Here’s why the Quest 3 hasn’t seen any discounts yet. And it makes me go "hmm"

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Here’s why the Quest 3 hasn’t seen any discounts yet. And it makes me go "hmm"
Hey, can you name me three pretty exciting things that happened recently? Well, we’ve got the release of the Quest 3 — one of the best VR headsets around — then we had Black Friday which was pretty fun and then Cyber Monday, which was the cherry on top.

But all of these things aren’t being mentioned today here randomly. No, ladies and gents: they’ve got something in common. A certain lack of discounts that was noted during the world’s biggest online shopping event. Namely, regarding the Quest 3.

And one has to ask “why”, right? If you’ve got a brand-new XR headset around, then giving it a sweet discount for the pre-holiday season makes the most sense, given that you’re aiming for sales.

Well, during a recent live stream, Meta’s CTO shared some insight. And the reason he gave raises even more questions, if you ask me.

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So, the VR aficionados among you will know that Andrew Bosworth — Meta’s CTO — likes to hold AMAs — ask me anything streams — on Instagram. So whenever he’s not busy explaining to people why eye-tracking isn’t on the Quest 3, he’s responding to other questions, such as “Why isn’t the Quest 3 seeing any discounts yet?”.

Simply put, Andrew explained that the plan is to keep the Quest 3’s price as close to MSRP as possible for now. The reason behind that is because he claims that his team went through a lot so that Meta can sell the headset at the currently established price point.

And that's great! It feels like Andrew's team did a lot so that we can enjoy the Quest 3 at a lower price, right? But I can’t help but chain this statement to another recent story we discussed recently, namely the claim that the Quest 3 is being sold at a loss. I mean, yeah: parts alone, it's sold at a loss. 

But Meta’s gaining a ton of money from ads, data and sales cuts from all apps and games from its Quest Store. Which, by the way, is the biggest XR marketplace for the time being. So is Andrew being honest in some way that I'm not aware of here or is this just part of Meta’s plan to appear as if it’s selling at a loss?

Food for thought.

Now, of course, I’m not implying that Bosworth’s team hasn’t done its best to make the device as affordable as possible. But I am saying that I can’t quite understand this as a valid reason to not allow for discounts, even if it has only been a month or so since the Quest 3 released. 

And, if you ask me: don’t let such dark thoughts dissuade you from getting a Quest 3 this season. This is truly the most impressive and exciting that XR has been in years and making the most out of that is more important than whatever games Meta may be playing on a corporate level.
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