Meta drops Quest Pro and Quest 2 prices
Higher-end VR headset drops $500 less than five months after launch, while 256GB version of Quest 2 reverses most of last year's price hike
Meta dropped the prices on two of its VR headset packages this weekend, dropping the US price of its recently released Quest Pro headset by one-third and partially undoing a 2022 price hike to the 256GB version of its Quest 2 headset.
The Quest Pro, which launched at a $1,500 price point last October, now sells for $1,000.
The 256GB Quest 2, which saw its price raised from $400 to $500 last July, now sells for $430.
The 128GB Quest 2 remains the least expensive version of the headset with a $400 asking price.
Similar price adjustments were made to Quest headsets in other markets.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, research firm IDC said Meta's headset shipments sank more than 90% over the holiday quarter, down from 4.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 to about 300,000 in the final three months of 2022.
In last month's financial report for the quarter, Meta said its VR, AR, and metaverse division Reality Labs saw revenues drop 5% to $2.16 billion even as its operating losses jumped 35% to $13.7 billion.
Last week The Verge reported on an internal Meta roadmap for VR that had the company planning to release three more Quest VR headsets in the coming years, starting with a Quest 3 later this year.
The Verge's report also included comments from Meta's VR VP Mark Rabkin made in an internal presentation that indicated the Quest brand's challenges with growth and retention.
"Right now, we're on our third year of Quest 2," Rabkin reportedly told employees. "And sadly, the newer cohorts that are coming in, the people who bought it this last Christmas, they're just not as into it [as] the ones who bought it early."