Four days before Apple is expected to enter, and likely redefine, the nascent mixed-reality (XR) headset market, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms pre-announced the latest version of its Quest mixed-reality headset, the “Quest 3” which will retail for $500.
Nick Turner for Bloomberg News:
The new Meta Quest 3 will cost $500 and ship in the fall, the company said in a blog post Thursday. Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, said it will continue to sell the Quest 2 model at a lower price, $300, to help “even more people access the magic of VR.”
Meta is girding for a fight with Apple in the still-nascent world of mixed reality headsets, which meld augmented and virtual reality. Apple plans to introduce its first entry to the market on Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference, Bloomberg has reported. That device is expected to be more powerful than the Meta product but also far more expensive, with an anticipated price of roughly $3,000.
Meta has struggled to build mainstream acceptance of the devices. It cut prices of its Quest Pro model earlier this year after demand was lower than expected.
MacDailyNews Take: Shades of Ballmer’s flop-sweat-submerged “reveal” of “HP slate” vaporware just ahead of Apple’s iPad unveiling.
(Yes, we used “Osborne Effect” as a verb in our headline.)
Zuckerberg’s panic has, in one fell swoop, removed any reason for whatever potential buyers he had to buy Meta’s “Quest 2” headset (Osborne Effect) just as Apple is about to appropriate all of the planet’s AR/VR/XR air until Christmas and beyond. It was the absolute worst move he could have made and Apple, without a peep, pushed him into making it. 🤣
Enjoy your lead in the VR headset market, Meta, because it’s about to evaporate forever, just like your user-tracking advertising revenue.
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I wonder why Meta is going defensive against Apple’s $3,000 headset. It isn’t likely Apple’s headset is going to cut into Meta Quest sales. Hardly anyone is buying even the least expensive headsets. I don’t know why Apple has to get into a market that few consumers are interested in, but maybe they know something I don’t.
It’s foolish to say Meta will be in trouble because of Apple’s headset. Meta has clearly outperformed Apple this year after many people said Meta was on its last legs due to Apple’s user-privacy changes hurting Meta’s ad business. Meta doesn’t seem hurt, at all. Investors seem to like Zuckerberg’s way of doing business.
META is “up” so drastically because it was down so dramatically — see LOL81MillionVotes Biden’s “job creation” stats thanks to the hysterical, power-hungry, never-ending COVID lockdowns of Democrat governors — because Apple allowed users to set their own privacy settings, not have to cede them to META to profit from as they wished.
If XR headsets become a viable market, Apple will own the high end, just as they own the high-end personal computer, smartphone, smartwatch, tablet, and headphone markets.
Wow, you managed to drag in anti-vax nonsense AND widespread voter fraud nonsense in a single, run-on sentence about a cheap VR headset. Wow!
Your final paragraph, full of rational and fact-based opinion, almost makes up for it.
Meta is co-opting Apple’s announcement. Every article on Apple’s headset will now have a paragraph in which they mention that Apple’s headset is $3000 while Meta’s headset is $300 and a new version is arriving this fall.
In other words, as MDN already said: Osborne Effect.
I don’t think that means what you think it means.
You’re a projectionist, right?
The Osborne Effect refers to the the consequence of publicizing or announcing a new, updated or otherwise improved product so far in advance of its availability that existing customers cancel or delay purchase orders of other products until the new product is received. In the interim, a company’s revenue flow may be seriously affected. Moreover, existing product inventories can increase, forcing the company to lower prices, reduce current product production, or both.
Yes, in the Microsoft heady days of dominance with Windows 95, their similar technique was called “vaporware”…
Yep and that’s not what I said or suggested.
If Meta is aware of the effect, perhaps they can reduce its impact by immediately lowering prices for their current product to increase sales while also offering a trade-in program towards the Meta Quest 3 product on release. Refurbishing the returned units for sale to the educational market would help also increase mind and market share for the Quest line all before Apple is able to meet the price/performance Meta is offering. It’s an opportunity, if Meta want’s to take it.
Should Osborne Effect be lowercase as a verb?