Is virtual reality back from the dead? After the terrible year 2026 has been so far, the Meta VR glasses give me hope
Since the Oculus Quest 2, the VR industry has been chasing a high point that seems impossible to reach again, let alone surpass. I mean, how can you compete with the popularity fueled by global pandemic-induced lockdowns and ultra-low costs when people are no longer stuck in their homes and facing technology price increases fueled by the RAM crisis?
You can’t. But the Meta VR glasses give me hope that that will change, that virtual reality is on the rise again.
Meta Quest 3 did its best, but improved specs, full-color mixed reality, and awesome exclusives like Batman: Arkham Shadow and Marvel’s Deadpool VR apparently they were not enough of an attraction for people. I loved the system, but looking at the most recent (August 2026) Steam hardware survey (which should include the most dedicated players most likely to upgrade, as Quest systems are not native PCVR headsets), the Quest 2 still narrowly tops the list despite being pulled from shelves over two years ago and replaced almost three years ago by the Quest 3.
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The Apple Vision Pro was heavily hyped before its release, but it apparently had even less stamina than the Quest 3 thanks to its extremely high price. Samsung’s Galaxy
You could do a full analytical breakdown on why each device struggled to hit the mark, but as I see it, there’s one key issue: value.
The Quest 2 was an incredible value. At £299 / $299 / AU$479, it’s approaching impulsive tech buy territory. You can pick it up on a whim and be pretty sure you’ll use it enough to justify the price whether you’re stuck inside due to Covid-19 or not, even just as a novelty that only comes out once in a while, or to watch your grandma enthralled by some simple demo app.
At $499.99 / £479.99 / AU$799.99 (its original launch price), the Meta Quest 3 is instantly a much harder value proposition to justify. For starters, you have to spend a lot more time using the Quest 3 before it becomes “worth it.” But for gamers, the headset costs as much as a PS5 disc edition, or a digital-only PS5 plus a game or two, and even as VR enjoyers, it’s easy to understand why people would prefer the Sony console and its incredible performance and catalog of games to occupy their time.
It’s also still a little bulky to use all day every day for productivity tasks, something Meta was also addressing at the time on the software side. Big-screen entertainment wasn’t ideal either: the Quest 3 lacked many streaming services, and the few it did have often relied on terrible apps that were terrible to use and didn’t support high-quality streaming.
The Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy
To get your money’s worth, you’d ideally want to use these headphones every day to help maximize your productivity across all app windows and relax with some entertainment most nights, or at least fairly regularly. But as someone who tried to do this for a week with the Galaxy XR (the lighter of the two), it’s just not a comfortable enough experience – my neck wanted to give up after a day and a half.
Both are great for occasional use, but they cost too much for something you use infrequently.
Emerging from the ashes
The Meta VR glasses, however, hit the nail on the head in (almost) every aspect. At only around 3.52oz/100g, they’re a device you can easily use for hours, and Meta has finally improved its entertainment and productivity software support.
The only notable negative aspect is the price. At $1,299 (price TBC in other regions) it’s cheaper than its current rivals, but still four times more expensive than the Oculus Quest 2. At its weight, I can definitely see myself using this headset often enough to justify that price, but for less VR-oriented people it may not seem like it, especially after our recent flops.
I hope you guys can give it a try though, as I fell in love with the Meta VR headset instantly and hope many more fans materialize once they launch in 2027.
Hardware aside, I’m also happy to see the return of virtual reality as a description.
I understand that VR glasses are technically a mixed reality device, but MR never took off as a descriptor (it’s pretty similar to the abbreviation for sir, sir), and I don’t love XR; is too generic to really mean anything because it includes AR, VR, MR, and all the different ways these technologies can manifest.
Virtual reality headsets are a known quantity, and the VR headset feels like the spiritual successor to the Quest headsets that Meta and Oculus pioneered. It’s a small thing, but I like that virtual reality is back, rising from the ashes in a way that seems appropriate for the Project Phoenix device.
Rebuild what was broken?
The elephant in the room for many will be that Meta contributed in some way to the sense of doom and gloom in VR after it made radical cuts to its Reality Labs teams and first-party development studios, canning projects in the process.
We’ve also seen third-party VR studios close or downsize since Meta’s announcement, as it’s clear that VR isn’t in the boom period it once was. Showing Meta’s plight was simply part of a larger trend of VR fighting, rather than an isolated case of horror.
It’s clear that VR has had its issues in general, but I hope that VR headsets, along with the Xreal Aura (which ticks many of the same boxes) and other upcoming headsets/glasses, will help bring excitement, accessibility, and users back to VR.
We’ll have to wait and see, but I think the future of virtual reality is looking a little brighter again.
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