Meta is rumored to be working with LG on the new Quest Pro. The rumored headset in question could cost users around $2,000 and then even get to compete with the Vision Pro from Apple.
Meta New Quest Pro
A Korean news report making the rounds suggests that Meta is reportedly partnering with LG to release a successor to its high-end Quest Pro virtual reality headset in the year 2025. As seen by UploadVR, Maeil Business Newspaper writes that Meta has reportedly struck a deal for a joint venture with LG.
The resulting headset in question is rumored to be priced at around $2,000 and then make use of LG displays, as well as other parts from LG subsidiaries such as LG Innotek. Maeil Business Newspaper furthermore claims that Meta will be releasing a low-end Quest headset in the year 2024 that could get to cost buyers under $200.
Meta’s Response to the News
Meta in question did not respond to a request for comment from The Verge immediately, and some of the details of the report making the rounds seem unintuitive. $200 would be a significant price drop for the consumer Quest as the Quest 2 sells for $299 after Meta shortly attempted to spike the price, and the upcoming Quest 3 on the other hand was at the time announced at $499.
The report also states that the new high-end headset will be known as the “Meta Quest 4 Pro,” which would break the current convention of Meta of keeping the Quest and Quest Pro lineup numbering quite separate.
Conversely, the $2,000 in question would be about twice the price of the Meta-manufactured Quest Pro, which reportedly launched at $1,499 and then dropped to $999, but the report as you should know believably suggests that Meta will be positioning the new high-end Quest directly against Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro headset, which was not around when the Quest Pro was launched.
Meta’s Behavior in the VR Space
Overall, however, the report in question tracks roughly with the past behavior of Meta in the VR space. Although $200 would as you should have known be very cheap, The Verge has prior to this reported that a cheap headset codenamed Ventura is indeed planned for the year 2024, with a Quest Pro successor very much likely after that.
And just as UploadVR notes, Meta (a social media company that was formerly known as Facebook) has released a host of headsets as joint-branded products. The Oculus Rift S in question bore Lenovo branding, the low-end Oculus Go on the other hand was manufactured by Xiaomi, and Samsung in question made the mobile Gear VR.
Meta’s Partnership with Other Firms for Joint Branded Products
That being said, it is however worth pointing out that none of these in question were considered the most exciting Meta/Facebook headsets at the set time of their release, which is very much contrary to just how Meta has positioned the Quest Pro.
The Rift S in question was the final wired-only headset of Meta before it then got to focus entirely on the all-in-one Quest lineup, the Go on the other hand was a low-end Rift and Quest alternative, and the Gear VR in question was a much super-cheap alternative to the then-cutting-edge Rift. (A counter-example may be the high-profile partnership of Meta with Ray-Ban on smart glasses, but Meta also has described that as an early foray into augmented reality.)
Meta has however portrayed the Pro as a testing ground for innovative VR tech that will get to come more slowly to its cheaper mass-market products. An LG joint venture in question could maintain that very role, but only if it is that it looks a little different from some of those previous partnerships.
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