quest-3-777 — Image courtesy Meta

Quest 3 Pops up in Best Buy Listing With Clues About Resolution, Release Date

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Jun 22, 2023

Quest 3 was announced just three weeks ago, and yet the headset is already listed at Best Buy. Though its resolution hasn’t been officially announced, the page gives us a big clue.

Meta offered a partial reveal of Quest 3 earlier this month, promising that we’d get a more full look at the new headset during the company’s annual XR conference, Meta Connect, at the end of September. The timing of the headset’s reveal came just ahead of the reveal of Apple Vision Pro (and we don’t think that was a coincidence).

Now, just three weeks later, Quest 3 already has a product page at consumer electronics retailer Best Buy, as spotted by XR analyst Brad Lynch.

Quest 3 Resolution

The store page already lists the headset with a model number, SKU, UPC, correct price, and product description, suggesting this isn’t an early fluke, but rather a product page for a soon-to-launch product. These details also suggest that Quest 3 has already passed FCC certification, which is required before it can go on sale.

And there’s a big hint on the page about the Quest 3 resolution, which Meta has yet to confirm.

According to the description, the headset has “a nearly 30% leap in resolution from Quest 2.”

Quest 2 has a resolution of about 3.5MP (1,920 × 1,832 per-eye); a 30% jump should mean Quest 3 has around 4.5MP—probably meaning around 2,160 × 2,160 resolution per-eye.

An Early Release Date for Quest 3?

Prior to its appearance at Best Buy we would have guessed that Quest 3 would launch in mid-October at the earliest—almost four months from now—which would align with both the 2023 holiday shopping season and the same timeframe of the Quest 2 launch.

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But with the Best Buy product listing, it’s starting to look like the headset is rearing to go, making it feel like there’s a chance that Meta doesn’t just reveal the headset at its Connect conference at the end of September, but might even make it available immediately thereafter.

But why? Well, it’s clear that Meta has been responding to Apple’s moves now that Vision Pro is out in the wild. Even though the $500 Quest 3 isn’t remotely in the same ballpark as the $3,500 Vision Pro, Meta can already see the writing on the wall. The company may be posturing to protect its early lead in the XR space, trying to get Quest 3 out the door and in as many hands as possible before the Vision Pro’s early 2024 release.

Blinkin73

Sony better hurry up on their AAA game front for the PSVR 2 or I’m going to go for the Quest 3. I already have a significant investment in the Meta-scape so it’s going to take more than another Resident Evil game to pull me away.
- Gabriel Cash
  
  I agree that Sony needs to start announcing AAA games but the fact remains there will be no AAA games for the Quest 3 because without a console powering it, it won’t be able to cope with anything approaching current generation gaming. I may buy one for video and casual gaming if the visuals are as big an upgrade as they are saying but it#s not going to replace my PSVR 2.
  - Blinkin73
    
    They may not be as pretty, but games like Asgard’s Wrath are for sure of AAA quality.
Hussain X

Hopefully it’s not a $100 difference to get 256GB version. More memory for cheap can mean getting 256GB and having space for buying more apps without hesitating.
- ViRGiN
  
  sorry dude, even valve charges extra orbitant prices for extra memory. look at steam deck pricing.
wowgivemeabreak

Still odd to have this showing up even if they did put it for sale on say the 28th of September. That’s not far off the expected mid October launch most of us were figuring.

Having it show up now feels more like something that would launch in a month, maybe 2, not a bit over 3 months. Would be nice if something changed since earlier this month and they have pushed up the release to indeed be mid summer.
Jonathan Winters III

It will be available for retail sale in October.
Dynastius

I remember that. I also tried a huge VR headset at a tradeshow around then that was connected to an SGI computer and mounted on a huge boom because it was too heavy. lol. I still thought it was cool as hell. The computer running it cost like $100K and it looked like shit compared to the quest 2.
- XRC
  
  We had silicon graphics workstations on our industrial design course at university, with some early commercial VR headsets for cad work.
  
  Horribly expensive, visually fatiguing and very limited but the potential was obvious.
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    There are stories about the effect on the people demonstrating early VR with USD 25K+ VPL EyePhones and data gloves of a similar price, driven by USD 500K SGI Crimson with RealityEngine graphics subsystems, basically early 3D graphics cards spread over six ATX sized boards. There simply wasn’t anything more capable on the market, and it had to render rather primitive graphics by todays standards at 720*480 per eye, yet latency was horrible. Fine for a couple of minutes, but outright devastating after a couple of hours, requiring people to take significant doses of valium just to survive the next few days of the trade shows.
    
    So while today we are discussing if pushing through the nausea for some time can give users the desired “VR legs” through habituation, pushing through and habituation in early VR systems came with the danger of developing an actual drug addiction. Luckily things have gotten a lot better, and I have made only a couple of people feels so sick that they had to lay down for several hours by demonstrating them early versions of (often still 3DoF) modern VR HMDs.
Christian Schildwaechter

A release late September instead of mid October doesn’t seem dramatic enough for a plausible narrative about Meta desperately trying to get to market before the Apple Vision Pro. In fact I doubt that the AVP plays any significant role in their calculation, the Quest 3 is in a completely different class regarding price and target audience, so very few people would pick an AVP over the Quest 3 just because both are available. You’ll pick an AVP if spending USD 3500 doesn’t bother you, if you have an urgent need for virtual monitors or one of the still rather limited uses cases Apple showed so far, and don’t care about VR games. Or are a developer trying to get onto the hype train early on.

The rest will pick up a Quest 3. Or, and that would be a much better reason for an earlier launch, a PSVR 2, assuming that Sony will come up with some attractive bundles and push them with a heavy advertising campaign. Assuming you already have a PS5, the PSVR 2 is in the same price range as the Quest 3, and is also focused on VR gaming. The improved passthrough/MR features on Quest 3 so far are still of very limited use, meaning the PSVR 2 is a much more direct Quest 3 competitor regarding features than the AVP, and both companies will compete at least somewhat for the same customers. Which may lead to longer and more extensive media and ad campaigns to get their respective devices onto as many wishlists as possible.

And this could be a valid reason for Meta to make the Quest 3 available immediately after introducing it at Connect in September, so early user reports and friends showing off their new and improved Quest 3 can act as multipliers. Demonstrating VR will always be way more impactful than any fancy commercial, so everybody carrying around a new Quest 3 in their backpack for a lot of impromptu demos will be worth a hundred TV spots. This is a big advantage Meta has over Sony, who will have to get potential customers to try the PSVR 2 in stores, instead of having hordes of VR enthusiasts running around and doing the propaganda for free, and here every extra day may count.
- Yeshaya
  
  It said coming this fall, which astronomically ends on December 21st. Certainly wouldn’t mind it coming earlier :)
- TonyVT SkarredGhost
  
  Agree on everything, but not on Meta not making calculations about Apple. It’s visible in everything they do that they’re fearing Apple and over-reacting to it (early release of unfinished Quest Pro is an example)
MasterElwood

Didn’t zuck said 40 percent resolution increase?
- xXx
  
  Nop.
  - MasterElwood
    
    He literally said “40 percent sharper screens”
    - Paveln4
      
      Pancake lenses are sharper than Fresnel lenses at the same resolution.
      - MasterElwood
        
        Good point!
xXx

Yes…. I am looking forward for the 512 version as well.
JanO

512GB makes way more sense than 256GB for the upgraded storage option as Q3’s games will undoubtably get bigger than Q2’s over its lifespan…

Heck, my 256GB Q2 is already too little for my use case…
Rupert Jung

I’ll think I will skip this one. Eye Tracking just is a must now, not only for Foveated Rendering but also for interaction, eye contact in VR etc.
Cragheart

In my opinion, VR is evolving at a very slow rate. I had a faster PC than Quest 3 in 2014. We need huge jumps in all specs (and really great content) for VR to become decent.