It appears Meta has decided to cancel a high-end mixed reality headset it had in the pipeline – possibly a successor to the Meta Quest Pro – partly due to the lukewarm sales of the Apple Vision Pro.
This is what Meta insiders who spoke to us say. The information (via The Edge). It was previously thought that the device, which had the internal codename La Jolla (a neighborhood in California), would see the light of day in 2027.
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth has posted about the report, which said the company “has a lot of prototypes in development at any given time” and that these kinds of decisions are common. “We’re going to move forward with some, we’re going to leave others,” Bosworth said.
This shows that Meta is still focused on virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality devices in general. We therefore expect to see another reasonably affordable headset launched next month in the form of the Meta Quest 3S.
Cost savings
One of the reasons for the cancellation, based on the report in The Information, is that the headset used expensive micro-OLED displays, which made it very difficult to hit its target price below $1,000 (that’s about £755 / AU$1,470).
However, it also appears that consumer reaction to the $3,499 / £3,499 / AU$5,999 Vision Pro played a part in the decision. Even those who buy Apple’s headset often send them back, and there are reports that development of the Vision Pro 2 has been paused.
The device in question may be the Meta Quest Pro 2: it’s a piece of hardware we haven’t heard much about yet, but there has been talk of LG being involved in the making of its OLED displays. The codename La Jolla has also surfaced in previous rumors.
Something else that may have played a part in the decision was the lack of success of the $999.99 / £999.99 / AU$1,729.99 Meta Quest Pro – at least compared to the cheaper Meta Quest 3, which has found a significant following.