“So, we are meaningfully reducing our investment in VR and Horizon this year, but we\u2019re growing our investment in wearables to capitalize on the momentum that we\u2019re seeing in our position as a market leader”, she continued.<\/p>\n
Meta first officially confirmed<\/a> this shifting spending strategy in December. Then, earlier this month the company shut down<\/a>\u00a0three of its acquired VR game studios, conducted significant layoffs at a fourth,\u00a0canceled<\/a>\u00a0the Batman: Arkham Shadow sequel, and\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0the shutdown of Horizon Workrooms\u00a0and<\/a>\u00a0its Quest headsets for business offering.<\/p>\n That decision came after 2025 saw Quest headset sales decrease compared to 2024, while Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses sales tripled.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meta Confirms \u201cShifting Some\u201d Funding \u201cFrom Metaverse Toward AI Glasses\u201d<\/p>\n Meta has officially confirmed \u201cshifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward AI glasses and Wearables\u201d, following reports of an up to 30% budget cut for parts of Reality Labs.<\/p>\n Earlier in the Q4 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg told investors that the company’s reduction in spending would make VR “a profitable ecosystem over the coming years”.<\/p>\n The Reality Labs division of Meta, which handles VR, Horizon Worlds, and smart glasses, recorded record spending in Q4, just shy of $7 billion. Given revenue of just under $1 billion, that resulted in a “loss” of around $6 billion.<\/p>\n Reality Labs continues to be heavily focused on research and development, though, and much of this “loss” is actually the spending towards developing true AR glasses, the “holy grail” consumer tech product that companies like Apple, Meta, and Google believe will define the next wave of personal computing.<\/p>\n Zuckerberg told investors to expect Reality Labs losses to finally peak in 2026, with Li stating that it’s Meta’s “expectation” that the losses will start to decrease in 2027, depending on how the market develops.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meta Delays Ultralight Headset, Starts Work On Gaming-Focused Quest 4<\/p>\n Meta is delaying its ultralight headset with a tethered puck to the first half of 2027, and, separately, starting work on a gaming-focused Quest 4, leaked memos reveal.<\/p>\n As to the “headsets”, plural, that Susan Li was referring to, leaked internal memos<\/a> from early December revealed that in addition to the widely reported ultralight headset with a tethered puck, Meta was also now working on a traditional new Quest focused on “immersive gaming”.<\/p>\n The memo indicated that the headset, which wouldn’t be expected until late 2027 at the very earliest, should bring a “large upgrade” over Quest 3, but no longer be subsidized, carrying a higher price. That tracks with Zuckerberg’s reference to VR becoming “profitable” for Meta “over the coming years”.<\/p>\n Many in the industry have speculated that this headset may have already been canceled in the wake of Meta’s other VR cuts, but Li’s reference to “headsets” may suggest it’s still in the works. Only time \u2013 or yet another leak \u2013 will tell.<\/p>\n \n Appreciate our reporting? Become an UploadVR Member or Patron<\/a>, or leave a tip<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta CFO Susan Li says the company still has “optimism in the future of VR”, and confirmed that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":553400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[158,67,132,68,729,730],"class_list":{"0":"post-553399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-technology","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-virtual-reality","13":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115982795069149230","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Meta-Quest-3-and-Ray-Ban-Meta-5.png\")
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