If you've been looking to grab an Oculus 2, you might want to act fast as Meta just announced it would be hiking the cost of its VR headsets up by $100 starting on August 1st.
Meta, a company worth billions, is citing rising costs of manufacturing headsets as one of its main reasons to hike up the price on their popular Quest 2 headsets. Additionally, the company states that its desire to continue to push the VR industry "to new heights" a justification for suddenly increasing the cost to consumers.
Via today's announcement:
"VR’s momentum is undeniable. From gaming and productivity to fitness and beyond, VR has become increasingly popular as it positively impacts the ways we work, play, and connect with each other. People have spent over $1 billion on Meta Quest apps, helping to fuel developers’ businesses as they deliver the games and experiences that make VR great.
At the same time, the costs to make and ship our products have been on the rise. By adjusting the price of Quest 2, we can continue to grow our investment in groundbreaking research and new product development that pushes the VR industry to new heights."
As such, the two models of Quest 2 will be seeing a price increase on August 1st, with the 128GB model jumping from $299 to $399, while the 256GB version going up to $499. Meta states that even with the price increase, "Meta Quest 2 continues to be the most affordable VR headset with a comparable feature set on the market." Meta also confirmed that refurbished Quest 2 units will see a price increase, too.
Still, a $100 increase is not an insignificant amount of money to jump, and it seems Meta understands that, so it's throwing new adopters a copy of Beat Saber with their purchase for a limited time.
In order to continue investing in moving the VR industry forward for the long term, we are adjusting the price of Meta Quest 2 headsets to $399.99 (128GB) and $499.99 (256GB) starting on 8/1/22.
— Meta Quest (@MetaQuestVR) July 26, 2022
We've seen a few MMORPG projects on VR, most recently RamenVR's Zenith: The Last City. It runs rather well on the Quest 2, and if you've been interested in checking it out, make sure to check out our review. Steven is pretty hopeful for the future of MMORPGs on VR, though it remains to be seen if adoption of VR slows with the recent price increase.
