Don't expect a price cut or direct discount on Quest 3 this holiday season - or any time soon.
In an Instagram AMA (ask me anything) session last week, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth was asked whether there would be on sale for Black Friday. Bosworth responded:
"The plan is to stay the course when it comes to Quest 3.
We did everything we could to get this device out at the price that it is. That's the honest truth. So the price that it's at is the price it's going to be at going forward, for the foreseeable [future]."
Quest 3 starts at $500 for the 128GB model, markedly higher than Quest 2 launched at, even when adjusted for inflation.
While Quest 2 was recently cut to $250 and has a Black Friday weekend deal giving you $50 credit until the end of today, the only deal on Quest 3 was a Quest Store gift card with your purchase from Newegg.
Meta is giving Asgard's Wrath 2 free to all Quest 3 purchases until January 27 though, and six months of the Quest+ subscription VR games service if you get the 512GB model.
David Heaney
A Chinese supply chain analysis startup recently estimated that the total cost of Quest 3's components and assembly is around $430. When factoring in R&D costs and other indirect fixed costs like staff salaries, Meta is likely making no profit, or even taking a loss, on the 128GB Quest 3 model.
Bosworth's comments and this analysis suggest Meta simply doesn't have the headroom to cut the price of Quest 3 any time soon without incurring significant losses.
With Quest 3 stuck starting at $500, Meta is seemingly planning a cheaper headset with less expensive components to directly replace Quest 2 in its lineup.
A leaked Meta roadmap from earlier this year revealed Meta planned to release a new headset after Quest 3 in 2024 "at the most attractive price point in the VR consumer market". Reports from The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and a Chinese analyst who has been reliable in the past suggest this headset will use Quest 2's fresnel lenses but feature the new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset from Quest 3. XR2 Gen 2 has a more than twice as powerful GPU, which some developers are already using to achieve dramatically better "console quality" graphics.
via Mint VR