Amazon’s Black Friday sale: Quest 2 for $250 sells far more than Quest 3 for $500

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(XR Navigation Network November 30, 2023）在黑色星期五期间，Meta新发售的Quest There are no official discounts for the 3 headset, and the price remains unchanged at $500. However, Meta has reduced the price of Quest 2 by $50 to $249.99 from the original price of $299.99, and further gave away an additional $50 of Creadit, which is equivalent to Amazon's Amazon image source or Meta Store image source.

According to sales data on the Amazon platform, Quest 2’s huge discounts are more popular among consumers. The sales ratio of Quest 2 to Quest 3 is as high as 3:1.

In terms of performance, Quest 3 has indeed improved compared to Quest 2, but for most ordinary people, Quest 3 is just the "next generation" of similar products, and it is far from the leap forward that iPhone 4/4s is compared to the previous generation iPhone. It makes sense, especially considering the $500 price tag, which is not enough for most ordinary consumers to get into.

As a comparison, Quest 2, which is still very good for VR game applications, offers a lot of discounts. The official price alone has been reduced by US$50 to US$249.99 from the original price of US$299.99, and an additional US$50 of Creadit is given away, which is equivalent to Amazon's Amazon image source or Meta Store image source.

Sales data on Amazon’s platform reflect this contrast:

Meta has sold approximately 240,000 Quest headsets in the past 30 years, based on sales in major regions on the Amazon platform. But surprisingly, the sales ratio of Quest 2 to Quest 3 is as high as 3:1. Among them, Quest 3 only sold about 69,000 units, while Quest 2 sold about 163,000 units.

Although the Quest 3 is a brand new model and has received major marketing resources from Meta, in fact, it is not surprising that this happened.

Take price as an example, Quest 2 is $250 (superimpose $50 picture source) vs Quest 3 is $500. Consumers will obviously ask: "The price of Quest 3 is twice that of Quest 2, so is the quality of Quest 3 the same?" Twice as long as Quest 2?”

The answer is obviously not. But no matter what the reasons are for consumers to choose Quest 2 instead of Quest 3, cheapness seems to be the king.

Additionally, Meta has been using mixed reality as a Quest Proand Quest 3’s main use cases. However, it will take time for developers to develop the killer apps and use cases for mixed reality. For Quest 2, which has a huge user base, this presents developers with a difficult decision: develop content for a new headset with more powerful functions, better visual effects, and more mixed reality capabilities; or cater to the obviously larger number of Quests What about 2 users?

Of course, with the console space, that's always going to happen when game developers need to choose when to turn their attention to next-generation devices. But things are different with Quest 2 and Quest 3.

For example, compared to Quest 2 and Quest 3 in terms of mixed reality capabilities,PS4There are no particularly significant differences between it and the PS5. With PS4 and PS5, it's relatively easy for developers to make a game and adapt it to support both systems.

Of course, you could argue that a developer's content could support both Quest 2 and Quest 3, but only if we're talking about pure VR apps.

A great mixed reality game made for Quest 3 will obviously struggle to bring the same feeling to Quest 2 owners, not only because of the Quest 2's low resolution and black-and-white perspective, but also because of its lack of a depth sensor. Depth sensors are a key component in creating an accurate mapping of the player's environment to truly blend the virtual and real worlds.

Quest 2 is already 3 years old. That's not that long for a typical console generation, but for one that's evolving at a much faster paceVR all-in-one machineThis has been quite a long time.

The surge in new users of previous-generation headsets will inevitably slow the transition to next-generation headsets. This means the developers will be focusing on Quest 2 with a wider audience for a longer period of time.

So, what does this mean for Meta's efforts to make mixed reality a major selling proposition for the Quest 3?

Since the launch of the Quest Pro, Meta has focused its marketing of the Quest on mixed reality, making consumers feel that the device has a lot of excellent mixed reality content. But as things stand, that couldn't be further from the truth. MR games and applications on the Quest platform are still in their infancy, with most simply adding a perspective background to existing games.

So, while Meta would obviously like to see developers accelerate the transition to Quest Pro and Quest 3's unique features, the currentmarketThey are not encouraged to do so. This creates a divide between platforms and developers, while users are stuck in the middle ground between the two.