There were rumors behind Meta's development of a budget mixed-reality headset called the Quest Lite 3, but the latest development regarding the wearable is that it will no longer be available in China when it is released. Meta planned to bring its Quest 3 Lite to the Chinese market to mark its official return to the region, 14 years after its products and services were last seen there.
It opens up the opportunity for other VR and wearable market brands to have their tech shine, including ByteDance's Pico which is looking to go massive.
Meta Quest 3 Lite is No Longer Coming to China
Meta
Sina Finance reported that Meta is no longer planning to bring its upcoming revamp to the Quest 3 as a budget wearable called the "Lite" to China, with its development still considered a rumor. The not-yet confirmed budget wearable was supposedly heading to the East Asian country to mark Meta's return to bring its services and tech to the region.
Moreover, the report said that Meta and Tencent's agreement did not push forward, with the latter being the supposed distributor of the hardware in China. It is known that Nintendo partnered with Tencent to bring the Switch to the East Asian country.
The good news is, that reports claimed that the Quest 3 Lite may still be under development for its availability to the rest of the world, only skipping China. It would feature the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset, the same as Quest 3.
According to Android Central, this would be a massive perk for ByteDance and its subsidiary, Pico, best known for its numerous VR hardware that is readily available in the country. Pico currently restructuring to bring improvements on what it has to offer, particularly as it is being poised to compete with the Apple Vision Pro, offering variations of its wearables at different prices.
Meta's Quest 3 and Mixed-Reality
Known as the first mixed-reality headset of the modern age, the Meta Quest 3 offered an adequate device for those looking to blend the virtual world into the real world via augmented reality, and the company made it possible with the headset. However, it faced massive criticisms regarding what it has to offer, often compared to Apple's upcoming Vision Pro headset.
In its price point, which is around seven times less than the Vision Pro's base version, it is already a great choice for those looking to experience both AR and VR.
Amidst its release, there were people seen using the headset in public places, and this was made possible through the Passthrough feature that allows a real-time feed of the outside world despite not having transparent lenses.
The Quest 3 has massive potential for those looking to get the best of both realities, but the talks in the market claim that Meta is looking to bring a cheaper variant for all. It still uses the same Quest 3 chipset but other hardware is from the previous gen, and with what it has to offer, it can help attract more to patronize it, but its plans for China are no longer pushing through.
