show him that people just don’t use it.
- andybak 4y ago
  See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32241770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32241770 I think you're overstating things but I agree to some extent. It's a niche product but there's more niches than just "industrial". There's still a lot of interest from the arts and creative sectors for example.
  - kranke155 4y ago
    I agree. The only true sustained usage I’ve seen it is industrial training which is why I mentioned it. But yes there are other uses for it. It’s mind boggling to me why or how Zuckerberg decided to invest so much on it. I wonder if it’s just a screen for the stock price not to collapse as he loses DAUs, and certainly young people, to TikTok and other apps. Because otherwise it doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.

ryanmcbride 4y ago

Not surprising unfortunately. When it first came out with its lower price I was pretty sure they were taking some losses in order to lower the barrier of entry to VR. VR has become way more established in the last few years, to the point that having a headset is no longer a conversation piece, so they can raise the entry barrier a little bit now that a lot of people already got through.

asciimov 4y ago

Well that's one way to kill platform adoption momentum. My biggest problem with VR is I've never been able to use it. I've been to One Microsoft store about 3 years ago that had some VR setup, but they refused to let me try it out. I don't understand why Meta doesn't have these to try out in stores. I'm not gonna buy something I can't see, touch, and try first.

HatchedLake721 4y ago
You can return it if you don’t like it, what’s the problem?
- asciimov 4y ago
  I prefer to have an idea what I am getting into before I drop money on a big ticket item.
par 4y ago
I also have never tried it, and i actually work for meta.
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unicornmama 4y ago

All they need is a few more decades and billions of cash to burn to turn this into a viable mass-market conusmer product. Most new technologies fail. Except for some reason techies won't let VR just die.

jdlyga 4y ago

I view the Oculus Quest in the same category as 3D TV right now. Yes, it's REALLY COOL. But 3D TV was also really cool, especially watching Pixar movies which I did all the time when I had one. It has potential, but it's just not there beyond some initial great stuff.

par 4y ago
i dont think 3d tv was ever "really cool".
smoldesu 4y ago
I think you're making a bit of a WiiU-to-Switch comparison here. 3D TV's limitations were overtly prohibitive: not only were the units much more expensive than standard TVs, but they also required additional hardware/headsets. Then there's the problem with resolution and color accuracy, display shimmering, bad viewing angles... 3D TV was never meant to be anything besides a slick demo at your local Best Buy. VR I'm skeptical of, but most of the sticking points I can imagine have been fixed. For $400 you can get a fully-featured plug-and-play headset. That's less than most iPads! That headset will have controllers, inside-out tracking, 6DOF, video passthrough, wireless/standalone capabilities... Meta/Facebook certainly isn't a saint, but the Quest is amazing from a hardware standpoint. Even with the new price bump, these devices still feel oddly undervalued. I bought my Quest 1 a few years ago for the same price, and don't regret it at all.

jjcon 4y ago

Worth noting that this really only equates to a $50 increase on the base model compared to release since it was originally released as a 64GB set and now only 128GB is sold.

epicide 4y ago
The 128GB model was selling for $300 before this hike. Source: looking at a Best Buy listing right now for it (no sales or anything like that mentioned).
- jjcon 4y ago
  Understood - just worth noting the comparison to the original release msrp I think. It’s not quite as bed if that is kept in mind
TMWNN 4y ago
When Quest 2 came out in September 2020, 64GB was $299 and 256GB was $399. A year ago the Quest 2 was recalled for a minor issue with the foam inserts. Oculus used the temporary discontinuation to replace the 64GB with a 128GB model for the same $299 price when sales began again in August.

throwaway092832 4y ago

Not worth it, as somehow who owns the quest 2. The runtime performance is garbage with frequent hitches in frame rate. The in-game resolution is poor with many games having extremely low texture quality and "jaggies" which could be solved with some sort of anti-aliasing. There are also barely any games worth to play in VR, the ecosystem just isn't there yet to warrant a VR purchase, especially at this price. VR experience is greatly improved if you can render it on your PC and stream it to a VR headset so you can get consistent frame rate and 120hz. I play beat saber which the quest 2 cannot reliably render without performance drops. You can fix this if you render it on a PC though. Now that the market rate went up, I will probably sell it to a pay pig. My graphics card is still up 200% over what I paid for it 4 years ago. EDIT: You need to place the headset in some faraday box, as it will still stay on even when turned off sometimes. It maps your entire house to know exactly where the safe play zones are. It's incredibly creepy, but also convenient, since you don't need to redraw the play area.

jandrese 4y ago
I have a Quest 2 and I've not noticed framerate hitches with Beat Saber. But I do a fair bit of wireless streaming off of PC (but not Beat Saber), and one of the things that surprises me is that it seems like battery life is worse when streaming from PC than when the Quest 2 is doing its own rendering. In any case the battery life does leave a bit to be desired. I expect the Quest 3 to be not much faster, but to have a significantly more efficient processor so it lasts more than an hour or two. My final note is that if you're going to stream wireless is the way to go. I was worried it would have noticeable latency or hitching but the experience has been basically perfect. You do need a fast modern 5Ghz WiFi router and the PC on Ethernet however. Dealing with cables that have fragile USB connectors on the end while you are blindly swinging your arms around is not worth it.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  Eh, I still use a Rift I bought off a friend, which requires a USB3 and HDMI for itself plus 3x USB3 for the base stations. While this is a tragically more complicated setup than I'd like, and getting all three base stations to behave was painful, I can't say that the cables themselves have really given me any trouble.

blitz_skull 4y ago

Lol if you have to spell out how “positive” and “undeniable” your product is, there’s a very solid chance it’s neither.

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m00dy 4y ago

I am playing Population One on Quest2 and it is an amazing experience. So much worthy than 400usd.

m1gu3l 4y ago

As much as some of y’all want to pretend it is a flex to “not give meta/fb more money” it really isn’t.

permo-w 4y ago

is this a direct response to the Digital Markets Act? they're gonna be legally required to open up the devices in a year or two, so that's future potential tracking/ad revenue down by a double digit %, which was subsidising the cost of the devices in the first place

iwebdevfromhome 4y ago

Too bad, I wish more people have the opportunity to play a game changing experience like Half-life Alyx. If I have to describe it, it's like playing Mario 64 for the first time back in the day.

spywaregorilla 4y ago
As someone who thought Alyx was really underwhelming, what makes you say that? The only thing I thought Alyx did well was the pick up system and the healing station. The healing had a cool physicality to it. But there was basically nothing else in the game that achieved that. Alyx would have been just as good on the wii imo.

ourcat 4y ago

I assume this is to cover any losses from them soon making it possible to use the Quest without a Facebook account? ie: The data they will not be able to sell.

alkonaut 4y ago

So they no longer feel they need to subsidize it because there are no competitors in the segment and they sold enough to maintain the ecosystem?

ChildOfChaos 4y ago

I still have a quest 1. I use it daily for fitness. I really love it, it's changed my life, and the exercise I get from it really makes me feel good, particularly someone that spends most of my weeks inside and working at a computer. I've not enjoyed any other form of exercise but I really love this when combined with some of the fitness options such as FitXR. It's a real shame this has gone up so much, wow it's a large increase, not even a small one, however this was the price of the Quest 1, the Quest 2 featured a price drop due to some cutbacks they made with the hardware, but it's still disappointing to see them do this, particularly with it being such a large raise in price. I'm hoping my headset holds out until the Q3 or perhaps other options start coming on the market, perhaps from Apple. I don't care about VR gaming without a fitness element at the moment, as the games are a bit boring / not so fun for me, but for fitness it has been great.

belval 4y ago

As someone who owns a Quest 2 yet never actually bought a Quest 2 game (I use it for PCVR with AirLink) I think this makes sense. While I don't have numbers, a Quest 2 is roughly equivalent to a very expensive phone (beefy CPU + lots of RAM + high-res screen) that comes with two controllers. Even at 400USD they are probably still far from breaking even.