Sooooooo virtual reality gaming isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire lately, huh? Despite pushing its augmented reality glasses hard, Facebook-Meta’s Quest 3 series isn’t getting a lot of press, despite ostensibly being the most popular VR product on the market. Maybe a console team-up will help shift some units. There’s now a Quest 3S “Xbox Edition.” And yes, it comes in black.
Unlike the recently-announced Asus ROG Xbox Ally handheld gaming PC, the Xbox Edition of the Quest 3S isn’t really a new version of the hardware. Aside from the black paint and snazzy Xbox green trim, it has the same capabilities as the standard 3S. The difference is that this comes in a bundle with an Xbox controller and an upgraded Elite headstrap in the box (matching black and green, naturally), and a $100 price increase, up to $400. Considering the add-ons cost $60 and $70 on their own, respectively, it’s actually a decent deal, even before three months of Xbox Game Pass.
Oh yeah, Game Pass. Because like everything else with a screen (or screens) these days, Microsoft wants you to know that this VR headset is an “Xbox.” While the Xbox platform doesn’t really support VR games in the same way that the PlayStation, Steam, and even the Switch do, you can stream Xbox Cloud Gaming titles to your headset and play with an Xbox controller, or really any controller that can connect to the Quest’s Android-based operating system over Bluetooth or USB. It’s a pretty cool way to experience streaming Xbox games — it won’t make standard console games VR, but it will blow up the 2D screen to a gigantic virtual display.
Microsoft has been leaning hard lately on Xbox as a platform, not just a console, combining its hardware with Windows-based offerings and the streaming options of Xbox Game Pass. To say nothing of a few hundred billion dollars worth of game publisher and developer acquisitions, most notably Bethesda, Activision-Blizzard, and Minecraft developer Mojang.
More interesting from my perspective is the option for PC gaming. The now-outdated Quest 2 is still the most popular VR headset on Steam, by far, because it’s only a fraction of the price of more complex PC VR headsets (despite functioning as its own stand-alone platform). Plug it into a PC’s USB-C port, or go through a slightly more cumbersome wireless connection, and it can play Steam VR games just fine. That makes this Xbox Edition of the Quest 3S a pretty good entry point into PC-based VR gaming, if not quite so accessible as the far cheaper Quest 2.
Valve is rumored to be working on a next-gen VR headset, Project Deckard, with an alleged, unconfirmed release for later this year.