Meta
Meta Plans Pricier Quest 3 With Features to ‘fire up enthusiasts’
Meta’s Quest 3 headset, which the company has confirmed will land this year, is said to be positioned as a slightly pricier headset with features designed to appeal to VR enthusiasts.
For Quest 3, due out sometime later this year, Meta may be focusing more on its existing VR customers rather than trying to reel in brand new users.
According to a report by The Verge, Meta’s VP of VR, Mark Rabki, told thousands of employees that for the company’s next consumer headset, Quest 3, “we have to get enthusiasts fired up about it […] we have to prove to people that all this power, all these new features are worth it.” The Verge cites an internal Meta presentation held today as the source of this information.
Those features, which are largely expected to be a subset of what’s on Quest Pro, would make the headset cost “a bit more,” Rabkin said, than Quest 2 which currently sells for $400.
Leaks have consistently pointed to Quest 3 having pancake lenses, a more compact form-factor, and better augmented reality capabilities. The device is reportedly codenamed ‘Stinson’.
The improved AR capabilities, Rabkin hopes, will make Quest 3 feel easier to use.
“The main north star for the team was from the moment you put on this headset, the mixed reality has to make it feel better, easier, more natural,” he told employees, according to The Verge. “You can walk effortlessly through your house knowing you can see perfectly well. You can put anchors and things on your desktop. You can take your coffee. You can stay in there much longer.”
That would be swell, but Meta hasn’t exactly demonstrated that natural feeling with Quest Pro yet, meaning there is still significant work to do on the user-experience side if Quest 3 will meet those goals.
Something else that would surely ‘fire up enthusiasts’ for Quest 3 would be a dedicated video pipeline for PC VR tethering, rather than using the compressed Oculus Link or Air Link method that’s currently available on Quest 2. However, the company has shown little appetite for appealing to PC VR users as of late.
As for leaning into existing VR customers rather than pulling in new ones, this may be an effort to address Quest’s retention issues; while the headset has certainly sold well, Meta has been disappointed with the rate at which customers continue to use their headset after buying.
With regards to Quest 3 being more expensive than Quest 2, it seems that Meta has learned its lesson; having not established a substantial ads business in VR, heavily subsidizing headsets to get them out the door probably isn’t a good idea. Meta had to very publicly reverse that strategy when it raised the price of Quest 2 last year, by as much as 33% (though this was also related to inflation and broader economic turbulence).
The report from The Verge includes more info about the company’s XR roadmap, which you can read in full here.
Meta Has Sold Nearly 20 Million Quest Headsets, But Retention Struggles Remain
Meta has sold nearly 20 million Quest headsets, but the company continues to struggle with keeping customer using VR.
According to a report by The Verge, citing an internal Meta presentation held today, the company has sold nearly 20 million Quest headsets. This likely includes Quest 1, Quest 2, and Quest Pro, though by all accounts Quest 2 appears to be the vast majority. And while the figure wasn’t publicly announced, this would be the first official confirmation of Quest unit sales from the company.
This info was shared by Mark Rabkin, Meta’s VP of VR, during an internal presentation to “thousands” of employees, according to The Verge.
And while the 20 million unit Quest sales figure is impressive—and well beyond any other single VR headset maker—Rabkin went on to stress that the company has to do a better job at keeping customers using the headsets well after their purchase.
“We need to be better at growth and retention and resurrection,” he said. “We need to be better at social and actually make those things more reliable, more intuitive so people can count on it.”
Curiously, Meta’s latest wave of headset customers are less enthusiastic than those that bought in early.
“Right now, we’re on our third year of Quest 2,” Rabkin said, according to The Verge. “And sadly, the newer cohorts that are coming in—the people who bought it this last Christmas—they’re just not as into it [or engaged as] the ones who bought it early.”
The report from The Verge includes more info about the company’s XR roadmap, which you can read in full here.
Report: Meta to Open ‘Horizon Worlds’ to Younger Teens Amid Renewed Retention Push
Meta’s social VR app for Quest, Horizon Worlds, is lagging behind the competition when it comes to attracting and retaining VR users. According to a leaked memo obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the company is now ostensibly looking to boost numbers by more transparently appealing to younger teens in addition to funding a slew of new second-party content.
WSJ only posted snippets of the memo, entitled ‘Horizon 2023 Goals and Strategy’, which was allegedly written by Meta Vice President of Horizon Gabriel Aul. The memo is said to outline the team’s objectives for the first half of 2023.
Here’s some highlights we formatted into a bulleted list, which also includes additional info supplied by a source cited by WSJ:
- Competitors are outperforming HW. Improving user retention is most important, especially among teens and young adults
- HW to open to teens aged 13 to 17, which could come as early as March
- Meta is working with outside studios to build new worlds and experiences for HW
- The team is aiming to launch at least 20 new Horizon-hosted experiences built by second-party studios. Of the 20, it’s hoping for five medium hits and at least one a major hit
- The flatscreen version of Horizon for mobile and desktops is set to come sometime in H1 2023
Additionally, WSJ reports the memo outlined some key performance metrics, claiming Horizon Worlds’ weekly retention rate was 11% in January, which the company aims to increase to 20%. The goal for monthly active users for the first half of 2023 is said to be 500,000, with hopes of reaching one million for the full year. Currently the platform is at 200,000, or just below the December peak, the reported memo outlines.
The previously reported flatscreen version, which is said to launch by the end of the first half of 2023, is hoping to achieve 150,000 monthly cross-screen Horizon users.
Meta’s Quest 2 headset is technically only available to users aged 13 and up. Horizon Worlds on the other hand has been limited to users 18+ since it was launched in 2021, and only to those in US, Canada, UK, France, Iceland, Ireland and Spain.
While none of this seems to have hindered children below 13 from playing all the Quest 2 has to offer, Horizon Worlds included. More transparently appealing to young teens though will likely come with a host of safety requirements that the company needs to fulfil for liability reasons.
Meta issued a response to WSJ, supporting in part its move to focus on teens:
“Teens are already spending time in a variety of VR experiences on Quest,” Meta spokesman Joe Osborne told WSJ, “and we want to ensure that we can provide them with a great experience in Horizon Worlds as well, with age-appropriate tools and protections in place.”
This comes hot on the heels of Meta reducing its workforce by 13% late last year, one of the biggest tech layoffs in recent memory, which saw 11,000 jobs cut from payroll.
Meanwhile, the company’s Reality Labs XR division has dramatically increased its operating budget in an ostensible bid to maintain market dominance over similar metaverse pushes from the likes of Apple, Google, etc. At the same time, Meta has slashed some XR projects, including first-party title Echo VR.
Provided the report is true, it appears Meta is making another important step towards competing more directly with cross-platform social gaming titans like Roblox and Rec Room.
Horizon Worlds VR Metaverse Coming To Web & Mobile
Meta has also begun testing “members-only worlds” featuring exclusive content.
Meta this week announced that it has given a select group of users the ability to grow and moderate their own communities by creating “members-only worlds.” These closed spaces feature exclusive VR content accessible by a hand-picked group of Horizon Worlds users.
According to an official press release, creators can invite up to 150 members to each world as part of the alpha test. Each members-only world can support up to 25 concurrent visitors at one time. Here users can engage in a variety of multiplayer activities, such as organizing a book club, attending a support group, meeting up with friends and family, and more.
“Every community develops its own norms, etiquette, and social rules over time as it fosters a unique culture. To enable that, we’ll provide the tools that allow the creators of members-only worlds to set the rules for their communities and maintain those rules for their closed spaces,” said the company in an official release.
“Creators can choose whether or not to share their moderation responsibilities with other trusted group members and decide if they’ll allow members to visit the world without a creator or moderator present,” they added. “Everyone will always have the ability to report worlds to Meta and report others for behavior that violates our Code of Conduct for Virtual Experiences.”
In addition to members-only worlds, Horizon Worlds will also be expanding to additional platforms beyond VR. Meta’s social VR metaverse will soon be available on the web as well as mobile devices, allowing those without a Quest 2 or Quest Pro VR headset the ability to jump into the action.
As previously mentioned, Meta is partnering with a select group of Horizon Worlds users as part of the ongoing alpha test. This test is designed to confirm that creators have the tools required to properly moderate and grow their members-only worlds.
For more information check out the official release here.
Image Credit: Meta
Meta Reality Labs Earnings Reveal a Less Successful Holiday Season & Highest Operating Costs Yet
Meta today revealed its latest quarterly earnings results, showing that Reality Labs, the company’s XR and metaverse arm, had a smaller holiday season than the last, while operating costs have reached their highest levels yet.
Today during the company’s Q4 earnings call, Meta revealed the latest revenue and operating cost figures for its XR and metaverse division, Reality Labs, providing one of the clearest indicators of the success the company is seeing in this space.
The fourth quarter has consistently been the best performer for Reality Labs, no doubt thanks to the holiday season driving sales of the company’s offerings.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, the company saw $727 million in revenue, which was 17% less compared to the fourth quarter of 2021 when the company pulled in $877 million in revenue.
The fourth quarter of 2021 was a good performer for Reality Labs revenue thanks to the success of Quest 2 which had launched earlier that year.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, the company’s latest headset to launch was Quest Pro, it’s high-end MR headset. Unsurprisingly, the more expensive device—which has yet to find a strong value proposition at $1,500—doesn’t seem to have performed as well as Quest 2 did in its launch year. Just days ago, Meta temporarily discounted the price of the headset to $1,100, appearing to test the waters at that lower price. Granted, XR headsets aren’t the only product Reality Labs offers, which means the division’s other product lines—video calling speakers and smart glasses—may have had a role to play.
In addition to a smaller holiday season than last year, the latest earnings for Reality Labs show the division’s expenses were greater than in any previous quarter, surpassing $4 billion for the first time.
This continues a trend of Meta’s ever-growing investments in Reality Labs which the company has warned investors may not flourish until the 2030s.
In the face of operating costs far outpacing revenue, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors that his management theme for 2023 was “efficiency,” saying he wants to focus the company on streamlining its structure to move faster while being more aggressive about shutting down projects that aren’t performing.
Mil-Sim Shooter ‘Onward’ to Drop Quest 1 Support Later This Year
Meta’s Social VR App is Coming to Web & Mobile Soon, Alpha Begins for Members-only Rooms
Horizon Worlds, Meta’s social VR platform for Quest users, is expanding with alpha tests of new members-only spaces, allowing creators to manage up to 150 card-carrying members in their private worlds. Meta says it’s also gearing up to release Horizon Worlds on non-Quest devices for the first time.
Meta is now rolling out alpha access to its new members-only worlds, which aims to let creators build and cultivate a space in Horizon Worlds. Each members-only world can have up to 150 members, although only 25 concurrent visitors can gather at any given time.
“Every community develops its own norms, etiquette, and social rules over time as it fosters a unique culture,” the company says in a blogpost. “To enable that, we’ll provide the tools that allow the creators of members-only worlds to set the rules for their communities and maintain those rules for their closed spaces.”
Meta says moderation responsibilities can be shared among trusted members, so creators can better control who gets in and who’s kicked out, however the company says its Code of Conduct for Virtual Experiences is still in effect in privately owned spaces.
What’s more, the Quest-only social platform is also going to be available on the Web and mobile devices “soon”, the company says, adding that rules will be made and enforced “similarly to how mobile operating systems manage experiences on their platforms.”
As it is today, Horizon Worlds plays host to a growing number of user-generated content in addition to first-party worlds. The release of Horizon Worlds outside of Quest would represent a massive potential influx of users and user-generated content, putting it in direct competition with cross-platform social gaming titans such as Roblox and Rec Room.
As a similar free-to-play app, Horizon Worlds offers an Avatar Store featuring premium digital outfits—very likely only a first step in the company’s monetization strategy. For now, the company says it allows creators to earn revenue from purchases people make in their worlds, which includes hardware platform fees and a Horizon Worlds fee, which Meta says is 25 percent.
In late October, Meta showed off a tempting preview of its next-gen avatars, although it’s clear there’s still a ton of work to be done to satisfy its existing userbase. Floating torsos are still very much a thing in Horizon Worlds, and that’s despite Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s insistence that full body tracking was in the works. It was too good to be true.
For now, Horizon Worlds is only available on Quest 2 headsets in the US, Canada, UK, France, Iceland, Ireland and Spain—something we hope they change well before it ushers in flatscreen users.
Eli Roth’s BE MINE: A VR Valentine’s Slasher Revealed
The horror icon is back with yet another immersive experience for Quest headsets.
Eli Roth, director of iconic horror films such as Hostel and Cabin Fever, is returning to VR with a new horror experience. Written by Roth and directed by Adam MacDonald, Eli Roth’s BE MINE: A VR Valentine’s Slasher tells the story of Becca (played by Peyton List), a young girl being stalked by a murderous psychopath wearing a Cupid mask.
According to Meta, the combination 180 and 360-degree film is around 30 minutes long and will be available on Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets via Meta Quest TV and Horizon Worlds, Meta’s own social VR metaverse. Meta will be hosting a special premiere event in Horizon Worlds at 7pm PT on February 10th. You’ll also be able to watch the short film on Facebook and Instagram.
“I had the most incredible experience making Trick-VR-Treat with Meta, and we wanted to push the experience even further with BE MINE, creating a true narrative experience where you’re at the center of a slasher film,” said Roth in an official release.
“I wrote BE MINE knowing what worked best in VR, but pushing the boundaries with new ideas and techniques, and the results are nothing short of thrilling. We have created a true immersive horror experience. I have been a huge fan of Adam MacDonald for a long time, and what he and the incredible cast brought to life is something unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I think horror fans are going to absolutely love it. Get ready, it’s a bloody good time.”
Eli Roth’s BE MINE: A VR Valentine’s Slasher premiers at 7pm PT on February 10th on Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro headsets. The film was produced by Crypt TV and Roth in collaboration with Cream Productions. For more information visit here.
Image Credit: Meta
Meta Acquires 3D Lens Printing Firm Luxexcel to Bolster Future AR Glasses
Meta has acquired the Belgian-Dutch company Luxexcel, a 3D printing firm creating complex glass lenses for use in AR optics.
As first reported by Belgian newspaper De Tijd (Dutch), the Turnhout, Belgium-based company was quietly acquired by Facebook parent Meta in an ostensible bid to bolster the development of its in-development AR glasses.
Details of the acquisition are still under wraps, however confirmation by Meta was obtained by English language publication The Brussels Times.
“We are delighted that the Luxexcel team has joined Meta. This extends the partnership between the two companies,” Meta says.
Founded in 2009, Luxexcel first focused on 3D printing lenses for automotive, industrial optics, and the aerospace industry. Over the years Luxexcel shifted to using its 3D printing tech to create prescription lenses for the eyewear market.
In 2020, the company made its first entry into the smart eyewear market by combining 3D printed prescription lenses with the integration of technology. One year later, Luxexcel partnered with UK-based waveguide company WaveOptics, which has since been acquired by Snapchat parent Snap.
Meta’s interest in Luxexcel undoubtedly stems from its ability to print complex optics for both smart glasses and AR headsets; Meta’s Project Aria is rumored to house Luxexcel-built lenses. Project Aria is a sensor-rich pair of glasses which the company created to train its AR perception systems, as well as asses public perception of the technology.