Why is Meta Slashing Prices on its VR Headsets?
"Meta is cutting prices for two of its virtual reality headsets as it continues trying to boost adoption for the nascent technology on which it has bet its future," reports CNN:The company announced Friday that it is slashing the price of its higher-end Meta Quest Pro headset by some $500, bringing its cost to $999, roughly six months after it was released. Meta is also lowering the price of its Quest 2 headset from $499.99 to $429.99. The price cut for the Quest 2 will go into effect in more than a dozen countries including the United States on Sunday. The Quest Pro price drop will take effect the same day in the United States and Canada and on March 15 in all other countries where it is sold. "Our goal has always been to create hardware that's affordable for as many people as possible to take advantage of all that VR has to offer," the company said in a blog post. Yahoo Finance believes Meta is lowering prices "because consumers are, well, just not buying as many as the company expected." The Verge agrees that the Meta Quest Pro was "an absolute boondoggle of a device" - but suggests that's not the whole story. "if you look at the Quest 2, which most people use for playing games, as a game console, it's done reasonably well."Mark Rabkin, Meta's vice president for VR, told staff that Meta has sold over 20 million Quest headsets thus far. That includes both the Quest and Quest 2.... That seems like a small number, but the Nintendo GameCube only sold 21 million consoles in its entire lifespan, and the Xbox Series X and S are estimated to have sold approximately 20 million consoles thus far. So if you look at the Quest 2, which most people use for playing games, as a game console, it's done reasonably well. Their conclusion? "Meta might have big ambitions for VR headsets and their place in the metaverse, but the reality is that the top software on the Quest 2 are all games.... And while Meta is thrusting metaverse experiences onto users, it's kind of ignoring that core gamer audience."
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