As was reported just last week, Xbox and Meta have officially announced a partnership in the form of an Xbox-themed Meta Quest 3S headset.
Don’t get too excited: this is not a VR headset that works with your Xbox, nor will you be able to play any Xbox exclusives in virtual reality. Well, outside of unofficial mods that let you do exactly that, anyway.
“We’re proud of what we’ve built together with Meta, and we can’t wait for you to dive into everything the Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition has to offer. Whether you’re streaming the latest Xbox Game Pass Ultimate titles, exploring the ever-expanding world of VR, or kicking back with immersive entertainment, this is just the beginning of what’s possible when great teams and great technology come together,” says Microsoft.
So, what does it actually do? Well, it lets you play Xbox games via xCloud Streaming. Pair up a a controller, open up the service and you can stream Xbox titles straight to the headset and play them on a giant virtual screen. This isn’t new – you’ve been able to do this since 2023.
To aid in this, the £379.99/$399.99 bundle comes with three months of Game Pass Ultimate. And three months of Horizon+ as well.
Annoyingly, the trailer paints the new headset as an “Xbox you can wear” which already has caused some confusion in the Youtube comments, leading people to think you can actually play Xbox titles in true VR.
Really, though, what you’re getting is a regular 128GB Quest 3S painted black with some green highlights, plus matching Sense controllers. You do get a rather nice limited edition Xbox controller, which is also painted black with Xbox green highlights. Actually, I’d buy the controller if they sold it separately – it’s pretty sexy.
Personally, I have no idea what the point of this bundle is supposed to be. Streaming Xbox games to a headset is a niche market, and for your hard-earned money all you’re getting is a regular Quest 3S. At least the recently announced ROG Xbox Ally has some special features.
Still, I have to assume that Meta and Xbox have data which shows people are streaming games, otherwise why would they be doing this?
So let’s have fun and speculate for a second: what if Xbox adds VR games to Game Pass? A new tier, perhaps, or just built-in to the existing subscription? It’s fun to consider, although I doubt Meta would want them stepping on their Horizon+ service.