Gamingdeputy reported on June 27 that the sales of Meta's latest mixed reality headset, Quest 3, seem to have exceeded the one million mark.This data is based on the number of people who have completed the Quest 3 pre-installed game “First Encounters”Since First Encounter is part of the initial setup process for Quest 3 and doesn’t work on previous Quest devices, the number of people who completed the game is a rough reflection of Quest 3 sales.
“First Encounter” will automatically start after the player sets up Quest 3. Using the spatial scanning function of Quest 3, “First Encounter” will simulate a spaceship falling through the player's ceiling and scattering on the floor or table in the room. Players need to repel the invading monsters by shooting, and the final score will be uploaded to Quest's ranking system.
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Software developer Daven Bigelow has been tracking First Encounter's leaderboard data. The number of “participants” on the leaderboard represents the number of people who have completed the initial experience, and the number has now exceeded 1 million.
It should be noted that this number may not be completely accurate, because users can choose to skip the “First Encounter” section or exit the experience at any time. At the same time, this statistics does not specify whether users who set their profiles to private are included. If not,Then the actual sales volume of Quest 3 may far exceed one million units.
According to Meta's internal roadmap leaked to The Verge last March, Meta VR vice president Mark Rabkin said the company had sold nearly 20 million Quest headsets. Three months later, another leaked internal meeting showed that Zuckerberg told employees that “the Quest series has sold tens of millions of units.” In July 2021, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said that Quest 2 sales have exceeded the total of all its predecessors, which means that as of last summer, the vast majority of these 20 million Quest headsets were Quest 2.
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In comparison, the sales of Quest 3, which was launched eight months ago, has only exceeded one million units, far less than the sales accumulated by Quest 2 in three years. However, this gap is also expected.
Quest 2 is $100 cheaper than its predecessor, and the previous generation was discontinued immediately after the release of Quest 2. Quest 3 is $200 more expensive than Quest 2, and Quest 2 continues to sell at a lower price. Since March of this year, the price of Quest 2 has been reduced to $200, while Quest 3 has remained at $500. Sales data on the Amazon platform also shows that Quest 2 is still more popular than Quest 3. VR developers told UploadVR that most of their new users still use Quest 2.
However, Meta seems to be aware of the price issue and is working on a strategy. Over the past 16 months, there has been plenty of evidence that Meta is preparing to launch a cheaper alternative to the Quest 3 to replace the Quest 2.
The budget headset was mentioned in a leaked roadmap in March, and late last month, the official store listed the product as “Meta Quest 3S,” a name that had previously appeared in a document that appeared to be a leak of the headset's design. Earlier this month, a video posted by Meta's chief technology officer accidentally revealed a device that looked like a new headset.
If the rumors are true, and the price of Quest 3S can be kept at around US$300 (Gamingdeputy Note: currently about RMB 2,186) while retaining the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip and mixed reality functions, then the sales of this headset may far exceed Quest 3, thereby expanding the mixed reality market and providing developers with a more powerful development platform than Quest 2.
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