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Facebook Technology

Facebook Parent Meta Raises Price of its Quest 2 VR Headset by $100 (cnbc.com) 71

Facebook parent Meta has raised the price of its Quest 2 virtual reality headset by $100, as the company reckons with inflationary pressures. From a report: Starting Aug. 1, the 128 GB version of the Quest 2 will cost $399, while the 256 GB model will cost $499, Meta said. The company said it hiked the price of the VR headset "in order to continue investing in moving the VR industry forward for the long term." Meta added in a corporate blog post that "the costs to make and ship our products have been on the rise. By adjusting the price of Quest 2, we can continue to grow our investment in groundbreaking research and new product development that pushes the VR industry to new heights."
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Facebook Parent Meta Raises Price of its Quest 2 VR Headset by $100

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @01:46PM (#62735796)
    Every $100 they raise the price, I can feel a little better because that's another $100 I'm saving since I'm never going to buy one.
  • by zarmanto ( 884704 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @02:01PM (#62735854) Journal

    And here I am, waiting (alongside millions of other casual video game players) for the price of entry to the grand VR future to start going down.

    So yeah... great job there, Zuck. You may have just singlehandedly killed the future of the metaverse.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gmack ( 197796 )

      I own a Rift 2. The price isn't even on the top 5 reasons I wouldn't buy another one. I can best describe the UI as user hostile and some of the options are just baffling such as not being able to recenter the screen without taking the headset off or never being able to remove software from the library so it's always in your face.

      • by Scoth ( 879800 )

        There is no product called a "Rift 2", but if you meant a Quest 2 you can recenter it by holding the Oculus button down. No need to take it off.

        Can't really speak to removing software from the library, never tried. But that sound annoying, especially if you try out lots of demos and things.

        Never really had a problem with the UI. It takes some getting used to and has some quirks, but I wouldn't call it hostile. I know that's a personal preference thing.

        • by gmack ( 197796 )

          you can recenter it by holding the Oculus button down. No need to take it off.

          Thanks, I'll try that next time. Most of my complaints are from when it took me a few tries to find a working video player and now they are stuck there (Pigasus for example can't play most of my library) . The forums show this is a common complaint from users wanting to hide apps but Meta doesn't care for some reason.

          • You have several options for how your library is displayed via the drop down menu in the upper-right corner of the App Library. You can show all apps, installed apps only, uninstalled apps only, demos only, unknown sources only, tutorials only, and one or two other options.

    • for the price of entry to the grand VR future to start going down.

      2016: Oculus CV1 (at the time known as Rift) $599US + PC
      2018: Oculus RiftS $399 + PC
      2019: Oculus Quest $399 (no PC needed)
      2021: Oculus Quest 2 $299 (no PC needed)

      What were you waiting for again? Inflation sucks, but pretending that PC VR hasn't massively gone down in price while making leaps up in quality is utter delusion on your part.

      • ... 2021: Oculus Quest 2 $299 (no PC needed)

        What were you waiting for again? ...

        Keep in mind that I said casual gamer. Not everyone thinks that $299 for a glorified toy is a reasonable expenditure -- let alone the other prices you quoted.

        • $299 buys a really nice dinner for two. Welcome to the future.
        • by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @03:58PM (#62736350) Homepage
          Except the Quest 2 isn't a glorified toy. Then all consoles, smartphones and PC's are just glorified toys.
          • by Xenx ( 2211586 )
            Any of those devices bought primarily for gaming, would in fact be a toy. Their use of toy as derogative is flawed in context, since that is their primary purpose.
        • Not everyone thinks that $299 for a glorified toy is a reasonable expenditure -- let alone the other prices you quoted.

          Whatever argument you think you're making, the console most targeted at causal gamers is $299 (Switch). You may be thinking of ultra poor people, and you'd be right, but the reality is, sales figures and target demographic for the Quest 2 along with the fact that it was price matched to the most popular casual gaming device on the market at the time all disagree with you.

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot&worf,net> on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @03:05PM (#62736134)

      And here I am, waiting (alongside millions of other casual video game players) for the price of entry to the grand VR future to start going down.

      What happened to all those cheap VR devices like cardboard and such that used your smartphone? They weren't great, but were "decent enough".

      But it was weird because you could do crappy VR for $20, but then after that you'd have to jump to spending several hundred dollars to thousands to go one step up - there was practically no in-between step.

      The other thing I didn't get with Quest was if it was a standalone system or one you could attach to a PC - the marketing seemed to imply you bought the game from the Quest store and played it standalone, but then it seems expensive for what it was (a VR console), so I figure it must be able to hook to a PC for PC VR gaming.

      But I don't know. I stopped looking at Oculus stuff when Zuck owned it.

      • They weren't "decent enough" at all, I don't even consider them VR since there's no 6 degrees of freedom or controllers.
        • Honestly no one really cares what *you* consider VR, to say nothing of your strange definition of "degrees of freedom". Hint: Every VR headset on the market has 6 DoF and yes the Quest2 does come with controllers, you just can't order replacements one as the limited supply is for sharing with new ones.

          Honestly what argument are you making? Gaming doesn't exist because you can't buy an xbox controller right now? GTFO.

          • Did you even read grandparent's post? He wasn't talking about the Quest 2, he was talking about the shitty goggles you put on your phone.
      • What happened to all those cheap VR devices like cardboard and such that used your smartphone? They weren't great, but were "decent enough".

        A limited number of apps supported Cardboard. Google decided to put all their effort behind Daydream, which would make the device more-or-less VR for all apps. Then they stopped supporting that.

        I was looking at that, once upon a time. Like you, once Zuck bought Oculus I lost all interest in them.

        Cardboard was just a stereoscopic viewer. There is to more to VR than "just" a stereoscopic viewer.

        That said, using a decent stereoscopic viewer as a more-immersive display, while using my phone as the render

      • Re:Price increase?? (Score:4, Informative)

        by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @04:46PM (#62736512) Journal

        Quest 2 indeed can be used as a VR HMD for PC, as well as standalone. The standalone games are usually lower graphics quality because you don't have a multi-hundred-watt GPU crunching the numbers, but that is still an option, including with SteamVR. And, it can do it with either a cable, or over WiFi.

        They indeed are not very clear in their documentation about any of this, but it does do both.

      • ...the marketing seemed to imply you bought the game from the Quest store and played it standalone...

        That is true.

        ...but then it seems expensive for what it was (a VR console)...

        That does not compute, and sounds like an argument made from inexperience. I have three Quest 1's and 3 Quest 2's, and they are some of the best entertainment purchases I have ever made. The price to entertainment ratio is incredible.

        ...so I figure it must be able to hook to a PC for PC VR gaming.

        Also true.

    • At the end of the day, it's still just a glorified television strapped to your face. The problem with VR since the beginning is that it rarely presents a better gaming experience than simply playing on a display that isn't hanging off your noggin.

      To truly have immersive VR, you'd need a level of full-body motion tracking, haptics and force feedback equipment that will likely never be affordable to the average gamer.

      • VR is amazing if the game you're playing makes you move your entire body and you don't need to track all body parts for that since you need to move your entire body just to move your head. Try something like Pistol Whip with an exercise tracker on, play a couple of songs on Hard and you'll get it.
      • by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @03:59PM (#62736356) Homepage
        If you think VR is just a glorified tv strapped to your face then you really have no clue what VR is.
        • Until I can sit down in the cockpit of a virtual fighter jet and actually grasp the controls present in the VR environment, yes, it's just a TV strapped to your head.

          • Oh, so in your mind we only have to develop and deploy a holodeck in order to get "VR". It's a really good thing that you aren't the final arbiter of what is, and is not, virtual reality.

            • by Duds ( 100634 )

              To be fair he's still waiting for flat screen video games to allow you to actually become a Bandicoot in real life otherwise it's not even worth trying.

      • I disagree, especially depending on the game.

        Example: a bowling game on a PC would be garbage. A bowling game on VR is fantastic, especially if you have a bit of space to define as your play area - you can take some steps to approach the line as you would with a real bowling ball, you can look down and arrange yourself on the little dots on the floor, and you can aim for the little triangles just like you would actually bowling.

        Another example: mini golf. Would be absolute trash on a PC. In VR, you can w

        • You're not able to feel the weight of the bowling ball, and release it as you would during an actual throw; you're holding a game controller and releasing a button. Similarly, with your golf example, you're not gripping and swinging a real club. The limitations in the technology result in the feeling that you're still just playing a video game.

          Nintendo and Microsoft both gave up on motion tracking technology, because it's really just a gimmick. You're still just ultimately expected to figure out what mot

          • ... But the big names in gaming figured out a long time ago that most people just want to plop their rear end in a couch, stare at a screen that isn't attached to their face, and mash buttons.

            This. I tried PlayStation VR and it was great. There was this Eve Online spinoff that gave you the space dogfighting experience, along with launching from a space station a la Battlestar Galactica. But ultimately, I don't want to sit in my family living room oblivious to my surroundings, apart from the frequent breaks I have to take to demist the glasses that I have to wear, for extended periods of time. If people wanted VR it'd already be mainstream. The technology's been around for ages now. Its greates

    • If you thought $299 was too much for this device then you should get your head examined. $299 is dirt cheap for the great VR experience you already have with that one. Don't count on VR headsets to get any cheaper than that.
      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        If you thought $299 was too much for this device then you should get your head examined. $299 is dirt cheap for the great VR experience you already have with that one. Don't count on VR headsets to get any cheaper than that.

        I was surprised it was that cheap, because in Canada, the Zuck tax makes it over $600 before tax. I know the exchange rate isn't great, but it certainly isn't double. At most I would expect $400, and that's still excessive given at the time it's tied to Facebook - the price needs to go d

    • And here I am, waiting (alongside millions of other casual video game players) for the price of entry to the grand VR future to start going down.

      So yeah... great job there, Zuck. You may have just singlehandedly killed the future of the metaverse.

      Perhaps Zuck wanted to reduce the subsidy on each unit sold....

    • You may have just singlehandedly killed the future of the metaverse.

      And we must live in the universe once more. Grapple with its problems, deal with its nuances.

      So the question is, was anything of value lost?

  • 30% hike (Score:4, Interesting)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @02:03PM (#62735866)
    A sudden 30% hike (on the cheaper model) seems like an odd move, even in this environment. Usually a tech company would at least upgrade the specs in some marginal way and offer the 'new' model at the new price to soften the hit.
    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )
      They're probably trying to milk the platform for everything they can get out of it before Apple wipes the floor with them.
      • Apple isn't going to wipe the floor with anything. Everyone here is complaining about a couple of hundred dollars for VR, and Apple is likely to launch at ultra high end prices.

        Apple is about as likely to wipe the floor with Facebook as their Macbook Pros do with low end $500 laptops, which is to say not in the slightest.

        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          Apple isn't going to wipe the floor with anything. Everyone here is complaining about a couple of hundred dollars for VR, and Apple is likely to launch at ultra high end prices.

          Apple is about as likely to wipe the floor with Facebook as their Macbook Pros do with low end $500 laptops, which is to say not in the slightest.

          Facebook builds VR hardware for gaming. Apple is expected to build AR hardware designed to be useful for way more than just gaming. Unless Apple does a bad job, Apple's AR headset sales will likely make Facebook's VR sales look like the margin of error by comparison in spite of the higher price. It's not like Macbooks versus cheap Windows laptops, where the difference is polish. It's more like iPhones versus feature phones, where the difference is between something that's broadly usable and something th

          • Apple will probably do something stupid like tie the new VR/AR hardware to their walled garden. Like they did with the Apple watch. Can't use one if you have an Android phone, as more than 60% of consumers do.

            Also, re: price, Apple's offering is unlikely to be the more affordable one when it comes out.

            • People with android phones aren't going to buy anything from apple.
              • Horse shit.

                Have you seen Android tablets? They're fucking terrible. The last Android tablet that was any good was the Nvidia SHIELD, and it's been EOL for 3 years. The only useable multi-function tablet (e.g. not a Kindle-esque device) is an iPad.

                Same with smart watches - yeah, the Samsung one isn't bad, but it isn't good either. Most WearOS hardware is fucking garbage, starting with the Snapdragon Wear chipset. In theory, Google has a Pixel watch coming based on Samsung's processor, but I imagine it

            • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

              Apple will probably do something stupid like tie the new VR/AR hardware to their walled garden. Like they did with the Apple watch. Can't use one if you have an Android phone, as more than 60% of consumers do.

              That's a real concern, yes. Then again, Facebook ties the Oculus to their ecosystem, too. Want to use one without a Facebook account? Sorry. Can't do that.

              That said, given that it is expected to have a similar CPU to what Apple uses in its laptops, I expect it to be a standalone device with a sizable battery, i.e. it probably won't be like the Apple Watch, where to get usable battery life, it has to use your phone for notifications over Bluetooth, etc. So although it almost certainly will be tied to th

              • That's a real concern, yes. Then again, Facebook ties the Oculus to their ecosystem, too. Want to use one without a Facebook account? Sorry. Can't do that.

                Here's the thing: unlike Apple's usual tactic, Facebook didn't tie the Oculus *exclusively* to their ecosystem. You can use it with things like SteamVR or random Unity games downloaded to your PC. Your Oculus/Meta headset is not limited to *just* what you buy from Oculus/Meta...

                (Also/supposedly in Aug 2022, the Facebook account part is going away. You'll need to create a seperate/specific Meta account for device management/purchases/etc)

                If all Apple did was force you to create an iCloud account, I do

                • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                  That's a real concern, yes. Then again, Facebook ties the Oculus to their ecosystem, too. Want to use one without a Facebook account? Sorry. Can't do that.

                  Here's the thing: unlike Apple's usual tactic, Facebook didn't tie the Oculus *exclusively* to their ecosystem. You can use it with things like SteamVR or random Unity games downloaded to your PC. Your Oculus/Meta headset is not limited to *just* what you buy from Oculus/Meta...

                  Wow. Today I learned that you could side-load apps on the Oculus. Good to know.

                  • You can side-load, SORT OF. It requires a developer account and a certificate. Its not like android side-loading where you jsut flip a switch.
          • Except Apple's headset will be way waaaaay more expensive (like well beyond the $2000+ mark, even probably $3000+) and therefor don't see them selling 10 million headsets within a year or two.
          • Apple is expected to build AR hardware designed to be useful for way more than just gaming.

            So you're saying not even the same target market or device capabilities now. Tell me again how you think this will wipe the floor with anything?

            Car analogy: The Ford Mustang E will absolutely wipe the floor with discount pizza restaurants.

        • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          right - but Apple is cool and Meta - isn't!

          That is really all there is to it. This is still market for people with disposable income and time, its not into the space of family entertainment or even keeping up with the Jones.

          Frankly given our current economic conditions, and what is happening at the gas pump and grocery store, we probably facing a market with bigger division between the haves and have nots. The group of people that has 399 to drop on Meta's toys has 799 to drop on Apple's and will because s

    • That's all good and fine if you have some minor incremental change to make. There's nothing marginal to change here. Development in VR happens in leaps and bounds usually with large changes in resolution, tracking, processing etc.

      The Quest 2 while not a loss leader hasn't been a profit maker. It was never going to survive inflationary pressures.

    • They were selling them at a loss, and probably still are. If that isn't justification to you, you may be a wee bit entitled.
  • I have to say that the Quest 2 is a pretty good VR system.

    The best part is it doesn't have any external sensors to set up, like PSVR or a Vive. I hope PSVR took a cue from that for the next VR headset.

    The controls work well, and tracking is good - I can get motion sickness in some PC games but have not had issues with VR content yet.

    It's a shame the prices have to go up, but inflation was going to hit tech at some point and here we see it starting to happen.

    • Yeah. For that kind of money, the damned thing should be far better than "pretty good".
    • by gmack ( 197796 )

      Pretty good? seriously? You can't re-center the view without taking the glasses off. Switching between hand tracking and controller is annoying. If you load an app, you can uninstall it, but it stays in your apps menu so you still get to scroll through it every time, or you can select only installed apps every time you load the app menu since that setting is not saved. If you are doing something that takes just one controller, the other one will go to sleep and put a line pointing toward the middle of

      • Those are all pretty minor annoyances compared to the major one I listed - external sensors.

        I did say "pretty good", not great.... there are no great VR systems. I just think for most people the Quest 2 is the best one made so far.

        • My Vive Lighthouses have been installed in the same place since April 2016, not really a burden....The oculus sensor system was much more cumbersome and difficult.
  • With the Quest's Facebook requirement the only reason I've ever even considered buying it was because it was so damn cheap relative to the few other quality sets out there. I'd be curious to go and see how this changes that math.

  • I was really into Elite Dangerous and was *just* on the verge of buying a good vr headset, and then found out I had to have a FB account to run it.

    Fuck that. I decided not to buy.

    Shortly thereafter, Elite Dangerous decided to implode with a new expansion, breaking many aspects of the game...and abandoning VR anyway.

    So thanks "Meta"(ahem Facebook) for saving me a few hundred bucks.

  • And Zuckerberg said in company speech that some people don't belong in Meta ! Nice feel good moment ! lol

He who has but four and spends five has no need for a wallet.

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