Source: GlobalData
Following the news that Meta has unveiled a new Quest 3 mixed reality (XR) headset;
Anisha Bhatia, Senior Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view:
“Quest 3 scores over Apple’s Vision Pro with the absence of tethering. There is no battery pack that needs to be attached nor a wire connecting to a power source. It is also smaller than Meta’s Quest 2 and brings in a premium attribute like mixed reality (XR) at an affordable price. Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 makes Quest 3 more powerful and twice as fast as the premium Quest Pro, taking it a step further towards being user friendly. GlobalData estimates revenues from virtual reality (VR) headsets to reach more than $58 billion in 2030, making that a market ripe for innovation.
“Meta continues to provide multiple subsidies on its headsets, keeping them affordable, although that is impossible to sustain long as a business strategy. Gaming is a key use case for XR headsets, and the addition of Xbox Cloud gaming will aid in endearing the Quest 3 to gamers. But headsets are limited in their ability to go mainstream, and Meta’s market lead is about to be challenged with the release of Apple’s Vision Pro.
“The Quest 3 is not a direct competitor to Apple’s Vision Pro, which brands itself as an augmented reality (AR) headset, costs seven times more, and plays in the uber-premium category. But Apple’s entry in this market has brought all eyes on this segment, and the small number of headsets available overall means that everyone is pitted against each other, whether they directly compete or not.”