The new VR glasses will go on sale from October 25 – but not in Germany.
(Photo: via REUTERS)
san francisco The Facebook group Meta has introduced VR glasses that cost $1,500, which the group sees primarily being used by business customers. The glasses, called Meta Quest Pro, are intended to film the wearer’s face, among other things, in order to be able to depict facial expressions in virtual meetings.
“We help to create the optimal environment for creative and collaborative work,” said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday at the product launch. To this end, Meta entered into a partnership with the Windows group Microsoft.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that he would also offer the Teams conferencing service in the Metaverse of Meta. Business meetings with users on a traditional computer and users with VR glasses from Meta should be able to take part in video conferences at the same time. Nadella also promised to offer Office 365 office services in Meta’s VR platform.
The partnership is proof that not a single company will determine the metaverse, argued analyst Tuong Nguyen from market researcher Gartner. Meta in particular could benefit from this: “The partnership will give Meta a better reputation among corporate customers.”
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For Microsoft, the announcement means a change in strategy. So far, the company had tried, among other things, to expand the Teams service into a kind of mini metaverse for corporate customers. Microsoft also offers its own glasses, the Hololense.
However, the Hololense and the Quest Pro are aimed at different applications, analyst Tuong emphasized. The Quest glasses are designed for complete immersion in a virtual world, while the Hololense can continue to observe the environment. It overlays digital information into the field of view of the analog environment – such as repair instructions for a machine or data from a patient. “In addition, both companies are not hardware groups. Therefore, the hardware is not the priority at the moment,” said Tuong.
Meta does not want to sell the glasses in Germany
However, Germany is excluded from the plans. Meta will not sell the new VR glasses in Germany. “The sales stop currently applies to all VR devices, including the new headset,” said a meta spokesman for the Handelsblatt.
In Germany, the technology group stopped selling all VR glasses in 2020. The reason was an abuse procedure by the Federal Cartel Office, which had intervened because the group had made the use of Facebook accounts mandatory for the devices.
Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt had argued: “This link between virtual reality products and the group’s social network could represent a prohibited abuse of a dominant position by Facebook.” The Cartel Office’s proceedings have not yet been completed.
According to market researcher Counterpoint Research, the Facebook group Meta dominates around 80 percent of the global business with VR glasses.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
However, Meta CEO Zuckerberg had recently changed his strategy. In August, the company lifted the requirement to use a Facebook account. Since then, users of the company’s VR glasses have been able to create a “meta account” for use. Unlike a Facebook account, all you need to do is provide an email address and the account is not linked to an account on a social network.
Nevertheless, Facebook has not lifted the sales freeze in Germany to this day. The group has so far left open whether this will change in the future.
The Facebook group took over the VR glasses manufacturer Oculus in 2014 for around two billion dollars. In 2016, the Oculus Rift was the first pair of glasses for the mass market. The latest Quest 2 model has been available since 2020. In the US, the glasses cost $299 plus sales tax, but the price was recently raised to $399.
With the newly announced VR glasses Quest Pro, the company is now significantly increasing the price. This should also change the buyers. Analyst Tuong said few of the current users are likely to switch to the new devices, but there may be more corporate users or technology enthusiasts.
The Oculus Quest 2 is considered the most widely used VR glasses in the world. According to calculations by the market research company Counterpoint, Meta controlled a total of 80 percent of the global market for VR glasses in the fourth quarter of 2021.
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