Oculus Rift Creator Defends $600 Price Point, Promises Cost Will Eventually Drop

Gamespot:
Palmer Luckey compares Oculus to Tesla.

[SniperControl]

I'll jump in around £350 total, £499 plus whatever delivery and import tax will be is way to expensive at the moment. Getting rid of the bundled X1 controller and adaptor would be a start, those two come to around £80 over here in the UK.

[AizenSosuke]

When 2020!

[SniperControl]

Lol, you maybe right.

[AizenSosuke]

Ikr!

[mochachino]

I hope so, it really is the biggest advancement in gaming since 3D polygon graphics.

I really hope major devs get on board.

Every old experience would be new again.

[chasegarcia]

Lot's of people were willing to spend this much money on name brand phones, TV's, home theater, etc.

- Support Open Source VR if you truly want a lower price.

[Dread]

That is true bro, but I use my phone, tv and home theater daily. They are integral in my life and gaming Not so sure about this technology. although I hope for the best.

[Dread]

wow that is a very expensive. wonder what the attached rate sweet spot is gonna be for developers to get on board.

[DragonKnight]

Gamespot won't load for me on my P.o.S brand phone. Someome please tell me that he isn't comparing Oculus either to the genius of Nikola Tesla (in which case that is the toppest of keks), or the company Tesla which actually creates affordable, genius, innovative products.

I see Facebook's money tends to dumb down the IQ and ramp up motormouthing and word vomit.

[rainslacker]

His exact comment

:"The best way to make a technology mainstream is not always as simple as making a cheap product as quickly as possible, that is what lead to the last VR crash!" Luckey said. "Tesla is a good example--Elon Musk had to convince the public that electric cars could be awesome before he could build the technology that would actually make electric cars mainstream. If Tesla had tried to make a $35k mass-market electric car back in 2008, they would have accomplished little. Instead, they made the Roadster and Model S, proved that electric cars could be awesome, invested heavily in R&D, and now have a clear path towards their ever-present long term goal: making electric cars mainstream."

Not really saying he, or OR are like Tesla, just the way it will be adopted has to be done in the same way Tesla gained acceptance.

Not sure if I agree with that, since most technology advances come from sub par implementation that gets better and cheaper as it's adoption rate increases...particularly in the electronics that pertain to entertainment. Although, so exceptions occur where the first tech is the best, and it gets cheaper as more competition ends up making it cheaper due to economies of scale.

[DragonKnight]

He's still making a very poor example anyway. For starters, Elon Musk didn't go on Kickstarter and make claims of a price that would then eventually double as soon as the retail version was ready.

Second, the two products could not be any further apart in similarity. A car is partially a necessity (I say partially because it depends on where you live really), while VR is not so making an electric car mainstream has A LOT less work to do than VR would comparatively.

There's also the fact that $35K for any car is not really expensive, especially if it's a new take on the old electric car ideas. Hell, you can get piece of garbage cars on the Price is Right for way more than $35K, so if Elon Musk was going to try selling an electric car for $35K, he'd be doing it right really. Trying to sell an electric car for $110K is not how you make electric cars "look cool" and move towards mainstream acceptance, and selling OR at $600 will not make VR gain mainstream acceptance either.

Generally speaking, mainstream normally (the exception being with Apple for some reason) means "affordable" not "cool" so Luckey, again, doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's coming at this in reverse order, like you said. Generally speaking he should have released a basic OR at the $350 point range, gain lots of initial sales, invest that money in R&D and then come out with higher quality versions that the enthusiasts could salivate over. THAT'S how you get mainstream appeal. Not by going for the enthusiasts first and everyone else last.

Hell, he should have looked at the PS1, PS2, and PS4 as an example of what brings in a mainstream audience. Sony's most successful consoles were those that hovered around the $250 to $400 mark and sold hundreds of millions. Their one failure in home consoles came as a result of the kind of thinking Luckey has when they sold the PS3 for $600, and the only thing that really "saved" the PS3 was the name Playstation and Sony's aggressive hard work towards the middle of the console's life.

Ever since being bought by Facebook, Luckey just oozes ivory tower ignorance.

[rainslacker]

I agree. His analogy is off, and since tech advancements don't live in a vacuum, nor is there only one method to success, it just seems he's trying to seem forward thinking about it like Tesla is on a lot of things.

I don't really feel VR is that forward thinking, more of a natural progression that's been dreamed of for decades now. I also feel the time was just right for tech to catch up to price for the consumer end, which is all he's taking advantage of. not that I discredit what he's trying to do, just that he's not on the cusp of new technologies or a visionary on the level of Tesla. Tesla didn't wait for price to catch up, they made the market catch up to the price, thus lowering the price due to economics and all that jazz.

[kotaku77]

I'll buy this or sony VR at $300... I won't pay that much. I'm not sure they did their best to improve the price.
Let's see what sony can do

[kneon]

Well Sony do know more about manufacturing electronics than anyone at Oculus, so I'm sure they could do better even if they were producing products with identical specs.

But their bigger advantage will be scale, they are likely to sell more PSVRs than Oculus will sell Rifts.

[Relientk77]

Saying there will be a price drop is such a stupid move. Then why should people get one now? Well I'm 100% not getting one now then, when the price goes down, maybe

[kneon]

But isn't it obvious that the price will come down? That's what happens with all tech. The tech gets cheaper or new version comes out and price drops.

[combolock]

Well duh it's going to go down in price. It can't fucking go up.

But Oculus has a great business strategy, get all the suckers that will pay $600 and when that well dries up go to a more consumer friendly price.

[Shinuz]

Hmm well yes it can, I got my launch day ps4 at 399$ and a few months later they were 449$. (In canada btw)

[Mike04]

Sony has their own suppliers and can manufacture at low cost unlike Oculus. Oculus is dead on arrival if you just imagine the amount of PS4 users interested owning one, and Sony already have the idea that people wont shed $600 for a virtual reality headset. Sony will just go to stage and attach a tag on PSvr for $350-400 price range and walks out smiling at the camera..lmao