This really feels like a Quest 2 + 1, which is fine. Same but better specs.
But the site appears to me like it’s positioning it as a Vision Pro competitor when it’s not even in the same league. “We have AR too so it’s the same!” The Vision Pro seems very clearly marketed at a different segment and primary use case to me.
The problem is that if Apple (or a 3rd party on the platform) figures it out I think there’s a good chance it can’t work well on a significantly cheaper headset like the Quest 3.
Then the Quest 3 may be the cheap thing that doesn’t do what people want. Like when you didn’t get an XBox 360 at Christmas because mom/dad got you a $25 TV plug-in Pac-Man game because “it’s the same thing”.
But Meta wants in on the party. And I feel like they’re trying to get their sales before the Vision Pro comes out and immediately becomes the thing that they get very unfavorably compared to (except price). Just like they rushed out a pre-announcement this was coming around the Vision Pro announcement.
Even if Apple face plants or never finds “it”and the Vision Pro isn’t successful I don’t see Meta being either. All these years and it’s still kind of “eh”.
I feel like the "killer app problem" is not unique to the Quest, but the whole VR ecosystem. I'm being cautiously optimistic Apple will finally break through and find an app that will appeal to the masses, and even though the price is not attainable for 95% of the population, that will trickle down and find it's way to the broader market.
As stated before, YMMV, because the killer apps for me have been iRacing and DCS in VR. If you aren't into simulation games, VR isn't really there yet for your genre. FPS's are getting there, kinda. Your brain still has to remind your body to crouch. Beatsaber, tennis, there's some novelty games but if you're asking yourself why would you buy VR, you already answered your own question. You shouldn't. Apple's headset, like the iPhone, will take some time to get apps working and finding their market fit. I do have hopes that Apple's headset brings VR into a more "stable" marketplace. Instead of just the few niche titles here and there that you play with Valve's headset or Oculus/Meta Quest.
Simulation games will ALWAYS benefit from more VR, more hardware, more wheels, more human interface controls.
What if they can’t? What if whatever it is that makes the app so compelling automatically rules it out on the Quest 3 for some reason? What if it demands a better input method or higher resolution?
Then I'd be impressed, frankly. I've got the original Quest, and features you'd expect to be broken or missing (eg. hand tracking, multitasking, game streaming, web browsing, sideloading, et. al) all work fine.
It's honestly quite sad that the core line of rhetoric here is a laconic "what if" statement around theoretical apps. The Quest exists and has sold tens of millions of units; the Vision Pro has yet to prove itself. Unless you have a specific example, this can only be interpreted as wishcasting.
The quest sold millions at the beginning of a pandemic when people were trapped at home and needed an escape.
How many people still use it? How many regret the purchase, how many would have bought it without the pandemic?
I see that as Meta’s big opportunity to grab success in VR. And it didn’t happen.
They’re trying to market this like the next thing everyone needs and after multiple tries I just don’t see it. I don’t even see how they get there, this is the same strategy as the Quest, Quest 2, PSVR, PSVR2, etc. Games are great but that pitch just isn’t working at really moving the needle. But that’s all they have.
Games moved 20+ million units. That's 'the needle', unless your goal is to depose the iPhone. And clearly Meta is content to leave it alone, since the Quest even has an iOS companion app. They're complimentary products, not cannibalistic.
On the other hand, I can guarantee that most people who already own an iPhone will regret buying a Vision Pro. It's too expensive and too redundant to matter as a piece of hardware. It's not a market-redefining release like the Quest was, nor is it a proprietary solution to unfixable problems. It's an expensive thing, and for most people the Quest value proposition will align long before the Vision Pro value proposition does. The Hololens already tried this avenue too; merely offering a premium version of mixed reality doesn't work (even when the military is your customer).
It'll be years before the dust settles, but the Quest has gotten undeniably far on it's own. You can rationalize that success however you want, but you'll consistently be confused if you hold it to unproven standards like "spatial computing". For me, the Quest is the first Facebook product I've used where I can understand the vision at a consumer level and from a top-down level.
This really feels like a Quest 2 + 1, which is fine. Same but better specs.
But the site appears to me like it’s positioning it as a Vision Pro competitor when it’s not even in the same league. “We have AR too so it’s the same!” The Vision Pro seems very clearly marketed at a different segment and primary use case to me.
The problem is that if Apple (or a 3rd party on the platform) figures it out I think there’s a good chance it can’t work well on a significantly cheaper headset like the Quest 3.
Then the Quest 3 may be the cheap thing that doesn’t do what people want. Like when you didn’t get an XBox 360 at Christmas because mom/dad got you a $25 TV plug-in Pac-Man game because “it’s the same thing”.
But Meta wants in on the party. And I feel like they’re trying to get their sales before the Vision Pro comes out and immediately becomes the thing that they get very unfavorably compared to (except price). Just like they rushed out a pre-announcement this was coming around the Vision Pro announcement.
Even if Apple face plants or never finds “it”and the Vision Pro isn’t successful I don’t see Meta being either. All these years and it’s still kind of “eh”.