According to a recent article from The Information, Meta is purportedly shutting down Quest Pro as part of a larger plan to discontinue the future ‘Pro’ brand of XR gear entirely. However, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth cautions, “don’t believe everything you read.”
According to The Information, Meta has apparently halted buying new Quest Pro components from its vendors. While it is expected that Meta will continue to sell its $1,000 Pro-branded mixed reality headset as long as there is sufficient stock, the article claims that the whole Pro line has been halted, ruling out a second-generation Quest Pro.
In an Instagram Stories post yesterday, Bosworth refutes the allegation that a prospective Quest Pro 2 has been formally canceled for good, stating that his company is building several prototypes for all of its projects concurrently. Notably, he does not answer whether it is killing the current version of Quest Pro, but he does imply that the rumor of Quest Pro 2’s extinction was the result of an unhappy employee whose project was axed.
Here’s Bosworth’s statement in full:
“I have to explain this every year. There is no Quest Pro 2 headset until we decide there is. What I mean by that is there are lots of prototype headsets—lots of them—all in development in parallel. Some of them, we say, “that’s not the right one,” and we shut it down. Some of them, we say, “that’s the right one,” and we spin it up. What you need to understand is, until it goes out the door, it doesn’t get the name. So, there might be a Quest Pro 2, there might not be. I’m not really telling you, but I will say don’t believe everything you read about what’s been stopped or started. A lot of times it comes from someone who’s unhappy their particular project got cut when there are other projects that did not get cut.”
Still, it’s evident that there was some turpitude in how Quest Pro was handled from the start. Quest Pro was originally released for $1,500 in October 2022, but Meta chose just a few months later to reduce the price by $500, bringing it down to $1,000 now. Meanwhile, the pricing of Quest 2 has fluctuated from $300 to $400 for the same 128GB edition.
Aside from pricing fluctuations, Quest Pro’s raison d’être has never been properly articulated, since the business has nebulously promoted it to professionals as a potential workstation. In actuality, Quest Pro has been more of a development kit for studios aiming to build consumer apps for the cheaper Quest 3, which will be available for $500 in the fall of 2023. Meanwhile, since its release, Quest Pro customers have reported a slew of usability flaws, making it feel a little less ready for prime time than the firm had planned.
Whatever the case, Quest Pro 2 would require a much better value proposition—assuming Meta’s prototypes don’t get cut as well.
