$3,500 is a lot, and that’s okay.
You don’t need Vision Pro, and it’s time you accept that instead of whining about the price.
It seems The Internet™️ needs a friendly reminder that sometimes, things cost a lot of money, and it’s necessary from time to time to correlate the difficulty in justifying the expense of something with the inherent lack of need for said thing. Not a single person who has to seriously consider if they can get on with spending over three grand on this headset is in the market for this kind of headset. It’s that simple.
Vision Pro was unveiled to the world with a whopping price tag of $3,499 and it’s got quite a few people in a fit. For the most part, it’s because they’re mad Apple didn’t make a pretty BeatSaber machine for $400, because people are narrow-minded and don’t really understand that not all headsets are designed with the same purpose or the same level of engineering prowess.
It’s being compared to Meta Quest or PlayStation VR by people clearly not grasping the difference in intended function or capabilities. Beyond the inherent focus on this being an AR experience, with a ridiculously extensive sensor configuration in contrast to other headsets on the market, this is also a product with strong intent on bringing fully functional app experiences into the space with little compromise. Unlike existing headsets on the market, Vision Pro isn’t just the internals of some midgrade Motorola that got slapped into some goggles. This is a device which has actually been given the power necessary for reasonably competent AR experiences to function, not to mention its own silicon for handling sensor data with extremely low latencies in real-time.
I’m not going to pretend like this device isn’t expensive. It absolutely is. It’s also a first-generation product of an entirely new category for Apple, one which they’ve obviously poured a lot of money into research and development for. This is the device that hardcore enthusiasts that understand the scope of what it does and understand what they want it for are going to buy. This is not the device that you’re going to buy to play some fun and funky VR games on. This is the device that developers are going to buy. That businesses and studios are going to buy. That people with the headroom to spend on it are going to buy with the intention of using it in the scope of a home theatre alternative. It is, and I cannot stress this enough… OBVIOUSLY not for you. I’m not buying it. I can’t justify the price. But there are people who this suits that don’t need to.
It’s unfortunate that the only reference point people seem to have for this is in the form of hardware which is always a painful compromise in regards to engineering and experience. Few people seem to understand that those of us who are excited about Vision Pro are not coming from the perspective of using VRChat goggles powered by a spicy MediaTek chip with sickeningly uncomfortable passthrough.
Despite all of this, I look forward to how this platform develops and how it drives this market over time. Apple’s investment here is a hefty one, and down the line we should see less expensive options make their way forward with specific features in mind. But beyond that, the capacity of this headset being what it is should push other players in the industry to step up their game and attempt to match quality. Everyone wins.
