Following the news that Meta has unveiled a new Quest Pro virtual reality (VR) headset;

Anisha Bhatia, Senior Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view:

“VR headsets are bulky and clunky. But Meta Quest Pro is innovative, with its battery on a back mount, reducing the bulkiness of the headset to take it one step further towards being user friendly. GlobalData estimates revenues from VR headsets to reach more than $58 billion in 2030, making that a market ripe for innovation.

“Meta has played in the affordable end of VR and offered multiple subsidies on its headsets to keep them affordable. But that is not a long-term business strategy. The Quest Pro merges VR and augmented reality (AR) in what is called mixed reality (XR), with its eye-tracking and facial movement sensors, and an outward-facing camera, which allows live 3D video capture, opening the door to more professional and enterprise use cases. Meta Quest Pro’s standalone ability and new sensors take it a notch above headsets currently available in the market. Meta is testing the waters to see what use case sticks beyond gaming and create a content and app ecosystem for its next phase, AR wearables, widely anticipated to replace smartphones as personal consumer devices.

“Meta’s success in XR is dependent on content availability, with many developer attributes announced at the 11 October event, expanding the use case of VR from gaming to productivity, fitness, learning and media. Meta has partnered with Microsoft, Coursera, and other companies to bring that content to its ecosystem, but it largely remains untested with its practical benefits unverified. Apple, which is widely expected to launch its own XR headset in early 2023, already has the content and productivity suites that consumers use, and so does Sony. Apple is also well-versed in creating operating systems for multiple product categories, which gives the company a competitive edge over Meta.”