- By Annabel Liang
- business reporter
Facebook owner Meta has launched a virtual reality (VR) subscription service to boost the profitability of its business.
Meta says paying users will get access to two new games per month.
Instagram’s parent company posted a loss of $4 billion (£3.1 billion) on its VR division in the first three months of the year.
Meta faces competition from companies such as tech giant Apple, which unveiled its long-awaited mixed reality headset earlier this month.
on monday, the company said The Meta Quest+ service cost $7.99 per month, or $59.99 for an annual subscription, and was compatible with the Quest 2, Quest Pro, and the upcoming Quest 3 headset.
In 2021, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the creation of the “Metaverse,” an online world where people can play games, work, and communicate in virtual environments using VR headsets. announced plans to build
“Over time, we hope to be seen as a metaverse company, and we want to firmly anchor our commitment and identity to what we aspire to be,” Zuckerberg said. .
Last February, Meta announced several ambitious artificial intelligence projects, with Zuckerberg describing AI as “the key to unlocking the Metaverse.”
But the company’s Reality Labs division, which makes VR headsets and other products, reported a net loss of $4 billion over the same period.
Earlier this month, Apple announced its first major hardware launch in almost a decade, the Vision Pro mixed reality headset.
Apple’s headset will be available in the US early next year and will cost $3,499.
This is considerably more than any other headset currently available on the market. Meta’s VR headsets range in price from $299.99 to $999.99.
