Retrospective: Was Quest 3 launched too soon?

I bought a Quest 2 at launch and was instantly impressed. Coming from PSVR the standalone concept was just so much better and unlike my PS4/PSVR I actually used my Quest 2 often. In a short period of time there were quite a few games to play, with RE4 and Doom 3 (Team Beef port) being among my favorites.

When Meta announced the Quest 3 only 3 years after the Quest 2 release I thought it was a bit odd. First off, my Quest 2 didn't feel dated at all. Maybe those with more experience with VR headsets had some gripes (LCD and weight), but us VR normies (the majority of Quest 2 owners) didn't really know any better.

Secondly, the Quest 3 upgrades weren't ground breaking enough to warrant a new purchase and box up my Quest 2. Yes OLED pancake and weighing less is appealing, but it felt like I had just purchased my Quest 2. The chipset upgrade wasn't anything special either. Not to say the Quest 3 isn't a solid headset, it just seemed like a mid-gen refresh while my Quest 2 was going strong.

And lastly, it felt like the Quest 3's introduction hurt the momentum of VR.

Meta sold a TON of Quest 2's, and the library of games had a lot of growing to do compared to consoles. AAA titles almost didn't exist so it was baffling as to why Meta would not choose to launch games exclusively on Quest 3. Obviously they WANTED to sell units but it was just a bad taste all around.

In retrospect they could have cancelled the Quest 3 and just continued to launch games on Quest 2. Keep the momentum going, keep the price reasonable. And because of sideloading APK's we know the Quest 2 was pretty close to being able to run all the Quest 3 exclusives (Batman and Deadpool for example). No it didn't run them perfectly, it's a sideload. But if the Quest 2 actually ran those games at all from just a sideload I'm pretty sure if devs had just built the games from the ground up for Quest 2 they could have pulled it off, or pulled of something close.

The point is before the Quest 2 felt dated to your average consumer Meta was putting new games exclusively on their new headset. The Quest 3 is a fine VR headset, and this post is in no way bashing it. I just think the timing was off. Meta should have let the Quest 2 breath a little more. Colored passthrough is cool but not a feature your average consumer even knew they wanted.

If there is to be a Quest 4 I hope Meta considers a 2028 release date and doesn't skimp on the specs. Make it feel like a true generational leap. Toss the equivalent of a Snapdragon Elite Gen 6 in there or something. That's not going to get us PCVR level visuals quite yet but it would be a big enough leap over Quest 3 that'd we can get excited for it.