Meta is looking to follow up on the Quest 3 VR headset that will be released this week, and plans to take cues from Apple's Vision Pro as it races to popularize its VR technology.
That's according to Mark Gurman in today's Bloomberg Power On newsletter, who wrote that marketing plans for the company's Quest headset have changed in response to Apple's Vision Pro announcement earlier this year. Part of the plan is to launch a virtual reality headset without controllers. To reduce the cost next year, according to theverge report.
Gorman says someone at Meta told him the company is "in a 'fear of Apple' phase," compared to the mobile industry just before the iPhone launched, and writes that the company's shift away from a heavy focus on the metaverse and more toward pushing practical uses for headsets, gaming, and productivity It's a direct response to Apple's plan for the Vision Pro, and you could argue that Apple's headset is more realistic than immersive virtual worlds, even if its price tag largely isn't.
Meta's roadmap included making the next headset, codenamed Ventura, cheaper (the Quest 3 already costs less than 15% of the cost of the Vision Pro) and more comfortable without sacrificing screen resolution.
Apparently, according to Gorman, Meta is also looking to eliminate controller bundling to help with this, allowing customers to either use just hand gestures or purchase the controllers separately.
Apple and Meta will eventually pursue different markets, but for now the current VR headset market is just "people who want VR headsets."
Meta is trying to figure out how things will change when the market actually grows, and to get a foot in the door, the company needs a different product, or it risks going the way of feature phones.