Microsoft is teaming up with Meta to create a restricted version Meta Quest VR headset that’s “impressed by Xbox.” Whereas each Microsoft and Meta aren’t sharing full particulars on this VR headset, it sounds prefer it’s merely going to be a skinned Meta Quest 3 (or future unannounced model) that comes bundled with an Xbox controller.
“We’re working collectively once more [with Microsoft] to create a limited-edition Meta Quest, impressed by Xbox,” says Meta in an announcement right now. It’s a part of Meta opening up its working system that powers its Quest VR headsets to third-party {hardware} makers. Asus and Lenovo are creating devoted headsets that run the Meta Horizon OS, however the partnership with Microsoft sounds prefer it’s merely a limited-edition headset — very like how Microsoft creates limited-edition Xbox consoles.
In an Instagram post, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the model of the headset that’s being teased right now “comes out of the field with Xbox controllers and Sport Go, so you’ll be able to instantly simply begin taking part in on an enormous display screen wherever you go.”
Microsoft has a combined historical past with VR headsets on the Xbox facet, which has led to the corporate partnering with Meta extra intently just lately. A document leak in 2012 detailing Xbox One plans confirmed that Microsoft had thought-about Kinect Glasses, codenamed Venture Fortaleza. These by no means got here to life with the launch of the Xbox One console, however Microsoft then created a extra highly effective Xbox One X model that was imagined to be VR-capable.
“We’ve architected it such that one thing will have the ability to plug proper in and work,” said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in 2016 about VR assist for Venture Scorpio, the codename for Xbox One X. The Xbox One X by no means had VR headset assist regardless of the corporate transport its Xbox One controllers with the Oculus Rift.