According to media reports on Friday, US tech giant Meta has cancelled its plan to launch a high-end mixed reality headset in 2027. Meta had originally planned to use this device to compete with Apple's Vision Pro.
According to two employees of Meta, after a product review meeting this week, the company's management suddenly requested that employees in the Reality Labs department stop developing this high-end mixed reality headset device.
This discontinued device, codenamed La Jolla internally, was originally planned to be released in 2027 and will include a Micro OLED screen with ultra-high definition resolution, the same display technology used in Apple Vision Pro.
With Apple's entry into the hybrid/virtual reality headset market last year, this market has regained investor attention, but due to factors such as high pricing and lower than expected experience, Vision Pro sales have fallen far short of expectations.
Renowned Apple analyst Guo Mingchi previously revealed that Apple has lowered its sales forecast for Vision Pro in 2024 from 700000 to 800000 units to around 400000 to 450000 units.
At present, Apple has not released specific sales figures for the Vision Pro, but the situation does not seem optimistic. At the beginning of this summer, Apple shifted its focus from producing Vision Pro 2 to prioritizing the development of lower cost head mounted devices.
It is reported that after seeing the sales data of Apple Vision Pro, Meta management believes that their Vision Pro will also face the same situation, so they have made this decision.
Meta employees have stated that the cost of Micro OLED displays for mixed reality headsets is too high to keep the device cost below $1000, which is considered a necessary condition for the product to sell well.
Meanwhile, Meta's Reality Labs division is still developing and selling the Quest series of headsets, despite causing billions of dollars in losses. Zuckerberg remains optimistic about the future development of augmented reality and virtual reality technologies.
In addition, Meta has launched Quest 3, which can be said to be the world's first mainstream mixed reality headset, with a starting price of $499.99 and sales exceeding one million in June.
Meta's upcoming Quest 4 is still in production and is expected to be released in 2026. The device is expected to remain within the $500 price range of Quest 3.