Apple is rumored to unveil its long-awaited mixed reality headset in a few months, but that reveal seems to come at a time when demand for high-end VR is actually quite low.
According to a new blog post from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, some of the biggest recent bets in VR have largely failed. Kuo reports that:
Sony has slashed the 2023 production plan for the PS VR2 by about 20 percent.
The product lifecycle shipment for Meta’s Quest Pro is only about 300,000 units.
Shipments of Pico (China’s largest AR/VR headset brand) in 2022 were more than 40 percent lower than expected.
There are already some signs that high-end VR can’t handle it, most notably Meta’s decision to drop the price of the Quest Pro from $1,500 to $1,000 just over four months after the product first launched. But given that Apple’s headset is said to cost around $3,000 — double the starting price of the Quest Pro — the iPhone maker could have a steep road ahead as it tries to get to grips with its headset.
Apple’s headset will apparently be a monster of a device, which could be part of the reason why it could be so expensive. It will reportedly have advanced hand-tracking, won’t require a controller, and can apparently mimic someone else’s full body in VR in one-on-one FaceTime conversations. But it will also apparently rely on an external battery pack for power, which I don’t think quite fits Apple’s usual streamlined aesthetic. The higher price could also be an indication that Apple is targeting developers to begin with, not the mass market, so it may be looking at a different pool of buyers than devices like the PSVR 2.
It’s also not entirely clear Why we now need an apple headset. In a recent interview, CEO Tim Cook argued that augmented reality could improve “communication” and “connection”, and the headset itself is apparently aimed at ‘copresence’. But those are quite similar to the arguments Meta made for the unpopular Quest Pro.
And those low Quest Pro sales happened even after that years of investment from Meta to build an ecosystem. While we don’t yet know if Apple has an easy way for developers to bring apps on other Apple platforms to the headset, I suspect only a few headset-specific apps will be available to launch.
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