Quest 2 Sales Outstrip Quest 3 In Black Friday Rush

As the holiday season gets into full swing, it’s a telling time for new consumer tech products. Since it was launched back in October, the performance of the Meta Quest 3 is of particular interest. 

With expectations high for the third iteration in the popular Quest series, some may be surprised to learn that it’s not the best selling Meta headset so far this Christmas. That honour goes to the Quest 2, which has seen some fantastic sales over the Black Friday period. 

Of course, if you’ve seen the offers, you probably wouldn’t be surprised at the number of people who will wake up on Christmas morning with a Quest 2 under the tree. But, what does this mean for the Quest 3? Let’s take a look at the Quest sales.  

Amazon Release Quest Black Friday Sales Figures

Although the Quest 2 saw a drop in price when Meta launched the third-generation headset back in October, Amazon’s Black Friday deals saw even more discounts added. The Quest 2 saw its price drop from £299 for the 128GB in the UK to just £250. In the United States, buyers could order the headset for $250 and get a $50 gift card, essentially making it just $200. 

Across all of the major Amazon territories, 240,000 Quest headsets were sold, with the Quest 2 accounting for nearly three-quarters of these sales — despite the Quest 3 being the newer and more exciting model that Meta is pushing heavily. 

For comparison, the Quest 3 was listed at $500 with Asgard’s Wrath 2 and a $15 gift card in the U.S. and £474 in the UK for the headset and game. The Quest 2 was effectively half the price of the Quest 3 and has remained low even after Black Friday. 

What Do the Sales of Quest 2 and 3 Mean for Meta?

Meta has clearly spent a lot of time innovating, and the Quest 3 follows the Quest Pro as the company shifts its focus from VR to mixed reality. With mixed reality being central to Meta’s current direction, developers are playing catchup, and we’re slowly starting to see mixed-reality apps and games that demonstrate these capabilities in inspiring ways. 

But now developers are focused on mixed reality, there’s going to be a lot of new users who are not looking for this type of app or game. While the Quest 3 is backwards compatible, developers did have a clear agenda for the future. But now, with a growing number of Quest 2 users out there, it’ll be tempting to continue developing for the older headset. 

While the jump between console generations always sparks some dilemmas for developers, the leap between the Quest 2 and 3 is quite different. For most game consoles, developers can easily create games that run on both available console generations with a few tweaks. 

This is fine in the case of VR-only apps for the Quests, but the moment you integrate a mixed reality element into the game, it’s not going to offer a good experience for Quest 2 users. With no depth sensor, poor resolution, and limited passthrough view—  mixing virtual and real worlds can get messy. 

Games console generations change at a more gradual pace than VR. The Quest 2 has been with us for three years, which is quite a long time in VR terms. Although Meta wants users to shift to the next generation, tens of thousands of new Quest 2 users means the transition toward Quest 3 dominance will be much slower than anticipated.

While it’s money in the bank and more VR users, the fantastic deals will leave next-gen Quest users with fewer mixed-reality apps that would really allow them to benefit from the true potential of their device. 

But Meta has made it apparent that it wants to move toward mixed reality, with every effort made to demonstrate the potential of the new technology in both the Quest Pro and Quest 3. Currently, mixed reality content is fairly sparse, with passthrough being added to standard VR games. 

Is the VR Market Incentivising Consumers To Say Put?

Logic might dictate that consumers should choose the latest headset over the Quest 2. After all, if you’re buying a new device, you should future-proof yourself with one that can handle the games and app innovations of the future. 

With Quest 2 prices so low and mixed-reality games few and far between, it’s easy to see why buyers are sticking with the three-year-old headset. Until developers really jump on the XR capabilities of the Quest 3, uptake for the next-generation headset will be slow. 

Watch this space for more updates.