Last fall, Meta-formerly-Facebook unveiled its Meta Quest Pro, a long-rumored, higher-end follow-up to the company's best-selling Quest 2 VR headset. The sleek device, which initially went on sale for an eye-watering $1,500, has really struggled to catch on since then, just as we predicted at the time. And, as Mixed Reality News reports, Meta is […]

Facebook’s VR Headset Not Selling, Literally Giving It Away::Last fall, Meta-formerly-Facebook unveiled its Meta Quest Pro, a long-rumored, higher-end follow-up to the company’s best-selling Quest 2 VR headset. The sleek device, which initially went on sale for an eye-watering $1,500, has really struggled to catch on since then, just as we predicted at the time. And, as Mixed Reality News reports, Meta is […]

  • LazaroFilm@lemmy.worldEnglish
    751·
    1 year ago

    If I’m putting something over my head it won’t be from the greediest tech company ever.

    • phx@lemmy.worldEnglish
      175·
      1 year ago

      Meh. If they’ve still got some free ones to give out I’ll take it.

      But in all seriousness, the Quest 2 is pretty good hardware, especially for the price. The problem is that Meta tried to build an ecosystem around monetization and then bring people in, rather than building something that appeals to most people and still allows them to profit. Kinda the opposite of the Facebook model really, which became a defacto online community and kinda kept the monetization a little quieter or behind the scenes for a long time

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        1 year ago

        They could release the best possible VR hardware that puts your body into a dream state and allows you to experience things fully in VR for $99 and I still wouldn’t touch it if meta, fb, or zuckberg has anything to do with it.

  • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.worldEnglish
    591·
    1 year ago

    Well, possibly people have finally been turned off by Zuck Zuck and his creepy-ass avatar doing their combined best to make his “Metaverse” pipe dream as cringeworthy as possible. Seems he can’t get it through his head that all we really want to do is play video games (and I guess maybe watch VR porn), and for $1500/999, we can buy an awful lot of game console with change left over for some games, or a pretty significant chunk of normal gaming PC.

    I think I’ll stick with my Reverb G2. I wouldn’t take a Meta/Facebook backed device, nor touch its ecosystem, if they paid me.

    • MrMcGasion@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      1 year ago

      I’ve spent over $1500 on VR (HTC Vive, and Valve Index, plus some accessories for both). I’ve never been able to talk myself into even a Quest 2 for $200 back when they went on sale shortly before they raised the price due to “supply chain issues.” I enjoy VR experiences and I’m personally okay with paying enthusiast prices for hardware that improves the experience, but I want nothing to do with Meta/Facebook’s ecosystem, at any price.

      • Jastas@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        This ^ That is all the same exact reasoning I thought of when I purchased my Valve Index this year. Sure, it’s older hardware at this point but I want nothing to do with Meta/Facebook’s ecosystem as well.

      • RaoulDook@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        What extras do you recommend for the Index? I have the standard kit with 2 base stations and controllers.

        • MrMcGasion@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          The big ones for me are a cover/replacement for the fabric face gasket, prescription lens inserts, and for long play sessions a fan insert for the headset can be a nice to have, but I don’t run mine all the time since sometimes it’s just adding noise. The face gasket has probably been the hardest thing to get right, since a lot of third-party ones either don’t have enough padding, or are hard to swap in and out, so I kinda prefer having a full extra magnetic insert so I can easily change between the original which is most comfortable for me, and something else that I’m less worried about sweating all over for more active games.

          • RaoulDook@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Those are good suggestions. I made prescription lens inserts for my wife by simply removing the ear-holder arms from an old pair of her glasses, just leaving the frame and lenses which fits well inside the lens area

  • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    50·
    1 year ago

    We’re broke as fuck, we can not afford that shit. Money is better spent elsewhere than a VR “workstation”.

  • stigmata@lemmy.worldEnglish
    343·
    1 year ago

    This is the dumbest take on what’s happening. The Quest 3 is better than the Pro and it comes out next month. We don’t need the Pro anymore. Some of y’all need to use some critical thinking. Roblox also just recently got a lot of attention towards it from Meta; it’s not a coincidence these were Roblox devs that the Pros were given to.

  • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    30·
    1 year ago

    I wouldn’t take anything from Facebook, no matter if it was free or if I was paid to take it. They’re toxic as a service and as a company, I want nothing to do with them.

    • pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      That’s the thing. Anyone who cares about cutting edge (read: flawed, unproven) tech is unlikely to be messing about on FB. More likely they do not associate any positive feelings with anything that you might chose to attach to FB.

    • Dkarma@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      No shit. The platform is basically just a string of rug pulls over your lifetime.

  • iHUNTcriminals@lemm.eeEnglish
    24·
    1 year ago

    No one is going to buy a pro VR set from meta, lol. That’s like going to an Apple Bees with $1000 instead of a Michelin Star restaurant.

    And what are people going to do with it…? Play the same Beat Saber they always have?

    • sugartits@lemmy.worldEnglish
      119·
      1 year ago

      VR today is what 3D TV was 10 years ago: the fad has peaked and now the sales are starting to decline.

      It will still have it’s niche, but any mainstream audience will be getting over it pretty soon.

  • MataVatnik@lemmy.worldEnglish
    203·
    1 year ago

    The goal has never been to sell VR head sets, the goal is to have 1Billion people on VR. The money would come from the monopoly they would have over selling software through their app store. Same way Google and Apple have a monopoly on who sells through their app stores. This has been zucks stated goal from the start

    • limeaide@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      In my opinion, I think their goal was to control the platform. If you think about it, the amount of information that they can gather from users is wholly controlled by Google and Apple through their OS’.

      Apple and Google have continuously decreased the amount of information Meta can gather through their apps, and I think with VR they made a huge bet that would be the next platform so they jumped on the ship to make sure that this time they would be controlling the platform and not another company.

      I don’t think they want to make money through software, I think they want to make money through data collection. The amount of data they can gather from you just through the setup, is incredible. They can literally know your height and have cameras on at all times.

      I think VR can be successful, but I don’t think Meta will do it. I don’t think they’re be the ones getting the ball rolling at least. If anything their marketing and the bad name they gave to VR set things back. I think they’re too early and have a pretty bad brand image for people to trust them. I don’t think the hardware or the software support is there for things to fully take off either

      Also, wouldn’t their goal be to sell VR headsets? How would people buy their software without a headset? I think their goal was to sell headsets. Pretty sure they sold their budget headsets at a loss just to introduce people to the platform.

  • iesou@lemm.eeEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    Ok I agree with all that sentiment, but in the article I only saw a $500 price drop, were they ever free or are you taking the world literally figuratively?

  • WindowsEnjoyer@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    Valve Index is much better device.

    Also Zucc can go fuck hinself. Maybe he will find a privacy, because he stores it in his asshole.

  • specfreq@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    You could not pay me… I’m not even mad at Facebook, fuck you so much Palmer Lucky!!!

    • mrcleanup@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      It’s too bad because the hardware and software so far have been on point. The moment Facebook bought Oculus, I knew it was over, at least for me.