Following on from the rampant success of the Oculus Quest 2, many assumed the new Meta Quest 3 headset would be a runaway success. That’s not the case, as Meta is reportedly cutting supply of the new headset before its released.
With the Meta Quest 3 already far less popular than expected, Meta has decided to decrease the number of shipped headsets during the holiday period. Due to weaker than expected demand, the company has axed millions of headsets from the production schedule.
According to tech analyst and Meta insider Ming-Chi Kuo, almost five million expected units will not be produced before the end of 2023. However, around two millions units are reportedly planned to be manufactured before the year finishes.
The insider claims that the lessened demand for the new headset is drastically lower than previous predictions. At the time of writing, Meta expects to ship just one million Meta Quest 3 headsets by the end of 2024, a massive decrease over sales of its previous hardware.
Kuo explains that the virtual reality headset isn’t the only issue facing the company. In fact, Meta’s entire virtual reality business is facing massive production changes as demand fails to meet initial expectations.
For example, Kuo reveals that the Meta Ray-Bans augmented reality smart glasses are only expected to sell 1.5 million units over the device’s entire life. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has heavily pushed the augmented reality future with employees saying the tech boss’ ego rests on its success.
The lessened demand of the Meta Quest 3 comes after a particularly brutal year for the Facebook parent company. Following billions of wasted investment in the company’s Metaverse project and the failure of the Quest Pro, the lack of interest in the newest headset is the latest in a long line of failures.
Nevertheless, Meta is planning on circumventing the lack of Quest 3 demand with a new headset next year: the Meta Quest 3 Lite. However, the cut-down headset has a lot to prove if it’s going to revive Meta’s VR reputation.
The Meta Quest 3 launches on October 10th for £479.99.