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.

The ‘Buy Now’ button on Xbox.com directs customers to the sold out listing of the headset at Meta.com

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%.

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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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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Christian Schildwaechter

    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.

    As the Xbox Edition is just a regular Quest 3S in a black case, and creating extra cases with plastic injection molding trivial, I'd say the didn't have much direct stock to begin with. Simply because there was no technical reason to make it "extremly limited" in the first place, so I suspect they kept production numbers deliberately low to make sure it would sell out quickly, which would make this even more of a marketing stunt. They probably wanted to avoid another PR disaster like with Quest Pro, where they apparently didn't even use up the initial batch of components before shutting it down, despite lowering the price and giving it away for free to Roblox developers.

    Retailers should have gotten more stock, since the target audience is Xbox players that are more likely to stumple upon it at Best Buy than to visit the Meta homepage. But given the overall lackluster reaction it seems extremely unlikely that Meta was unexpectedly overran by demand, making a stock intentionally kept low to quickly be able to report a "sold out" success more likely. As usually Meta won't give us actual numbers, so we will never know whether they sold out 10,000 units, 1000 or 100.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    I guess maybe Meta will consider a black version next, never liked the white version. But it did come with some nice extra's which made this a great choice if you were already considering buying a 3S.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    You mean like Google Cardboard Plastic, their first Reality headset? youtu_be/VkOuShXpoKc

  • I think the quantities were very limited, but still, this is good news

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't take at least a slightly higher risk by producing it in larger numbers, even if this could have meant they wouldn't sell all of them in a short time. The Xbox Quest was announced more than a year ago, and the result now looks very low effort with the main purpose of creating some press.

      I actually like the idea of getting gamers into VR via playing flat games on large virtual screens, and am kind of excited that Valve seems to be working on a hybrid HMD that will excel at both, with the Roy XR controllers getting input parity with typical game pads, and maybe even the "Steam Controller 2"-like Ibex controllers being usable in VR. And there will be a ton of options how to make a VR HMD more usable/customizable for flat gaming.

      So why is Meta first setting up a partnership with Microsoft, backing on the powerful Xbox brand, and getting VR users to hope that this could draw in a new crowd, only to first limit it to basically a paint job with no extra functionality, and then produce so few that the impact on Quest user numbers will be negligible?

  • Andrew Jakobs

    Oh heavens no, I really hate that. But at least not as a regular version, if it's an extra choice I don't mind, if it keeps people like you happy.

  • Herbert Werters

    Only bought by people who finally want to have a black Quest again. ;)

    • Jistuce

      Apparently, a bunch of them were bought by people who wanted the uniquely-colored gamepad. There've been some landing on eBay with a "no controller" caveat.

      • Jistuce

        Actually, I just remembered that the Rift originally came with an XBox controller. We've come full circle.

        • Herbert Werters

          Yes, it would be really cool if there were finally controller VR games again. It might even be easier and less complex for developers to create a flat VR port. So my dream would finally come true. Then I'd finally have some "great" games with VR support.

          • Rogue Transfer

            There are with UEVR and UUVR – thousands of games now playable with a standard controller in VR.

          • Herbert Werters

            Yes, exactly, and since the beginning of 2024 I've only been playing flat titles with the UEVR mod.

            It would be nice if the developers would officially incorporate something like Hellblade, Riven, Myst, Tetris Effect, Subnautica, No Man's Sky, The Forest, Elite Dangerous, Hitman 3, Star Wars: Squadrons, Phasmophobia, Resident Evil 4 Remake, etc.

            There are already a handful of them, but that's just not enough.

      • Herbert Werters

        Oh yeah, that’s cool too. I would have put the cotroller on eBay because I don’t need it as I already have several. I’d be interested to know what it would have brought.

  • Nevets

    These sort of sellouts are marketing exercises.

  • johngrimoldy

    Soooooo, apart from the convenience of bundling and a change in appearance, the tangible selling point is the discount? Okay, that's great. Why the F would i want to buy from a scalper at an inflated price?!? I hope the scalpers eat a bowl of dicks.