June 5, 2023: On Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg hit his firm’s latest virtual reality headset, the Quest 3.

The new headset will begin at $499, Zuckerberg said in a video on Instagram. The post stated it’ll be the first announced headset with “high-res color mixed reality.” The Quest 3 is 40% thinner than its predecessor, the Quest 2.

It appears to have nearly three cameras on the front that may improve some of the passthrough occasions, where users can see the wild world around them while sporting the headset and interacting with apps. The video stated that it had enhanced “natural” depth perception for the wearer and touted graphics improvements for gaming.

“High-fidelity color Passthrough, innovative machine learning, and spatial understanding let you discuss with virtual content and the physical world, developing limitless possibilities to explore,” Meta said in a release.

The post said the Quest 3 will ship with a next-generation Qualcomm chipset. Meta said it will provide more details on Sept. 27 during its Connect conference.

Meta’s Quest 2 headset was removed in 2020 at a starting price of $299.

Apple is anticipated to debut its competing VR headset next week as part of its June WWDC event. The iPhone maker’s consumer headset, which could also incorporate augmented fact technologies, will reportedly work with hundreds of thousands of iPad apps and cost at least $3,000.

Meta first announced that it would debut the Quest 3 this year as part of the company’s third-quarter 2022 earnings when it said that the company’s cost of income would grow in part because of “Reality Labs hardware costs driven by the takeoff of the coming generation of our consumer Quest headset later next year.”

Meta continues spending heavily in the metaverse, the yet-to-be-developed digital universe that needs virtual reality and augmented reality technologies to access.

The firm’s Reality Labs unit, which is creating VR and AR technologies, recorded an operating loss of $3.99 billion in the company’s first quarter while generating $339 million in revenue.

In July 2022, Meta raised the price of the entry-level Quest 2 from $299 to $399, citing a rise in the costs to manufacture and ship the device. It said it would lower that headset’s price to $299 starting June 4.