The best Black Friday Meta Quest deal just went live. As part of the Best Buy Black Friday Sale, you can score a bonus $75 Best Buy gift card when you purchase a Meta Quest 3S VR headset for $299.99. I predicted that the Meta Quest 3S would be too new to get an instant discount, but instead there’d be some kind of freebie attached to it, and I was right. The Quest 3S also comes bundled with the Batman: Arkham Shadow VR game and a 3-month trial of Meta Quest+. In his 8/10 review, Dan Stapleton wrote that “Batman: Arkham Shadow makes most of the Arkham series’ defining gameplay work respectably well in VR, and its mystery story pays off.”
Meta Quest 3S VR Headset with Batman: Arkham Shadow
Bonus $75 Best Buy Gift Card
The Quest 3s is an improvement over the original Quest 2 in every way and amazingly, without a price increase. It adopts many of the same features of the Quest 3, like the new Touch controllers, the upgraded SnapDragon APU, and full color AR passthrough. In his 9/10 Quest 3S review, Gabriel Moss wrote that “raw processing power, full-color passthrough, and snappy Touch Plus controllers make the Quest 3S a fantastic standalone VR headset that also brings entry-level mixed-reality gaming to the masses for – arguably – the very first time.
Target will match this deal on Sunday
But with a $75 Target Gift Card
As seen in the Target Black Friday Sneak Peek, starting Sunday November 25, Target will match this deal with their own bonus $75 Target gift card. If Target is your preferred shopping destination, or if you have a Target Circle credit card for the 5% discount, then you should wait for this deal to drop.
How Is the Quest 3S different from the Quest 3:
The Quest 3S comes in at $300, or 30% less expensive than the $430 Quest 3. Obviously, some compromises were made to get the 3S to its competitive price point. The spec comparisons are listed below:
Quest 3S vs. Quest 3 Similarities
Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processorTouch Plus controllers120Hz refresh rateMixed reality passthrough (same cameras, different layout)
Quest 3S vs. Quest 3 Differences
Lower per-eye resolution (1832×1920 vs 2064×2208)Fresnel lens vs. pancake lensLower FOV (96°/90° vs 104°/96°)Smaller maximum storage capacity (256GB vs 512GB)Longer battery life (2.5hrs vs 2.2hrs)
In essence, the Quest 3S is nearly the same headset but with downgraded optics. On the plus side, since both headsets use the same processor, running at a lower resolution reduces the load on the APU, which could theoretically improve performance in games and also account for the increased battery life.
For the price, the Quest 3S is unquestionably a better value than the Quest 3, and a better choice for most gamers, especially if the Quest 3 was completely out of your budget in the first place. Compared to the previous generation Quest 2, the decision is even easier.
When Is Black Friday 2024?
The actual date of Black Friday in 2024 falls on November 29, but the holiday deals season starts a lot earlier than that. Plenty of retailers have already been dropping deals online. (This usually starts in the last week of October, just before Halloween.) More and more deals will roll out leading up to the event, which culminates in massive discounts on Black Friday. Retailers will not reveal their biggest deals until the big day, but many deals will be available well in advance.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
