The Meta Quest 3 is an excellent VR headset with a competitive price tag However, it appears that Meta is trying to further lower the $499 price tag with a reduced headset for budget buyers

Earlier this month, VR Panda teased the "Quest 3 Lite" on X (formerly Twitter), but the leaker is back with a rendered image of the headset: [Quest 2 has a pass-through camera, but this is just the initial room setup and basic stuff to keep you from bumping into walls It is basic enough to avoid bumping into walls However, Quest 3's full-color pass-through opens up a world of mixed reality applications, as you can see in the video below

While removing the camera is certainly a cost savings, it is still surprising that Meta has taken this in reverse: back in January, the company published a blog post in which Reality Labs' XR Tech engineering director, "Passthrough and MR will be a standard feature of all future headsets," and was quoted as saying, "We are confident that MR will be a standard feature of all future headsets

One could argue that that is just one individual's opinion, but corporate blogs tend to reflect company policy

Of course, removing the pass-through camera won't shave much off the price, and Meta may try to include a more affordable processor But if it has an older processor and no pass-through, one wonders how much of an upgrade it would be compared to the Quest 2

This is not the first time there has been talk of an inexpensive headset Last year, The Verge published details of an internal presentation in which Mark Rabkin, Meta's VP of VR, allegedly told employees that a more "accessible" headset, codenamed Ventura, was planned for 2024

"The goal for this headset is very simple: to pack the biggest punch we can at the most attractive price point in the VR consumer market," he reportedly said

While Apple is encouraging renewed interest in virtual reality with its Vision Pro headset, Meta clearly sees an opportunity to drive penetration with a product that is already seven times cheaper In fact, CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims that the $499 Quest 3 beats the £3,499 Vision Pro by almost every measure He said in a video last month, "It's the better product