It’s been a pretty busy 24 hours for Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, especially following the announcement of its $599 price point. However, the company is pushing forward even with upcoming competition like HTC Vive and PlayStation VR.
In a Reddit AMA, Luckey talked about how well the company has been doing before similar devices such as PS VR and Vive appeared on the scene. “We have been working on VR for a long time. A lot of these players did not even come into the game until long after we were well along on our current path – when Vive was first announced, for example, we had already shown our Crescent Bay prototypes six months prior, and showed the final Rift just a couple months later. Our strategy cannot change at the last second just because competition shows up and ships after we do.
“Same goes for future research – we are researching nobody else is, and have by far the largest VR team in the world to do so. We will continue doing things that we are uniquely positioned to do.”
As for whether Oculus Rift could have its price reduced later, Luckey said that the company would, “Continue working with GPU and CPU manufacturers to optimize for VR, thus reducing the required hardware cost. Use economies of scale and the passage of time to reduce the cost of good enough PC hardware. For the average person, the PC is by far the biggest cost, not the headset – the end goal is to make sure people can use the PC they already have in most cases.”
As for competing with Vive if its price is close to Rift, “I can’t comment on price speculation, but I think the Rift is the best headset with the best content and the best long-term support.”
Oculus Rift is out on March 28th. Thoughts on its success and price point? Let us know in the comments.