Meta Levies A $100 Price Hike On Quest 2 In A Virtual Metaverse Money Grab
If you were considering the purchase of a Meta Quest 2 VR headset, you better act fast because it's about to go way up in price. Announced on Twitter and in a blog post, the Quest 2 will increase $100 to $399.99 for the cheaper 128GB model, and $499.99 for the 256GB model. Those prices go into effect in on August 1, 2022, which is less than a week away.
Meta says the price hike is so it can "continue investing in moving the VR industry forward for the long term." To the company's credit, the Quest 2 offers the best bang-for-buck in the VR headset space, especially after Meta doubled the amount of storage on the baseline mode from 64GB to 128GB without changing the price. Well, until now.
Nevertheless, the reaction hasn't been positive, as you might expect. These amount to 33 percent and 25 percent price hikes on the 128GB and 256GB models, respectively, without any changes to the hardware. It's the same headset, just at higher price points. To soften the blow, Meta is offering Beat Saber, a $30 game, as a free download to anyone who purchases a Quest 2 VR headset by the end of the year.
The increased pricing comes as Meta pivots away from requiring that users link their headset to a Facebook account. In that regard, this amounts to bad optics. In addition, in the same blog post announcing the price change, Meta says users have spent over $1 billion on Meta Quest apps.
"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," Meta states.
Meta's making a major push into the next iteration of the web, which has been dubbed the metaverse. Part of that includes an "ambitious VR hardware roadmap" with a high-end headset called Project Cambria launching later this year. It also recently showed off dozens of VR headset prototypes.
Meta is also raising the price of refurbished units and accessories, though it didn't specify by how much. Refurbished Quest 2 headsets sold by Meta start at $249 and promise to be "as good as new." Alternatively, if you're wanting to buy a new model before the price hikes go into effect, Amazon sells the 128GB Quest 2 for $299 and the 256GB Quest 2 for $399.
Top Image Source: Mark Zuckerberg (via Facebook)
