Meta is hiking the price of Quest 2 VR headsets by $100

If Meta's Quest 2 virtual reality headset has been on your shopping list for a while, you should buy it before August 1.

The start of August will be the beginning of a new chapter in the game. The prices of the two models of the fully wireless headset are going up, with the 128 gigabyte model jumping up to $399.99 and the 512 gigabyte model going up to $499.99. If you act before the end of the month, you can save yourself $100 because they are still selling at their lower prices.

Some of the thinking behind the decision was clarified by the announcement of the news. The price of Meta Quest 2 headsets will be adjusted in order to continue investing in the virtual reality industry.

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Meta said that new headset purchases would include an offer to download the popular rhythm game Beat Saber. Beat Saber is one of the best "killer apps" at the moment.

It's a $30 game that's powered in part by in-app purchases that grow your music library, so it doesn't really make up for the price hike. It is only an option until the end of 2022.

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Some of the thinking behind the decision is laid out in a related post. According to Meta, this stuff just costs more to make now.

The cost of making and shipping our products has gone up. We can continue to grow our investment in innovative research and new product development by adjusting the price of Quest 2. Prices for refurbished headsets and accessories will increase.

Meta is correct in stating that the Quest 2 is the most affordable virtual reality headset on the market. So far, very little has been done to challenge the 2nd edition. There isn't a similar headset on the market.

The closest competitors are either considerably more expensive or they fail to measure up, with Sony's PSVR and HP's Reverb G2 behind the hardware curve. All of the other competitors deliver wired-only virtual reality. The only fully wireless high powered headset is the Quest.

Meta is free to do what it wants with headset pricing and set the pace for future releases. It could be more meaningful given what's ahead in the space.

A successor to the Quest 2 is on the way. Meta's so-called "Project Cambria" is set to offer a higher-end virtual reality experience than the company currently offers, with improved, full-color front-facing cameras that make "mixed reality" experiences more of a possibility. Meta is setting up Cambria to launch at a higher price because of the higher floor pricing for Quest 2 hardware.

The lack of competition makes it possible. It's impossible to ignore the fact that Meta announced a price hike on the same day that Sony showed off its new virtual reality headset. It's not possible to compete on the wireless front, but it's possible to compete on the console hardware side.