After a year of waiting, Microsoft's Meta Quest 3S "Xbox Edition" is here — our hands-on review of this (very) limited edition partnership

Last year, Microsoft announced something of an unlikely partnership. Over a year later, we have the finished product.

Say hi to the Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition, built in partnership between Microsoft and Meta, of Facebook fame. The headset itself "leaked" last week, although many outlets thought this was, in fact, new news — and it's hard to blame them. It has been over a year since Microsoft or Meta mentioned this headset, and I think all but a very few have forgotten that the project even existed.

THIS is the Xbox Edition Meta Quest 3S VR Bundle | Hands-on Review - YouTube

Watch On

It's not the strangest partnership to have ever existed, but it is a bit of a head-scratcher. There are no new features to speak of here. Don't expect to be connecting this thing up to your Xbox console to play VR games, for example. This is literally just a new limited (very limited) edition black and green colorway, complete with a pre-paired Xbox controller, and a pre-installed Xbox Cloud Gaming web app.

I think this product is aimed entirely at hardcore fans and collectors above all. You'll need to drop a $100 premium to get this Xbox-branded Meta Quest 3S, which doesn't really do anything that an existing Meta Quest 3S can't. It does come with some extra goodies, though, and the new design is of a high quality. But is it worth $399?

Meta Quest 3S (Xbox Edition): $399 at Best Buy

Play your Xbox games inside a giant virtual screen with a limited-edition Meta Quest VR headset! Pre-paired Xbox controller included.

Meta Quest 3S (Xbox Edition): What do you get, and how much?

Let's get it out of the way: the Meta Quest 3S (Xbox Edition) is $399.99 USD and £379.99 GBP, and will be available in "extremely limited" quantities at Meta.com, Best Buy in the U.S., and Argos or EE in the U.K.

It's unknown as of writing how many regions will get access to this device on Meta.com, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were just the U.S. and the U.K.

There's no information on any of the press releases, but considering the prices are listed only in U.S. bucks and UK pounds, I'm not confident it will be released in Europe or other regions. Meta and Microsoft both say, "once it's gone, it's gone." So, expect this to be a bit of a rarity.

In the box, you get the 128GB Meta Quest 3S headset (not the more powerful 3), two Meta Quest controllers, a pre-paired Xbox Bluetooth controller, a HoloLens-style Meta Quest Elite strap, 3 months of Meta Horizon+, and 3 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

The standard Meta Quest 3S costs $299 at Amazon, but when you start adding things like the Elite Strap, Xbox Game Pass, the controller, and so on, this bundle actually works out to be a pretty good deal.

The headset and controller themselves come in an Xbox "carbon" black colorway, complete with Xbox-style "velocity" green accents — and it looks incredibly nice, I must say.

Image 1 of 5

This isn't a simple sticker job, thankfully. The design of the Xbox Edition Meta Quest 3S looks a lot better than the original one (although I'm biased, literally every piece of tech I own is black, to be fair, thanks Razer), and it also has some additional touches.

The hinges on the strap connectors have Xbox logos embedded in them, which is a nice bit of flair without being gaudy. And the green "velocity" accent color matches other official Xbox accessories, like the Official Xbox Headset and other controllers.

It's nice to see that all the peripherals match the accents and carbon black chassis, too, and it wasn't simply a case of slapping some paint on a regular Quest 3S.

The Elite Strap included is a huge step up above the regular Velcro fabric straps typically included in these headsets, and comes with a HoloLens-style dial for incremental adjustments. This is a vastly more comfortable option than previous VR headsets I've used, so kudos for that.

There's also a glasses separator too, if, like me, you need a bit of depth perception clarity. The Meta Horizon+ and Xbox Game Pass included subscriptions are a nice bonus. When you add all the bonuses together, the $399 price point starts to seem a lot more fair.

Xbox Cloud Gaming on the Meta Quest 3S is absolutely awesome

As much as I've railed on VR in the past, I have to admit, the Meta Quest 3S experience is a huge, huge step up above other headsets I've used. Primarily due to the inside-out tracking.

The Meta Quest 2 was an absolutely frustrating experience. Having to create boundaries and set floor heights every time you wanted to use it was a chore. Wearing a huge blindfold on your face, while losing access to your hands for anything other than controlling VR, was simply an irritating experience that really required personal investment. Certainly not the most "relaxing" way to game, by any means. The Quest 3S is a huge step up, thankfully.

With the Quest 3S, you can now control "windows" with hand tracking, freeing up your hands to actually do things like navigate, and, in this case, hold an Xbox controller. It feels far more natural, and dare I say, more HoloLens-like, albeit without HoloLens' absurd price tag and total lack of support and apps.

It also doesn't have HoloLens' strange letterboxing limitation, either. You can get into Xbox Cloud Gaming without ever needing to reach for the Touch+ controllers or enter a full and (often nauseating) immersive 3D environment.

With Xbox Cloud Gaming preinstalled and the Xbox Meta controller pre-paired, you're pretty much ready to go out of the box. A quick sign-in, and you can immediately begin playing anything on the Xbox Cloud Gaming catalogue, and bring your Xbox console saves with you as well.

You can pin windows to follow you around the house, set them to be extremely large cinema-sized displays, multitask with other windows side-by-side with a YouTube video, or even shut off the cameras and immerse yourself in a virtual environment of your choosing.

With Xbox Cloud Gaming's latency improving all the time, playing Space Marine Remastered felt virtually 1:1 native on 5GHz Wi-Fi 6E, with 200MB down. Xbox Cloud Gaming feels like it's improving every time I use it, which is ideal for anyone who picks up the Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition for this specific scenario.

I was a tad annoyed that there's no way to change Xbox Cloud Gaming's default language in the web app. Which is pretty absurd and very typical of the U.S.-centricity of Microsoft, but hopefully it's an easy fix for a future version.

I also felt like there was a missed opportunity here for some deeper integration. The Xbox share button on the included controller doesn't do anything with the Meta Quest. Would it have been so hard to add Meta's screenshotting controls to that button? Apparently so.

In any case, there are dozens of other great VR apps and games to experience on the Meta Store as well, including things like Zombie Army VR, Beat Saber, and many more. You can also hook it up to a PC via USB-C or Wi-Fi for Steam VR and play things like Half-Life: Alyx, as well.

VR as a gaming industry might still be incredibly niche, for a variety of reasons. This headset is also still quite pricey overall. And immersive full 3D VR games still make me, and many others, feel nauseated. I've been violently sea sick before, and Minecraft VR came close to fully emulating that experience. But with the inside-out tracking, you don't really feel that sense of nausea when you remain aware of your surroundings in full.

As such, I found myself wondering if taking a Meta Quest 3S on trips for writing articles and the like might actually be more viable than my much heavier laptop. Still, opinions on VR and its future remain pretty mixed — and a topic for another article.

Still, a very strange, and very limited partnership — but kinda cool?

The Meta Quest 3S (Xbox Edition) is an interesting addition to the "This is an Xbox" lineup of products. Microsoft is partnering with a huge menagerie of companies to bake Xbox services directly into their products, from Samsung TVs to Windows handhelds like the Xbox Ally, and now, Meta's famed Quest 3S headset.

This is perhaps not the most obvious partnership in the world, but it's pretty nifty for hardcore fans who want to "Xboxcessorize" all of their accessories. I think there are some pretty clear missed opportunities for deeper integrations, of course, like the Xbox share button being useless here, for example.

If it's your first foray into VR, though, you could do far worse than this bundle, given all the extras. It's a fun partnership, but even with all the extras, is it $399 fun, though? Considering virtually everything, and your Samsung Smart Fridge can run Xbox Cloud Gaming these days, your mileage may vary.

For a full review of the Meta Quest 3S headset's VR capabilities, head over to our sister site, Android Central.