Pico launches Pico Neo 3 Link: the first true Quest 2 competitor (in Beta)

Today is a watershed moment for virtual reality: Pico has finally done what everyone in the XR community was waiting for with the launch of Pico Neo 3 Link, the first Quest 2 competitor. Let me explain everything you need to know in this article!

Pico enters consumer VR

I have always praised Pico for being a smart company: from being a small Chinese startup doing mediocre headsets, it has steadily evolved, until the point it has started manufacturing good headsets at affordable prices. It has become one of the headset manufacturers with the biggest worldwide market, and the market leader (together with HTC) in the B2B virtual reality sector. Its latest headset, the Pico Neo 3, was a very good Oculus Quest 2 clone, that also brought some innovations, like the DP Cable to connect it to the PC for a true PCVR experience. And for these reasons, Pico has been bought by Bytedance in 2021… a move that many compared to the acquisition of Oculus by Facebook.

We were all sure that Bytedance wasn’t acquiring Pico just to have a B2B company, so we were all waiting for a move in the consumer market. The first months after the acquisition represented a period of radio silence, and nothing seemed to change on the surface. But probably a lot was happening under the hood, and we are seeing the effects of it now.

The Pico Neo 3 was already sold as a consumer device in China, but recently my Chinese assistant Miss S reported that there was a big marketing push on Pico headsets on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok (always owned by Bytedance, of course). This means that the company wants to increase its sales and penetrate the Chinese market. And today, at Laval Virtual, Pico has broken through the hesitation and has launched also the West its first consumer headset: the Pico Neo 3 Link.

Pico Neo 3 Link

Pico Neo 3 Link is more or less the same headset as the Pico Neo 3 Pro: Pico claims to have applied some small modifications and improvements, but the basic hardware specifications remain the same.

There has been much rework on the software and on the operational sides, instead: Pico was a headset for companies, with an enterprise store. For the transition to a consumer device, Pico employees had to re-architecture the store, the paying system, the accounting system, the backend, the networking, the user interface, and all the rest to make it become a compelling consumer product.

As for the content, the company aims at having more than 200 games on its native Pico Store. Pico Store has improved a lot in the latest months and now it features famous titles like Demeo, Superhot, Hyperdash, Smash Drums!, Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual, Contractors, The Secret Of Retropolis, Puzzling Places, etc… Of course, it can’t compete with Meta and the big Quest 2 library, but it is now a decent library for a standalone headset. Actually, Pico told us it doesn’t even want to compete with it: “We don’t claim to have the best gaming library, but we don’t think VR being dominated by gaming content is the best thing for the market” said Leland Hedges, General Manager for the EMEA region at Pico. Pico doesn’t only want to offer games, but a full suite of different applications. Pico will exploit the content of its B2B store, which will be re-adapted for consumers where feasible, so that to offer experiences also in the medical, productivity, educational, and many more fields.

Pico Neo Link specifications

These are the specifications we can expect from the Pico Neo 3 Link:

• Qualcomm XR2 chipset
• 4K low-persistence 90 Hz Curved Display
• 3664 x 1920 resolution, 773 PPI
• 72Hz with support for 90Hz
• 98° FOV
• 6GB RAM (2133 Mhz) for the Pro model, 8GB for the Pro Eye Model
• 256GB storage
• Wi-Fi 6 connectivity
• USB-C 3.0 connector with OTG
• 3 Physical IPD adjustments
• Optical Positional tracking, with 4 tracking cameras
  • Cameras have 400×400 resolution and run at 120Hz
  • Maximum 10m x 10m tracking area and mm-precision accuracy
• Optical Tracked Controllers, with 32 tracking points
• All-PU materials fabrication, for easier sanitization
• 5300 mAh battery, for around 2.5-3h of usage
• Integrated audio, with a 3.5mm jack to connect external headphones
• Tobii eye-tracking in Pico Pro 3 Eye model
• Wi-fi streaming or tethered streaming to SteamVR integrated into the runtime
  • DP-Cable connection to PC for true PCVR experience
• Android 10 operating system
• Pico SDK for development

DP Cable and added comfort

Pico is not interested in competing with Meta in offering the cheapest headset in the market. It wants to offer a headset that is affordable but offers features up to a standard.

That’s why the Pico Neo Link first of all offers directly 256GB of storage so that to make sure there is always space for your new games. Then it guarantees more comfort than the standard Quest 2: there will be a rigid strap, and the battery in the back, for a pretty balanced and solid device. I have used the Pico Neo 3 Pro various times and I can testify that its comfort is better than the original Quest 2.

Then, together with the Pico Neo 3 Link, every customer will receive a special DisplayPort Cable to connect it to the PC. The Pico Neo 3 has this special technology thanks to which it doesn’t connect via USB to become a PCVR headset (like the Quest 2 and Focus 3), but it does that via DisplayPort. This means that the headset connects directly to the graphics card and the facto becomes a true PCVR headset. When I reviewed it, I highlighted how this is so much cooler than USB streaming: you have no latency and no visual compression, it’s fantastic. It’s truly like having a tethered headset like the Valve Index. Yes, in the current implementation there is a bit of lens distortion and scale offset, but if they fix it by software in a future update, this could become the gold standard of PC connection of a standalone headset.

Open Ecosystem

The good news for us developers is that Pico is going to open its store for consumers, so we have a new store where to publish our content hoping to pump up our revenues. But the even better news is that Pico Store is not going to have a strong curation like Oculus Store, but it will be open to all content that won’t be offensive, a bit like Steam. This is great, and will finally let us indies publish the games on a standalone store without having to knock on the walls of a walled garden. 

Regarding porting your content, as a developer, there is good news: Pico has recently become compatible with Unity.XR, so it’s much easier to port your content (if you are a Unity developer). For Laval Virtual, I was able to port our fitness game HitMotion: Reloaded from Quest 2 to Pico Neo 3 Link in a few hours! And I was even able to make a demo standalone version of VRrOOm’s musical experience Oxymore from VRChat to Pico Neo 3 Link in around two days. So it shouldn’t be that difficult to port your game to Pico, and it is a new market you should consider exploring because this announcement could be the beginning of something big.
(And by the way… this was the surprise I was teasing a few days ago: we made the porting of these two pieces of content, and they will be exhibited by Pico on the Laval Virtual show floor!)

UPDATE (2022.04.13): Pico has actually thanked me for the fast porting of Hitmotion and Oxymore during the official launch presentation!!! Wow, such a honor!

Together with the open store, also comes an open attitude towards accessories in general, with the intention to make the Pico Link compatible with a wide range of devices, starting from Ultraleap hands tracking. Ultraleap has just announced today an accessory for Pico Neo 3 headsets, enabling the use of the best hands-tracking technology on the market on Pico devices.

Bytedance and China

Pico headsets will work with a Pico account, and not a Tiktok account. The privacy policy and content curation will be the same as for all Bytedance products, so the same as Tiktok. 

This is probably the thing that made me a bit less enthusiastic about this announcement: Bytedance is like a Chinese Facebook, it’s another company living through advertisement. Plus it adds the complication that it is based in China, and while I love China, I also know that there is a bit of data war between the West and the East, which complicates things even more. So, we were waiting for a Quest competitor, and finally, we have it, but we have it from a company that is not that different from Meta. It’s kind of ironic. 

But at least Bytedance has a more open approach towards us developers. And the content curation that there will be in China and in the West will be different, so you will have a more open policy here about the experiences you can publish on the Pico Store.

Beta launch

Pico Neo 3 Link is not going to launch directly to the market, but it will be available as part of a beta program. Pico will distribute 22,000 headsets in Europe and other parts of the world through its selected resellers that already sold the Pico Neo 3 Pro to companies (e.g. VR Expert). Every customer will be able to buy only one headset. The first 22,000 consumers will provide feedback to Pico, which will so improve the device and its related services (e.g. customer assistance) before a broader consumer launch.

Pico Neo 3 Link will be available only in Europe and other selected markets. For now, a beta launch in the US is not on schedule (I guess because Quest 2 has already penetrated very well in the US). The pre-orders for the beta will start on April, 15th (at 12 pm) in Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, and France, and a few weeks later in Italy and UK. On May, 24th, the preorder period will end, and the device will start to be in stock. The beta program will so run until the end of September.

After the beta program ends, Pico will decide how to go on. If it has been a success, it will work on a broader consumer launch. From the pre-brief we had with the company, I had the impression that may also launch a new consumer device in 2022-2023: “We have a roadmap of future products that are very compelling and can compete with the other headsets in the market that will be announced in the future times” has said Leland Hedges. Anyway, he also said not to worry about getting a soon-to-become-obsolete device, because whoever has taken part in the beta program will receive a “significant discount” on whatever headset Pico will launch in the next 12 months.

UPDATE (2022.04.13): The “significant discount” promised is of 35%.

These are the links that you will be able to use to preorder a shiny new Pico Neo 3 Link if you are interested in buying it (I advise you to get one as soon as preorders open because I guess they will run out of stock pretty soon):

• Germany: https://bestware.com/de/pico-neo-3-link.html (DE)
  https://bestware.com/en/pico-neo-3-link.html (EN)
• France: http://www.matts-digital.com/pico-neo-3-link-c2x37486559
  http://www.matts-digital.com/pico-neo-3-link-c2x37486559
• Spain: https://xrshop.invelon.com/collections/pico-vr/products/pico-neo-3-link-gafas-de-realidad-virtual  
• The Netherlands: https://vr-expert.nl/consumer/product/pico-neo-3-link/
  https://vr-expert.de/consumer/product/pico-neo-3-link/
  https://vr-experts.fr/consumer/product/pico-neo-3-link/
• UK: https://systemactive.co.uk/pico-neo3-link

Pricing

Pico Neo 3 Link is priced at €449 (£399). This is the same price we have in Europe for the 256GB Quest 2, and since this headset has 256GB of storage, but has also the comfort strap integrated, it is actually cheaper than the Quest 2 with the same features. This is why it is a pretty good deal, and it is the first headset that can truly compete with the one by Meta.

Final commentary

Pico has really created a great offering with the Pico Neo 3 Link: a solid headset, with a good content library, an open attitude, and a competitive price. It is the first time that a company comes close to competing with Meta. 

I think that Meta will still lead the market in the short term, because it has still the headset with the lowest price in the market and has a better gaming library, plus it has 2 years of experience in the consumer market. But for the first time, it has at least to be more careful about the competition. In the next 24 months, I think we’ll understand if Bytedance can really compete with Meta in the XR market. This announcement has the potential to start a snowball that rolling becomes very huge: with the smart behavior of Pico and the money of Bytedance, we may be witnessing the birth of a new market leader. Maybe it won’t happen, but there is a chance that it happens.

And I truly hope so, because Meta’s monopoly wasn’t beneficial to anyone. My only complaint is that the competition with Meta is coming from another company that shares the same issues about data collection with Meta itself. And honestly, I was hoping for something different. 

Anyway, I hope this headset will be a true success. Good luck, Pico!