No Quest 3 Lite in China? Tencent partnership reportedly suspended
Meta has reportedly suspended a partnership with Tencent. The plan was to bring a Quest 3 Lite to the Chinese market.
Sina Finance, a business news website owned by Sina Corporation, reports that a planned collaboration between Tencent and Meta has been put on hold. The partners had originally planned to launch an entry-level model of the Quest 3 in China, according to the report.
Tencent has been informed by Meta that it has suspended cooperation on this generation of hardware. According to rumors, the suspension was due to conflicts and disagreements between Tencent and Meta regarding many details of the project.
Quest 3 Lite expected in 2024 with Quest 3 chip
The first rumors of a collaboration between Tencent and Meta surfaced in early 2023. Last November, the Wall Street Journal reported that a deal had been signed to launch a new, cheaper Meta Quest 3 in China at the end of 2024.
According to the Wall Street Journal report, Meta would primarily make money from hardware sales, while Tencent would get a large share of the revenue from content and services. Games and apps from Tencent would also be offered on the headset.
The Wall Street Journal wrote that the headset would also be sold in other markets. The report suggests that the said device is not the Meta Quest 3, but a new, cheaper headset.
For some time now, there have been rumors about a more affordable "Quest 3 Lite", which is supposed to be released worldwide in 2024 and replace the Meta Quest 2. In October, a Chinese analyst reported that the new, cheaper headset would use the new Quest 3 chip, but fresnel lenses instead of pancake lenses and wouldn't support color passthrough. Sina Finance seems to confirm these rumors. They say that except for a chip upgrade, almost everything will be the same as the Quest 2.
A suspension of the project would be good news for Pico and its owner Bytedance, who could continue to operate in the domestic market without serious competition.
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