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  The HTC Vive Focus 3, the company's latest and highest-powered untethered VR system yet. New controllers, improved internal specs... and a very high MSRP of $1,299. [credit: HTC ]

Today's VR-centric ViveCon 2021, presented by HTC's Vive division of VR headsets, kicks off with two new headset models slated to launch this year.

That's probably the headline HTC wants VR fans to focus on—hooray, new stuff to strap to faces—but a closer examination of both headsets (and feedback directly from HTC's executive team) puts a damper on that, at least for any average consumer interested in buying either.

The Vive Focus 3 , HTC's newest "all-in-one" untethered VR headset, competes directly with the Oculus Quest 2 , but it costs a whopping $1,000 more than the Facebook-branded option, at $1,299 MSRP. And the Vive Pro 2 , a long-overdue spec bump to 2018's Vive Pro , resembles the earlier model all too much while costing either $799 by itself or $1,399 for its "full kit."

Enlarge / It looks the same as its predecessor, but Oculus Quest 2 is quite different—and mostly in disappointing ways. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

The long-rumored (and recently leaked ) Oculus Quest 2 is here, in my home, on my face. I received it earlier this month, along with news that this would be Oculus's cheapest "all-in-one" VR system yet: starting at $299 and arriving on October 16.

That's one hell of a price for cutting-edge VR. But it comes at a cost.

Part of that comes from Facebook's aggressive policy about making Facebook social media accounts (whose terms of service revolve around a "real name" policy) mandatory to use new Oculus VR headsets, including the Quest 2 . Let me be blunt: that is a terrible idea. Attachment of a social media account and its massive Web of personally identifying data (as accumulated by everything from service log-ins to average Web-browsing cookies) to computing hardware (VR headsets, phones, computers, TVs, etc) is quite frankly an irresponsible move on Facebook's part.