What was previously known as “Project Cambria” for a long time launched late last year under the name of Meta Quest Pro. The hybrid reality headset had the potential of becoming Meta’s flagship device for its metaverse efforts. Now, a report is pointing at Meta giving up on the lineup, though Meta is saying otherwise.
Compared to regular Meta Quest headsets, the Meta Quest Pro is more of a niche product, geared at professionals rather than gamers unlike previous products. Between that and its very steep price point, it is largely seen as a failure. Apple is coming out with its own hybrid reality headset come 2024, which might further grow the segment, but at the moment, it’s a bit of a niche. A new report by The Information isn’t too optimistic about the headset line’s future.
According to said report, Goertek, the Quest Pro’s manufacturer, will only keep manufacturing the headsets for as long as it has supplies and materials to do so. This hints that as soon as it runs out, the production line might be stopped, and Meta will only keep selling Quest Pro headsets for as long as the stock allows, without much more restocking. This also means that Meta would be giving up on the product line as a whole, thus killing hopes of a potential Meta Quest Pro 2.
The initial report might need to be taken with a big grain of salt, because Meta itself has dismissed it. Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, went on Instagram to say that you shouldn’t “believe what you read about what gets stopped or started.” He mentioned that there is no Meta Quest 2 at the moment, but that there are many prototype headsets being developed in parallel, and some might make it to prime time while some will be shelved, going on to say that “there may be a Quest Pro 2, and there may not be.”
It doesn’t seem like a full committal to launch a successor, but it essentially confirmed that if we’ll see a successor, it’s not the time to talk about it as it’s not exactly greenlit yet.
Source: The Information, GamesRadar
