Meta Affirms Plans for Quest 3 Launch This Yr, Regardless of Layoffs

Regardless of main layoffs from Meta, the corporate has affirmed that its next-gen client headset, Quest 3, is deliberate for launch this 12 months. Whereas it is going to undertake among the options from Quest Professional, not all will make the leap.

In November final 12 months, Meta introduced plans to cut back its workforce by 13%—a whopping 11,000 lower jobs. And although CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned lately within the firm’s newest earnings name that 2023 can be centered on streamlining the corporate, Meta continues to prioritize its VR headset lineup and plans to launch Quest 3 someday this 12 months.

Meta’s XR division, Actuality Labs, is burning more cash than ever in its pursuit of beating tech-sector rivals Apple, Google, et all to the metaverse and XR. And though the corporate is slashing some XR tasks, it’s nonetheless full-steam forward with its client headset, says Zuckerberg.

“Later this 12 months, we’re going to launch our subsequent era client headset, which is able to characteristic Meta Actuality, [like Quest Pro], and I anticipate that that is going to ascertain this expertise because the baseline for all headsets going ahead, and ultimately after all for AR glasses as effectively,” Zuckerberg instructed buyers.

“Meta Actuality,” as the corporate calls it, is Meta’s colour passthrough AR answer which was first included with Quest Pron—that means Quest 3 will embrace related colour passthrough AR capabilities.

Whereas Quest 3 is prone to undertake the passthrough AR system of Quest Professional, it sounds prefer it gained’t get the attention and face-tracking options of that headset. Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth mentioned as a lot throughout a Q&A session on Instagram final week.

Replying to a query about when face-tracking would come to consumer-priced headsets, Boz famous, “it’s gonna be a short time… it’s gonna be years. The reason being easy: all these additional cameras and the compute energy required to really do the face-geometry and recognition has plenty of tradeoffs with it, and one of many foremost tradeoffs is value.”

This traces up with leaks from final 12 months that additionally pointed to a Quest 3 with colour passthrough AR and no face-tracking; nevertheless the lauded ‘pancake’ lenses from Quest Professional might flip to the buyer aspect.

Whereas the Quest headset line continues, not all of Meta’s {hardware} tasks have been spared the axe. Final 12 months Meta discontinued its Portal video-calling sensible audio system, and reportedly cancelled two unreleased smartwatch tasks, based on The Verge. That Meta is charging forward with extra headsets exhibits the corporate’s priorities stay centered on immersive units.

Together with these cancellations, Zuckerberg in the course of the earnings name instructed buyers that he was marking 2023 because the “12 months of effectivity”; an effort to streamline the hulking firm to be extra nimble and get extra performed.

“We closed final 12 months with some tough layoffs and restructuring some groups. After we did this, I mentioned clearly that this was the start of our concentrate on effectivity and never the top. Since then, we’ve taken some further steps like working with our infrastructure group on learn how to ship our roadmap whereas spending much less on capex. Subsequent, we’re engaged on flattening our org construction and eradicating some layers of center administration to make selections quicker, in addition to deploying AI instruments to assist our engineers be extra productive. As a part of this, we’re going to be extra proactive about slicing tasks that aren’t performing or might now not be as essential, however my foremost focus is on rising the effectivity of how we execute our high priorities.”