Mark Zuckerberg announces Meta Quest 3S: $300 VR headset to mostly match the Quest 3, coming October 15

Mark Zuckerberg announces the Quest 3S at Meta Connect 2024.

(Image credit: Meta)

There's a cheaper Quest 3 coming out next month. It's called the Quest 3S, and it comes with many of the same features as the Quest 3, including the same processor, but shaves some pennies with cheaper lenses.

The new Quest 3S is available in two models, both landing on October 15. The cheapest comes with 128 GB storage for $300—$200 off the price of the regular Quest 3.

Mark Zuckerberg opened the Meta Connect show with his keynote, and right out of the gate announced the brand new VR headset. Zuckerberg says the device has the "same defining features as Quest 3", even the same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2. That means it's compatible with the same apps and experiences as the Quest 3, even XR stuff.

"We optimised the whole system, a lot" Zuckerberg says of the device, and how Meta brought the price down.

Though the main change is the loss of pancake lenses in favour of more traditional fresnels. That might make a difference to the field of view, the comfort of the headset, or how the VR experience looks once it's is on your head. But if it's pretty close to the standard Quest 3 design, it might not be a bad sacrifice. Once we've given these a whirl, we'll be able to say for sure.

During the keynote, Zuckerberg called up his friend Kenny (literally noted as his friend Kenny' in the show) who attempted to show off some new VR/XR experiences. Unfortunately, that didn't work out, and the demo crashed, leaving Zuckerberg to note "I don't know where we are in the demo at this point."

To be fair, it wasn't as awkward as it sounds. I've seen much worse technical mishaps in E3 fail compilation videos on YouTube, that's for sure.

One of the more PC-centric features that Zuckerberg showed off at the event was how Meta's partnered up with Microsoft to show your Windows desktop writ virtual in your headset. The process of getting your Quest device and Windows PC paired up and working is supposedly going to get slicker.

"Quest is going to be a natural extension of your PC," Zuckerberg says.

So one month to go and we'll have a slightly cheaper option in the VR world. It'll drop in where the Quest 2 currently sits, which all but kills off that headset even as a budget option. That means we might have to change our recommendation for the best budget headset soon—I hope so, providing the Quest 3S also makes for a mean PC VR headset.

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.