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Greetings from Napa, CA. Meta (META), the company formerly known as Facebook (FB),  has confirmed that it is inflating the price of Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets by $100 on August 1. As far as I can tell, you can still find both models at the lower prices, but time is running out and the price to enter the observable Zuckerverse will soon inflate.

Zuck is extending a bit of an olive branch. New purchases will include a free download of Beat Saber, a very popular VR app. It's a nice gesture, but it doesn't offset the $100 upcharge. Beat Saber is a $30 game with in-app purchases.

According to Meta, "The costs to make and ship our products have been on the rise. By adjusting the price of Quest 2, we can continue to grow our investment in groundbreaking research and new product development that pushes the VR industry to new heights."

That sounds great, except the price hikes will likely put Quest 2 headsets out of reach for many. I'm not sure how you grow a nascent industry by making the gear more expensive. Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Meanwhile, Wired, as more information about this below.
 

META, NÉE FACEBOOK, may be one of the most influential and ambitious companies in the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s immune to broader economic woes. On the same day a series of news stories revealed the extent of Meta’s recent belt-tightening, the company said it was raising the prices of its Quest VR headsets.

It’s a noteworthy update in an industry that typically sees the prices of gadgets drop as technology advances. A higher price point on one of the world’s most popular VR headsets also creates another potential barrier in Meta’s quest to get more consumers into virtual reality.

Starting in August, the two available configurations of Meta Quest 2 VR headsets will both go up in price by $100. The 128-gigabyte model will cost $400, and the version with 256 GB of storage will cost $500. A free download of the popular Beat Saber game, typically $30, will ship with the headsets until the end of the year. This nudges the Meta Quest 2 headset closer to the price of the $549 HP Reverb G2 and the HTC Vive Pro, which starts at $599 for a headset only (sans hand controllers).

Meta said, through a spokesperson, that it has invested billions of dollars in the VR ecosystem and that the company is “adjusting the price of our Meta Quest 2 headsets to enable us to continue investing in ways that will keep driving this increasingly competitive industry forward for consumers and developers alike.”

Continue reading on Wired.

While we are on the topic of Zuckerberg, I can't find anyone (other than Mark Zuckerberg and people who work at Facebook) that has anything nice to say about Facebook's redesign. The TikTokization of both Facebook and Instagram are all over the news, but you don't need to read about it. Log-on to your favorite Meta app (don't tell me you don't have accounts) and see for yourself.
 

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