Meta Quest 2 receives significant price reduction and new performance improvements following Quest 3 announcement

Arguably, Meta's biggest announcement of today was the Quest 3, details of which we have covered separately. However, the company has also outlined a few changes for the Quest 2, the last VR headset before its Meta rebrand. On the one hand, Meta will discount the Quest 2 to US$299 on June 4, returning it to its launch price. The new pricing will apply to the 128 GB edition though; the Quest 2 originally started with 64 GB of storage.

Additionally, the 256 GB model will soon be available for US$349, a US$80 discount. For some reason, Meta has not confirmed price drops in other countries yet, although we imagine it will also provide comparable discounts in other markets. For context, the Quest 3 will be available later this year for US$499. Seemingly then, Meta is positioning the Quest 2 as a cheaper alternative to the Quest 3, rather than replacing the former with a new entry-level headset.

On the other hand, Meta claims that it has unlocked more performance from the Quest 2, which it will deliver via a future software update. As the company discusses in the video below, it has extracted 26% more processor performance from its ageing headset, as well as 19% improved graphics performance. Allegedly, the update will allow apps and games to interpret inputs more quickly; developers must update their software to take advantage of these changes, though.

The same update will also bring Dynamic Resolution Scaling to the Quest 2, again to improve performance when a game does not exhaust the headset's capabilities. Likewise, this will require developer optimisations, so it remains to be seen whether this will work with alternative services like Steam VR through Air Link.

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