Meta Quest 3 will fix one of the biggest issues with VR gaming
Get ready to see your limbs like nature intended when wearing Meta Quest 3
Ahead of Meta Quest 3’s launch on October 10, Meta has shared that its new VR headset will be able to accurately track your wrist, elbows, shoulder, torso and legs without any additional hardware.
Even though Quest 3 doesn’t feature eye tracking like PSVR 2, it includes side cameras that face downwards, allowing the headset to take advantage of a new technology Meta’s calling Inside-Out Body Tracking (IOBT).
Despite immersing you in a 3D space, VR games can often cause a disconnect due to the way the hardware estimates where your arms and hands are – often leading to a shaky, juddery experience, and a disconnect between you and the game.
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Quest 3 limb tracking
👏 Meta is adding full-body tracking to Quest 3
🦵 You’ll also be able to see your legs
👍 The new technology should make VR games and social applications feel more natural
📆 Quest 3 is out October 10 and costs $499
Meta’s $499 headset, which comes with six months of Meta Quest+, will receive an update in December that will allow developers to better reflect where your limbs are at all times, including your legs.
Meta’s ‘Generative Legs’ system will use a “cutting edge” AI model to estimate the position of your legs, which has been a long-standing issue for VR headsets. It won’t be able to track your legs as accurately as the upper-body tracking, but it’s still a huge leap forward. In combination with upper-body tracking, we should finally be able to see realistic, full-body tracking in games and virtual spaces, like the Metaverse.
You can see how it will benefit games and social applications in the video below.
So which games will benefit from the technology first? Meta revealed that the new body tracking and Generative Legs tech will come to Swordsman VR, Drunken Bar Fight and Supernatural. Developers will be able to start utilizing the new features in December this year.
December is also the same time when Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to Meta’s new VR headset. Quest 3 owners will be able to stream many of the best Xbox games and enjoy them on a massive, resizable screen, which could be Microsoft’s answer to Sony’s PSVR 2.