A new Oculus VR headset — likely to be the Oculus Quest 3 — is seemingly in development, having been confirmed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a January earnings call for the company.
Though details of the project haven’t yet been officially confirmed, Zuckerberg told investors, “We’re continuing to work on new hardware [which] will fit the same platform, so the content that works on Quest 2 should be forward-compatible, so that we’re going to build one larger install base around the virtual reality headsets that we have.”
That makes it sound like the Facebook-owned Oculus is working on a successor to the Oculus Quest 2, which we described in our review as possibly “the best VR headset ever”.
Information is scarce around what is likely the early stages of development for the project, but below you’ll find everything we know about the Oculus Quest 3, the state of VR and what we want to see from the upcoming device.
Oculus Quest 3 release date
Don’t expect the Oculus Quest 3 to arrive any sooner than 2022 — with the Quest 2 launching in October 2020, only a year and a half after the original, it’s likely the Quest 3 will follow a similar timeline.
We’d be surprised to see it launch as late as 2023, given Facebook’s clear appetite to establish itself as the home of mainstream VR gaming.
Oculus Quest 3 specs and expectations
Given the improvements made by the Quest 2 over its predecessor, we’d expect the Quest 3 to remain a standalone VR headset with customary improvements to battery life, processing power and resolution. The Quest 2 boasts a 50% sharper picture than the original device, which sets an impressive benchmark for the Quest 3 to follow.
The Quest 2 also upped the refresh rate to 90Hz from the original Quest’s default 72Hz, although we wouldn’t expect to see a major increase (if any at all) in a new device given that most VR titles still don’t yet support that higher refresh rate.
We could also see changes to the form factor, possibly decreasing the weight further or focusing on comfort-related alterations. We’re sure the software will be updated to improve hand tracking in that time too – while the kind of haptic feedback we’re seeing in the PS5 DualSense controller seems like it could elevate VR experiences if it came to the Quest’s pair of controllers in a meaningful way.
An almost inevitable feature of the Quest 3, though, will be its integration with the Facebook ecosystem, meaning you’ll likely need a Facebook account to access the platform. This prerequisite means you’ll again be subject to Facebook’s data monitoring practices — so if you’re morally against the Quest 2’s data-harvesting methods, you’ll be out of luck once more.
Oculus Quest 3 price
How much would an Oculus Quest 3 model cost? Oculus Quest 2 comes in two variants: a model with 64GB of storage, priced at £299 / $299 / AU$479, and a 256GB version for £399 / $399 / AU$639.
That’s a significant saving over the price that the original entry-level Oculus Quest model opened sales at. We expect that a Quest 3 couldn’t get too much cheaper, and we’ve seen Oculus adopt a ‘same price, but better specs’ strategy when upgrading the Oculus Rift to the Rift S.
Knowing Facebook’s plans for the hardware as the go-to mainstream VR platform, it’s a pretty safe bet that it won’t get more expensive than the current Quest 2 model.
Oculus Quest 3 predictions: what we want to see
In our review of the Oculus Quest 2, it was hard to find fault with a VR headset that proved immersive, comfortable and easy to use. And yet, while it clearly leads the pack in the VR market, it still falls foul of some of the pitfalls that the technology as a whole suffers from. Here’s a list of updates we want to see on the Oculus Quest 3:
Improved motion sickness prevention
One of those technological pitfalls, and perhaps an unavoidable one, is the motion sickness that can often ensue when using any VR headset. Depending on your tolerance for whirring and blurring, the Quest 2 can be one helluva dizziness-inducer. While there isn’t yet a clear path to making any VR headset immune to user dizziness, it’s nonetheless something we’d like to see improved on the Oculus Quest 3.
A better fit
The same goes for the fit of the device. While the Quest 2 is indeed a comfortable weight when on the head, it can still be a little claustrophobic to achieve a good, tight fit. Again, it’s a problem encountered by almost all VR headsets, and a base-level issue that the next generation of hardware should at least attempt to better address.
Improved Oculus Store
Other improvements we’d like to see include a more effective in-VR Oculus Store. While the equivalent store on browser and in the app makes it easy to discover new releases and search for upcoming games, the store inside the headset itself seems to roll the dice on what apps are shown with no way to quickly navigate to new content. This makes it difficult to pre-order games and discover new titles to purchase when using the device, which is a pivotal part of ensuring the headset maintains replayability.
A neighbourhood-like social space
While the Quest 2 has a competent party invitation system to get you game-to-game with your friends, there isn’t a social space to engage with others in-between. It would be interesting to see the Quest 3 introduce a virtual social space, in the same vein as NBA 2K’s neighbourhood area, to share some downtime with others. What’s with the multi-person furniture in the current home environment if there’s nobody to share it with?
Improved media sharing
Sharing screenshots and videos on Oculus devices has never been easy, and it’s an issue that the Quest 2 tried to address with little success. You still need to jump through several hoops before you’re able to share your VR content, which is often captured haphazardly anyway, so we’d like to see the Oculus 3 make the whole deal more accessible. 1080p video, app integration, proper audio syncing — that’d all be nice, too.
The road ahead for Oculus Quest 3
While VR gaming is a medium that has certainly gained popularity in recent years — the Quest 2 reportedly received five times as many pre-orders as its predecessor — it’s still not considered to have cracked the mainstream market.
At least, that’s the opinion of Mark Zuckerberg, who reportedly said in 2018 that 10 million VR users were needed to ensure the Oculus platform was “sustainable and profitable for all kinds of developers.” He did add, though, that “once we get across this threshold, we think that the content and the ecosystem are just going to explode” (as reported by RoadtoVR).
There’s also a gaping hole in the market right now which the Oculus Quest 3 could aim to fill. The Valve Index is one of the best VR headsets we’ve tested so far, but transistor shortages have effectively shut down manufacturing of the device for the past year, making it very difficult to get hold of one. A new Oculus device, then, could learn from the successes of Valve’s headset and achieve a real foothold in the VR industry.
Rumours, of course, are also swirling that an Apple VR headset is in the works (along with an Apple car, smart glasses, TV and so on…) which could mean heavy competition in the years to come. Multiple tech heavyweights fighting for the top spot can only be a good thing for VR gaming, though, so we await with bated breath what the Oculus Quest 3 can bring to the table.