It’s been less than a week since Meta launched the Quest 3S Xbox Edition headset, but the “limited edition” device is already out of stock if buying from Meta directly. However, it’s still available at third-party retailers.
Meta said previously that the Quest 3S Xbox Edition is “extremely limited” and will be gone for good once it sells out. So while it’s a bit surprising that it’s already listed as ‘Out of Stock’ when trying to buy directly from Meta (in both available regions; US & UK), it’s unclear at this point if demand is higher than expected, or if Meta simply didn’t have much direct stock to begin with.
It’s worth noting that the Quest 3S Xbox Edition is still available at Best Buy in the US, and at Argos and EE in the UK; but considering even the official Xbox website is still pointing buyers directly to the Out of Stock page on Meta, it’s possible that neither company expected stock to sell out so quickly.
Granted, there’s plenty of brand new Quest 3S Xbox Edition headsets already available for a significant premium on Ebay, so scalpers may also have a hand in this.
The Quest 3S Xbox Edition is functionally no different than the Quest 3S—it’s the same display, lenses, processor etc. But it comes with a unique color scheme, an Xbox controller, and three months of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which gives access to Microsoft’s cloud gaming library which includes a fairly large selection of modern Xbox titles, but not all Xbox titles are compatible.
While this bundle serves the specific use-case of flatscreen gaming with the headset, any existing Quest 3S owner with an Xbox controller can play Xbox Cloud Gaming content just the same.
However, the bundle at least offers a little extra discount for people wanting to use a headset this way. The Quest 3S Xbox Edition at $400 is $75 less expensive than separately buying a Quest 3S ($300), Quest Elite Strap ($60), Xbox Controller ($55), and three months of Game Pass Ultimate ($60)—making for a discount of 16%.
Microsoft had said way back in 2016 that its upcoming Xbox One X would support “high fidelity VR”, but unfortunately that never materialized. This is the closest Microsoft has gotten to a full-blown Xbox VR headset, but those not tuned into the VR space might be disappointed to find that they can’t actually use the Quest 3S Xbox Edition to play their favorite Xbox games in VR, but just play them on a flatscreen in a VR headset.
But hey, it’s a nice option to have. Maybe one day we’ll at least get 3D rendering of Xbox games to give them some depth inside their windowed screen.
Update (July 27th, 2025 – 2:45PM ET): A prior version of this article incorrectly stated that the total value of the individual components in the Xbox Edition bundle was $415. This has been corrected to $475.
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