By

Hamish Hector

posted 4 July 22

Beating Quest 2 is truly not possible

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Meta is ready to knockout its VR headset competition (Image credit: Oculus Quest 2)

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If you’ve sold a Meta Quest 2 (or an Oculus Quest 2 lower back while it changed into called that) someday inside the past yr or so, you aren’t the handiest one who has.

Meta’s satisfactory VR headset has been highly famous over the past years, rising to the top of the Steam users’ hardware survey stats (opens in new tab), and (in step with the contemporary IDC report (opens in new tab)) given Meta close to-overall dominance of the VR market.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) tracks and regularly publishes marketplace statistics for numerous sectors which includes VR. Their modern day statistics shows that Meta now controls ninety% of the VR marketplace global way to the roughly 14.Eight million people who have bought a Quest 2 in view that its launch in late 2020.

Quest 2 sales haven’t just helped Meta, the whole VR marketplace has surged. Global shipments grew through 97% in 2021 as compared with 2020, and in the first quarter of this yr (January to March) headset shipments have been up 241%.  

But while it’s splendid that you’ll have more human beings than ever to play the satisfactory Quest 2 games with – like the new epic shooter Wands Alliances – can Meta’s dominance ultimate?

The numbers make it clean, Meta has a commanding lead over the opposition within the VR space. While there are different headsets accessible – like the Valve Index – they just don’t seem to be everywhere near popular enough to get up to this behemoth.

Unfortunately, upcoming headsets may not honest a whole lot higher than what’s come earlier than

Many are excited for the eventual release of the PSVR 2 – that's yet to get a release date – but this tool already has a wonderful disadvantage: platform exclusivity. To use it, you’ll want a PS5.

While an predicted 20 million PS5s were bought, to outpace the Quest 2’s popularity Sony would want over seventy five% of proprietors to buy its headset. That’s a in reality excessive adoption fee, and an steeply-priced piece of hardware isn’t likely to be that famous – we don’t but realize the PSVR 2’s value but the original changed into $499 / £399 (approximately AU$650) at launch.

Case in factor, a document returned in 2019 advised 4.2 million PSVR headsets have been bought by means of players but that’s only 4% of the ninety four million PS4s that were believed to had been offered via that point (via Ars Technica (opens in new tab)). With the PS5 costing greater than the PS4 did – especially if you were tricked via a scalper into dishing out extra than its $499 / £449 / AU$749.95 rrp – gamers may be much less eager to fork out even extra for an add-on.

Apple could also compete, but its long-rumored Apple AR/VR headset is probable to suffer from being too darn highly-priced to be a rival to Quest 2. Instead, it’ll probably compete for dominance of the extra enterprise-centric VR space against Meta’s own Project Cambria headset.

The Apple headset is rumored to value at the least $1,000 / £1,000 / AU$1,500 – however doubtlessly extra. Unless it has some killer games and apps which could rival Quest exclusives Resident Evil 4 VR and the upcoming GTA San Andreas VR (amongst many, many others) then gamers could have an smooth preference. Plus, with the value of living as high as it's far proper now, wannabe VR fanatics will probable discover it even easier to select the Quest 2 which costs handiest £299 / $299 / AU$479.

We can’t call it on both PSVR 2 or Apple’s headset till they’ve really released and had a chance to do warfare towards Meta’s Quest 2, but we rank the reing champ as the fave in each bouts. Maybe Sony or Apple has a trick up its sleeve and one of the devices will surpass expectations, but at this level the most effective headset that could beat the Quest 2 is the Meta Quest 3.

Hamish Hector

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Hamish is a Staff Writer for TechRadar (@Hamish_Hector (opens in new tab) on Twitter) and has been writing about tech for nearly five years. He now lends his revel in to cowl information and reviews throughout the entirety on TechRadar (from Computing to Audio to Gaming and the relaxation). In his free time, you’ll possibly find Hamish humming display tunes whilst constructing Lego or playing D&D together with his mates.