I bought the recently-releasedMeta Quest 3the other day in a fit of early adopter excitement.
The VR headset, whichcame out September 27, is the latest and greatest tech from Meta.
The new version is slimmer, a bit lighter, and has a higher resolution than its predecessor.
Meta
But that’s really not what excited me.
Meta
What galvanized my purchase is what VR nerds call “full-color passthrough.”
Either way, using the Quest 3 is the second time I’ve seen the future.
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It felt like VR was finallyhere, and I was excited to be in it.
A Little Less Barfy
The problem, however, was twofold.
Full-color passthrough makes playing these games suddenly social in a way that VR is not.
Meta
I strap the VR helmet on my face, and it immediately boots into passthrough mode.
There’s my dog, there’s my TV, there’s my iPhone.
It’s not miraculous by any means.
The increased clarity and depth amplified immersion and elicited stronger cognitive/emotional responses."
“Remember the early pixelated VR days that caused discomfort or even motion sickness?
Chia cautions against just focusing on visuals, though.
“Higher resolution isn’t the sole answer,” he wrote.
“Pushing 4K or 8K visuals demands more computational power, battery life, and heat management.
And clarity doesn’t fix poor content; a crystal-clear bad VR game is still a bad game.”
There’s an app called First Encounters that comes with the new headset.
It’s a basic “shoot all the cute little puffballs you might see” sort of game.
I could even shoot the space creatures through the cracks in my wall, which showed a planet outside.
Full-color passthrough makes playing these games suddenly social in a way that VR is not.
