The Meta Quest 2 is one of the most popular VR headsets on the market. It’s also one of the easiest avenues to get into VR gaming since it’s a standalone system and is relatively cheap in comparison to options like the Valve Index. That’s slightly less true now, as a recent price hike increased the cost by $100 USD. Because there isn’t much else on the market quite like Meta’s flagship headset, choices are limited. However, the Pico 4 VR headset could soon be on the way to challenge the Meta Quest 2 headset.
According to a WeChat post, the competitor to the Meta Quest 2 is the Pico 4 from Chinese company ByteDance. Previously, the company released the Pico Neo 3 in the west, which was impressive in its own way. It wasn’t really a direct competitor to the Meta Quest 2, but it did show promise. This time around, the Pico 4 VR headset will directly compete with Meta Quest 2 while the Pico 4 Pro model will compete with Meta’s Project Cambria.
One of the ways the Pico 4 aims to compete against the Meta Quest 2’s VR reign is by including Pancake lenses. These make the headset lighter and allow for better image quality. Naturally, the higher quality of the hardware means it’ll be more expensive than the Pico Neo 3. We could still have another solid new entry into the VR market if ByteDance is able to price the headset competitively against the Meta Quest 2 though.
More options for consumers
As far as VR headsets go, consumers already have a fair number of choices. However, standalone headsets that don’t require a beefy gaming PC are much harder to come by. The Meta Quest 2 tends to be one of the only options, so it’s good that we’re seeing a VR competitor with the Pico 4. The VR space has been stagnant for some time, with leaps in hardware being few and far between.
Meta’s headset has been on the market since October 2020, and Valve’s Index came out in June 2019. Hopefully, this changes soon with the launch of the Pico 4, and we’ll start to see newer headsets hit the market, alongside more high-quality VR titles.
