It seems some of the most mysterious things happen behind closed doors in hotel rooms. Whether it's shady dealings, rock star parties, or finding an unreleased VR headset in a black bag in the hallway, hotels can offer up all sorts of surprises for the unsuspecting guest. These human-sized time capsules (complete with pillow chocolates) are the last place you'd expect to find potential tech leaks coming out of, but here we are.
In the case of the latter, one VR enthusiast was lucky enough to stumble upon something that looks to be the unreleased Meta Quest Pro. According to Kotaku, Ramiro Cardenas came across a large black bag discarded as trash in the hotel's corridor. Before throwing it out, Cardenas checked the bag for liquids or dangerous devices, and instead found a shiny VR headset box.
Cardenas told Kotaku that his initial reaction was disappointment. Assuming someone had purchased a Quest and left the rubbish until he realised the boxes were a different colour to the current Quest. Thinking these could be the unreleased headsets, Cardenas took the boxes back to the room to film the unboxing video as Zectariuz Gaming.
The video shows off the black packaging with a Meta Quest Pro logo, the name that many had assumed the Oculus successor would take. Inside is the headset cradling two controllers, which seem to have ditched the ring design of previous Quests.
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The headset itself looks a little bulbous, hopefully slim down for final release. Other than that, it looks like a fairly complete sample which could be very close to what we see launch later this year.
Cardenas does a fair job to not reveal any identifying qualities about the particular unit like a serial number or name during the video. He also states that he did not turn the unit on nor try it, and instead returned it to the original owner who had to identify the contents of the bag for retrieval. That's some pretty impressive willpower, but with the headset set to release in October hopefully Cardenas doesn't have too long to wait to experience the real thing.
Unfortunately the real thing could be a bit different than what many want from virtual reality. While it's going to remove the mandatory Facebook login, the new headset is set to focus on social presence. This sounds more like Meta's pastel nightmare metaverse than gaming, which just doesn't look feasible in its current form.
