Quest 3S Xbox Limited Edition Available For $400

Meta and Microsoft are teaming up to sell limited quantities of a Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition at $400.

The black and green edition of the Quest 3S headset comes with a preinstalled Elite Strap, and is bundled with an Xbox controller and 3 months of an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership as well as Meta's Horizon+ subscription, confirming our report last week. As with the regular Quest 3S, it includes Touch controllers.

The system is available while supplies last at a few retailers including Meta's online store, Best Buy in the United States as well as Argos and EE in the United Kingdom. "Once it's gone, it's gone", Meta notes.

It's priced $100 above the regular Quest 3S, but actually works out at $100 less than buying a Quest 3S, official Elite Strap, Xbox gamepad, and 3 months of Game Pass Ultimate separately.

The "unique and limited collaboration" is a continuation of Meta and Microsoft's long-term strategic partnership in XR, announced back in 2022. That partnership brought Xbox Cloud Gaming to Quest in 2023, and seamless Remote Desktop for Windows 11 PCs recently.

The Quest 3S Xbox Edition release brings Meta full circle with the original Oculus Rift which shipped in 2016 with an Xbox controller in the box. Some VR games like The Climb we associate today with intuitive grasping gestures on tracked controllers were actually played with that original default input system. When Oculus shipped the original Oculus Touch controllers later that year, Facebook soon stopped including the Xbox controller in the package.

With hand tracking apps like Maestro and Jigsaw Night, Touch controller apps like Batman: Arkham Shadow and Deadpool VR, and the entire Xbox Cloud Gaming library via gamepad, one could argue this is an incredible starting point for getting into the Meta Quest ecosystem. This bundle is essentially just a far more refined vision of both the original Oculus Rift and Quest, albeit minus the OLED displays that were present in both delivering incredible experiences set in dark scenes.

Still, the holiday shopping season is right around the corner and, annually, the VR market sees new devices or particularly tempting deals announced during that period. Additional Horizon OS headsets are expected to launch in partnership with Meta at some point, as well as Android XR headsets backed by Google, starting with Samsung. Meanwhile, Valve is also continuing to work on its own headset and Meta is reportedly starting to focus in on an ultralight design that comes with a tethered puck like Apple Vision Pro.

All that context makes it simultaneously hard to recommend buying what amounts to a collector's edition on a severely limited budget. If you have the ability to pick just one headset to start with VR in the next 12 months and less than $600 to spend near term? Should you shell out for a collector's edition or wait for something else?

Good luck in your decision-making.