New Meta VR headset 'coming out in October' says Mark Zuckerberg
Oculus Connect in October will be our first chance to see Project Cambria
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: New Meta VR headset
📆 When: Meta’s Connect conference is when its next VR headset will launch
🎙️ Who: Mark Zuckerberg spilled some details on Joe Rogan’s podcast
🥽 What: Meta’s new VR headset with more face tracking and mixed reality
💰 Price: Likely to be expensive; Meta Quest 2’s price just increased to $399
🤼♂️ It’ll rival the ‘early 2023’-bound PS5-compatible PSVR 2 from Sony
Meta’s next Quest headset will be coming out in October, according to Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. He confirmed the news on the most recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, spilling some key details.
“Your new Oculus is awesome. Very impressive,” said Rogan, who apparently got a demo of the new VR headset before the three-hour video podcast interview began.
That’s when Zuckerberg dropped the announcement that the headset will be “coming out in October” at the company’s Connect conference. This is no surprise as Meta’s F8 conference in the spring of this year was canceled to focus on Connect.
Here are some quick takeaways from the podcast:
Zuckerberg says his goal is to help people connect and offer presence with AR
Rogan said he was impressed with eye contact and facial expression tracking – even when he moved his jaw, the on-screen avatar mimicked him
Zuckerberg wants to provide real-time translation of your movement through an avatar and emphasized seeing Rogan’s lobby during a mixed reality demo
The goal is to help you feel like you’re with another person, convincing your brain you’re there more so than with a FaceTime video call
Facebook’s AR glasses don’t exist yet, but the timetable is 3-5 years and it’ll be pretty expensive when it’s available
Future AR glasses will take time to work their way down to hundreds of dollars. Zuckerberg sees VR shrinking while glasses tech (like Meta’s Ray Bans) gets more advanced, meeting somewhere in the middle eventually
Developing… I’ll continue listening to gather more hints about Meta Quest Pro, or whatever it ends up being called…