The Quest 2’s unprecedented price hike is a bad look for the Metaverse

digitaltrends.com:

In an unprecedented move, Meta has announced that it’s hiking the price of its normally affordable Quest 2 headset by $100 starting on August 1. Although Meta claims that the price bump is meant to allow the company to invest more in VR in hopes of “moving the VR industry further,” I’m left skeptical about the plausibility of that outcome. The move will not only hurt VR fans’ wallets but potentially hurt Meta’s goals as it attempts to turn the Metaverse into a mainstream experience.

That’s bad news for proponents of the tech who are already struggling to get the idea over with users. From the moment companies like Meta turned it into a buzzword, the Metaverse has garnered a fair amount of skepticism. Meta’s aggressive marketing push has often come off as underdeveloped and overconfident — especially considering that the concept has been around for literal decades via titles like Second Life or even Fortnite. Now pair that cocky rollout with the fact that Meta has been in hot water since its Facebook days following multiple lawsuits regarding privacy issues.

The Metaverse was already off to a bad start with the company’s target audience; now, it’s going to cost those skeptics more money to even have access to it with the Quest 2.

The price hike seems fundamentally at odds with what Meta wants to achieve with VR. The company wants the Metaverse to be accessible to everyone via VR headsets, specifically the Quest 2. Now, the price of entry has increased from the $300 to 400 range to $400 to 500, majorly limiting the people who will be interested (or even capable) in buying in. $400-500 seems like a lot to pay to try out tech that isn’t expected to really find its footing until at least 2027 — especially considering that it