Meta has bundled in a free copy of Batman: Arkham Shadow (2023) with new Quest 3 and Quest 3S purchases since September, with the offer slated to expire in April 2025. Now Meta is sweetening the pot by reducing the biggest storage variant of Quest 3S by $50 for a limited time.

As the company’s most affordable mixed reality headset yet, Quest 3S launched late last year in two variants—the 128GB version for $300, and the 256GB version for $400—packing in the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset and game catalogue as Quest 3 ($550), and also color passthrough mixed reality.

From now until February 8th, Meta is discounting 256GB versions of Quest 3S to $350, which not only comes with the highly-rated Batman: Arkham Shadow, but also a three-month trial subscription to Quest+, the platform’s games subscription service which offers up two curated titles each month that you can keep as long as you’re an active subscriber.

Image courtesy Meta

In the fine print, Meta says the $50 discount is only valid when purchased direct through Meta.com, and only until supplies last… that said, we’ve found a number of online retailers that are matching the deal, even beyond Amazon, such as Best Buy, Newegg, Gamestop, Target, and Walmart—all of which include the bundled Batman: Arkham Shadow and one-year Quest+ subscription. Notably, some of those retailers are terminating that sale before Meta.

The deal isn’t valid on prior purchases, of course, although some users have reported success in the past by asking Meta Support for Horizon Store credit, provided you purchased right before a big sale like this one.

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Compared to Quest 3, Meta lightened the bill of goods on Quest 3S by keeping Quest 2’s Fresnel lenses and 1,832 × 1,920 per-eye LCD display, making it an attractive deal for anyone looking to get into XR for the first time, or wanting to play Quest 3 exclusives, like Batman: Arkham Shadow, or take advantage of full-color mixed reality.

For the full skinny on whether you should buy Quest 3 or Quest 3S, check out our deep dive Quest 3S review where we compare the two.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Michael Speth

    Garbage hardware at garbage prices. This is why Meta loses billions per month offering a product meta has ZERO confidence in. If Meta sold these at cost or dare I say at profit, these would not sell.

    • Foreign Devil

      You always seem to get bent out of shape that Meta is making VR affordable to the masses. In your opinion only rich people should be able to use VR? The price point for the quality of the hardware is actually incredible! Do you work for a competing VR hardware manufacturer?

      • Michael Speth

        Affordable "VR" is not the problem, Meta's goal is the problem. Meta's goal isn't making a great VR gaming device. The many design decisions like lack of eye tracking and focus on input cameras for MR is clear.

        Meta's goal is to replace your Mobile phone such that you wear their device around from the minute you get up to the moment that you go to bed. All the while they control the operating system 100% such that they have complete control over what you see, hear, and also a 100% state of monitoring YOU.

        If you think the wrong thought, you will be debanked or fined.

        That is why Meta is willing to lose BILLIONS per month on their garbage hardware.

        If Meta were to sell their devices at cost or at profit, they wouldn't sell very many because their are simply better options at the real prices.

        If people didn't buy the garbage hardware, we wouldn't have gotten an influx of garbage mobile games that are flooding all Console/PC stores. Meta has single handidly retarded the VR industry by selling garbage at garbage prices.

        • ViRGiN

          I agree, I mean you'd have to be mentally ill to think otherwise. I heard they put microchips though people's heads whilst wearing their so-called "VR headset" to control people's minds, so I've had to resort to using tin foil just to make sure- you couldn't make it up.

        • Sonyboy

          II mean you are partially correct however if it weren't for meta VR would be dead. I don't like mobile VR either but it hasn't held AAA VR back, you act like there would be more top tier VR if meta didn't release mobile grade junk which is retarded itself. Honestly so far every company that has got into VR so far has kinda sucked one way or another and failed, if its ever going to move forward there are several huge obstacles that need cleared….while those things are slowly being dealt with there needs to be something stable and meta is the closest there is at the moment.

          • Michael Speth

            Sony released PSVR1 prior to Meta's Quest 2 garbage. It takes many years for a headset to be made and so PSVR2 would have been made regardless of Meta's trash.

            The difference is that Mobile Garbage Games have been filling stores on console and PC. This wouldn't have been the case if Meta didn't push their garbage and sell enough to make it worth while for these garbage companies to produce shovelware.

            Again, imagine if the majority of games on PC/Console were mobile garbage ports. Then imagine praising Google or Apple for the delite of having mobile garbage and then claiming there wouldn't be PC/Console gaming without Google and Apple's garbage mobile platforms.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    Hmmm, clearing stock so they are down to one SKU productionline, with the 128GB version only available until a new SKU is sold.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      Maybe. The current spot market price for the extra 128GB flash is less than USD 10, so dropping the 256 GB Quest 3S to the entry level model might improve sales that didn't match the 2023 Quest 2 @USD 249 sales for little extra component cost.

      But the 256GB Quest 3S at USD 400 also serves as an upsale tier. Those afraid that 128GB isn't enough find the 256GB 3S for USD 100 more, but if they add another USD 100, they double the storage and also get the much improved lenses, increased resolution and smaller form factor of Quest 3. So one important role for the middle tier model was to make the top tier look like the better offer.

      If they drop the USD 400 model, Quest 3 then always requires a 67% premium for playing the same games, which will make selling Quest 3 even harder than it already is. So they'd probably also have to reduce the price of Quest 3, which might be possible 18 months after launch. Qualcomm usually reduces the price of their top tier SD SoCs after a year (once the successor is released.) I assume XR2 prices drop in a similar way, which may have made the 2024 Quest 3S at USD 299 feasible in the first place. So a Quest 3 at USD 450 (or even lower) might now also be possible.