Meta Quest 3 was unveiled in June 2023 and will ship in the fall of 2023 starting at $500 from the companies formerly known as Facebook and Oculus.
Here’s everything we know about Quest 3 so far.
Meta formally revealed Quest 3 earlier this year after months of hints. The announcement came just days before Apple unveiled the Vision Pro, its own entry into the headset market.
The Quest 3 is a follow-up to the Meta Quest 2 (aka Oculus Quest 2), which first shipped in 2020, but now offers a slimmer visor, dramatically improved performance, and a fine-tuned focus on mixed reality features using new color passthrough cameras and a depth sensor.
The reveal in June gave us minimal details about the upcoming headset, with Meta promising a full reveal and more details at this year’s Meta Connect conference on September 27.
In the meantime, here’s our roundup of everything we know about Quest 3 so far, from internals, design to planned content and more.
Quest 3 details scheduled for Meta Connect on September 27th
Meta confirmed that Connect will include a personal component and keynote from CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Expect Quest 3 details:
Price, storage and product line
The base Quest 3 model will have 128GB of storage starting at $500.
The base model of the Quest 2 debuted with 64GB of storage for $300. A year after launch, Meta upped the base model’s storage to 128GB and then raised the price to $400.
When Meta announced the Quest 3, it noted that the Quest 2 and Quest Pro would continue to be sold alongside the new headset, with the base Quest 2 model returning to its original price of $300. Meta also confirmed that an additional Quest 3 model with higher storage will be available, but has yet to provide details or pricing on that model.
Meta maintains that the Quest Pro will remain on the market and will be sold alongside the Quest 3. However, its life cycle may still be coming to an end – reports suggest that Meta is not ordering new Quest Pro components. If so, production will stop when the components run out, and the Quest Pro will be sold until supplies last.
Design and sensors
The Quest 3 has a similar white plastic design to the Quest 2, but in a slimmer form factor with new sensors and cameras. Meta claims the Quest 3 has a “40% slimmer optical profile” than the Quest 3, which is primarily due to the new lenses (more on those later).
Like the Quest 2, there are multiple tracking cameras located in the headset shell. New on the Quest 3 are three pill-shaped cutouts on the front of the headset, which house the all-new depth sensor and the dual 4-megapixel RGB cameras. These new cameras allow for a color passthrough display that has 10 times more pixels than the black-and-white passthrough on the Quest 2.
The Quest 2 also featured a removable head strap system that allowed the user to swap out the standard fabric strap for Meta’s advanced ‘Elite Strap’ or other third party alternatives.
It is currently unknown if the Quest 3 will feature the same detachable strap system. However, images posted by Meta’s Jason Rubin showed him using the Quest 3 with an updated version of the Elite Strap, shown above. This suggests that an updated Elite Strap will either be available as an option for select Quest 3 models or sold separately as an accessory like the Quest 2.
Internal components
When Meta announced the Quest 3 in June, it said the headset featured a “next-gen Snapdragon chipset” with “more than twice the graphics performance” of the Quest 2.
While Meta didn’t give a specific name or further details about the chipset, other findings and reports suggest it will be the yet-to-be-announced Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 from Qualcomm – a true successor to the Gen 1 chip used in the Quest 2 , Pico 4, Vive Focus 3 and other standalone headsets. The Quest Pro, for example, used an XR2+ with some improvements over the previous XR2 implementation. The chipset inside the Quest 3 is expected to provide a much more dramatic upgrade in performance.
Lenses, resolution and refresh rate
The Quest 3 will use pancake lenses, which allow for a much slimmer design, and assuming they’re the same as those used on the Quest Pro, they’ll also offer superior visual clarity.
The Oculus Go, Quest, Rift S, Quest 2, and even Sony’s PlayStation VR2 headset all use a bulkier fresnel lens. Last year, Meta introduced its new pancake lenses in the Quest Pro, which allow for smaller, closer-spaced panels and an overall thinner headset visor.
On the Quest Pro, pancake lenses also allowed for a slightly more expansive field of view than the Quest 2. We may see a similar increase on the Quest 3, as it uses the same lenses, but that will depend on the Meta’s specific implementation.
Quest 3 resolution apparently confirmed by Best Buy listing
The Quest 3’s rumored resolution and screen type were apparently confirmed by a surprise Best Buy listing:
When Meta announced the Quest 3, it said it would have the company’s “highest resolution screen yet.” In June, a Best Buy store page description for the Quest 3 may have confirmed the actual solution. The store page describes Quest 3 as having “an almost 30% jump in resolution from Quest 2.” When lined up with reports from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and data extracted from Quest firmware, that number points towards an on-paper resolution of 2064×2208 per eye for the Quest 3.
The store page also listed a 120Hz refresh rate, which may be accurate as the resolution details listed seem to match other data.
Leaked schematics and reports indicate that the headset will have a spacer at the bottom for stepless IPD adjustment. Unlike the Quest 2 and Quest Pro, this should allow users to adjust the IPD while wearing the Quest 3 without removing the headset.
Mixed reality and improved color rendering
A major focus of Meta’s marketing material for Quest 3 has been mixed reality. In fact, we already have footage of mixed reality experiences running on Quest 3.
Powered by the headset’s enhanced full-color passthrough, the Quest 3 will let you “seamlessly blend your physical world with the virtual one.” Meta says the addition of a depth sensor will allow Quest 3 to understand “a more accurate representation of your play area” while “intelligently understanding and responding to objects in your physical space.”
Watch The First Quest 3 Mixed Reality Gameplay Footage
Meta has just revealed the first Quest 3 mixed reality gameplay showing off the passthrough quality and spatial awareness features. See it here:
According to a hands-on from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the quality of the passthrough image on the Quest 3 is “almost lifelike” and good enough to use your phone in passthrough mode from inside VR.
Some of the footage also depicts environmental lighting on Quest 3, which changes the colors and brightness of real parts of a walkthrough scene to match a virtual light source. You can see this in action here, which features an aquarium window that reflects the physical surroundings in which it is placed.
Environmental awareness and spatial detection
On Quest Pro and Quest 2, users must manually mark their environment (including walls and furniture) to get mixed reality functionality.
Meta hasn’t revealed any official details on how spatial awareness and environmental awareness will work on the Quest 3. However, the inclusion of a depth sensor should allow for a more seamless room setup process, and according to reports from Mark Gurman, the Quest 3 will be able to identify walls automatically .
Quest 3 ‘Smart Gurdian’ room scan setup leaked
Clip shown to show room scan setup for Quest 3’s mixed reality and ‘Smart Guardian’ found in firmware:
Leaked tutorial clips discovered in the Quest firmware show automatic room scanning where a user walks around their room looking at walls and furniture to generate a mask map of all the objects.
We’ve also seen some Quest 3 experiences with colocation, as shown in footage of a currently unreleased mixed reality mode for Broken Edge, embedded above.
Colocation allows multiple users to view and interact with identical virtual objects, located in the same positions around a physical space that they share.
Battery life and official charging station
According to Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, battery life on the Quest 3 will be “about the same” as the Quest 2. However, he also provided the usual disclaimer, noting that battery life will vary depending on your usage situation.
Meta also received FCC approval for a charging stand for the Quest 3 headset and Touch Plus controllers.
Touch Plus controllers
The Quest 3 comes with new Touch Plus controllers, which ditch the tracking rings used in the Touch controllers in the original Quest and Quest 2 headsets.
The loss of bulky tracking rings will allow for more fine-tuned and intimate interactions, as the controllers can be used closer together than was possible with previous non-Pro iterations of Touch controllers.
The design is visually similar to the Touch Pro controllers that come with the Quest Pro. However, the Touch Plus does not have built-in tracking cameras. They instead use the same infrared LEDs used in Quest 2, now located on the front of the controller instead of a ring.
Meta reveals how Quest 3’s controllers are tracked
Meta’s CTO explained how Quest 3’s Touch Plus controllers track, and Beat Saber’s co-founder gave his take.
This means that the LEDs will be closed more often from the headset’s tracking cameras. However, Quest 3 will also continuously run its controller-free hand tracking while you use controllers. The new system merges hand tracking data with LED tracking data as well as the accompanying accelerometers and gyroscopes. Beat Saber co-founder Jaroslav Beck allayed any fears that the tracking on the Touch Plus was inferior, saying “It’s good. Don’t worry.” on Twitter. A Meta employee also claimed that Touch Plus tracking is good enough to play Beat Saber on Expert+.
The FCC approved Touch Plus controllers recently, ahead of the Quest 3’s launch this fall. The accompanying documents confirmed that the controllers use the same 2.4GHz wireless spectrum as previous controllers and require a single AA battery each (unlike the Touch Pro, which has built-in rechargeable batteries).
Games and planned content
Quest 3 will be backwards compatible with the entire existing Quest catalog. Meta has not yet announced any Quest 3 exclusive titles.
When Meta released Quest 2, it took a full year before releasing its first Quest 2-exclusive game, Resident Evil 4 VR, which dropped support for the original Oculus Quest.
Meta’s biggest upcoming first-party game release is Asgard’s Wrath 2, which promises an expansive campaign with over 60 hours of exploration.
Asgard’s Wrath 2: Meta’s Big AAA Bet On Quest 2 & Quest 3
AAA games on Quest 2 and Quest 3? Asgard’s Wrath 2 from Sanzaru runs “around 60 hours” later this year. Read our in-depth interview:
Asgard’s Wrath 2 will be released in winter 2023, and while it will be available on Quest 2 and Quest Pro, Meta says the Quest 3’s “advanced processor and higher resolution will provide an even better look and feel in Asgard’s Wrath 2.”
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 1 will receive an “enhanced version” on Quest 3 this fall. Likewise, Pavlov Shack will run at a higher refresh rate on the new headset.
Soul Assembly confirmed in June that it’s co-op zombie wave shooter Drop Dead: The Cabin is receiving a mixed reality mode for Quest 3 and Pro later this year. Likewise, Espire 2 is receiving new mixed reality missions designed for Quest 3, while footage from Meta showed an as-yet-unannounced mixed reality mode in Broken Edge.
Games with existing mixed reality functionality, such as Demeo, should transfer seamlessly to Quest 3 and benefit greatly from the system-wide image quality upgrades for passthrough and mixed reality.
Otherwise, Quest 3 will support all announced and upcoming games for the Quest platform – you can see a list of everything coming here:
Upcoming VR games 2023: New releases on Quest, PC, PSVR 2 and more
Need a refresher on all upcoming VR games in 2023 and beyond? Here are all the big games coming to Quest, PSVR 2, PC VR and Pico.
That’s all we know about Quest 3 – for now! Stay tuned for updates and more details from Meta next month at Meta Connect.
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