Meta introduces VR subscription service for $7.99 per month

Meta Platforms said it rolled out a subscription service that owners of its virtual reality (VR) headsets can sign up for.

The corporate parent of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp said the service, Meta Quest+, lets those subscribed to it download a pair of VR video game titles on a monthly basis that it will hand-pick. It became available on Monday.

Meta will charge subscribers a monthly fee of $7.99 or an annual one of $59.99 for the service, according to a blog post. They can get the first month’s cost knocked down to $1 if they join before the end of July.

Meta Quest+ works with the Quest 2 and QuestPro VR headsets that the social media giant currently sells for $299.99 and $999.99, respectively. 

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It is also “forward-compatible” with Quest 3. That headset is expected to come out later in 2023 with the 128-gigabyte version’s price tag slated to be $499.99, according to a separate, earlier post from the company. It said at the time that the release will mark the company’s “first mass-market offering to deliver both cutting-edge VR and MR [Meta Reality] experiences in a single device.”

Meta indicated Monday its “hand-picked” monthly titles for the subscription service would consist of a “combination of VR’s biggest hits, hidden gems, and back-catalog classics.” They remain available to gamers as long as they maintain their subscription, according to the company’s blog post.

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For the two titles in its debut month, Meta has selected “Pistol Whip” and “Pixel Ripped 1995.” Those and others redeemed through the subscription service can be shared “across multiple accounts” via App Sharing, according to the company.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in April that the company “remain[ed] committed to” the metaverse, an initiative that falls under Meta’s Reality Labs segment along with Quest devices and certain other tech.

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He also noted that “the number of titles in the Quest store with at least $25 million in revenue has doubled” since the prior year. There are over 500 total “games, apps, and experiences” available in the Quest catalog, according to a press release from earlier this month.

Over 50% of daily active users of Quest “now spend more than an hour using their device,” Zuckerberg said in April.