The price can always go down, but it is hard to go up. The high price and the next year date means they don't want to sell a whole lot of it. They probably need more time to improve it.
If I had to bet between Meta and Apple getting it right first, I'd probably bet on Meta now, with apple playing catchup as they usually do, and really well. But so far, if Metaverse was a mistake, this is an even larger mistake.
If these end up being closed systems, Apple will likely win the race. They'll just sell it better and they'll integrate it way better with all their existing hardware. The network effect will ensure that this is pretty much what people end up buying.
If I had to bet between Meta and Apple getting it right first, I'd probably bet on Meta now, with apple playing catchup as they usually do, and really well. But so far, if Metaverse was a mistake, this is an even larger mistake.