La Jolla: Meta discontinues development of Vision Pro competitor
Previously planned for 2027, now canceled: According to a media report, Meta's Reality Labs is no longer working on a VR headset with micro OLEDs.
This already discontinued Meta Quest Pro will also not have a successor for the time being.
(Image: (Bild: charnsitr/Shutterstock.com))
This week saw the end of plans for an alternative product to Apple's Vision Pro. As reported by the usually well-informed US media outlet "The Information", the end of the development of the "La Jolla" project is said to have been ordered at an internal meeting of Meta's Reality Labs.
According to the report, Meta had been working on a high-end version of its Quest headsets under this codename for several years. The device was due to be launched on the market in 2027. Like Apple's Vision Pro displays, La Jolla was to have micro OLEDs, which promised high image quality and resolution. There is no information on the reasons for the decision, "The Information" refers to two unnamed Meta employees.
The most obvious explanation is that the company no longer sees any great market potential for such a product. Apple's Vision Pro is also not a huge success with a price starting at 3,500 US dollars, and Meta's competitor in the VR market is reportedly currently working on a cheaper version. Only then will a possible "Vision Pro 2" be released.
No successor for Quest Pro yet either
Meta, on the other hand, had already exited the business with expensive headsets in mid-2023, since when the Quest Pro, which was last offered from USD 1,000, has no longer been produced. According to reports at the time, development work on a successor, which was not to be the micro OLED version, has also been discontinued.
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This means that for the foreseeable future, Meta's only offerings will be the Quest 2 from around 200 US dollars and the Quest 3 from 500 US dollars. However, the Quest 2 is hardly offered anymore, in Germany it is mainly the Quest 3 with 128 or 512 GB that is available. The price difference of 150 euros to the top model for around 700 euros makes the smaller versions unattractive.
The headsets formerly marketed under the name Oculus are increasingly turning into a billion-euro grave for Meta. The company invests large sums in its reality labs every year. In the first quarter of 2024 alone, it lost 3.8 billion US dollars, and over 50 billion in the more than ten years of the division's existence. It was only in June 2024 that Meta split the labs into two new working groups and made redundancies. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg remained fairly unwavering in his VR strategy even after the release of Vision Pro.
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