At some level, we have been expecting Oculus Rift, the pioneer of the current VR revolution, to finally hit the consumer market some time this year. That might not be happening, however. It sounds like the device is still under rigorous development, and that Facebook and Oculus are willing to spend as much time on getting it just right as necessary- even if that means missing their projected ship date, and being beaten to the market.
“Oculus is very much in the development stage, so it’s early to be talking about large shipment volumes, and our expense guidance reflects any volumes that we might do in 2015,” Facebook’s CFO David Wehner said, in response to an analyst question.
It sounds, therefore, like the consumer version will either not see a release this year, or see a very limited one. This means that Oculus might feasibly be beaten to the market by competitors like Sony’s Morpheus, or Valve and HTC’s Vive. However, that does not seem to be something that is bothering them- it sounds like they are more concerned about getting it right, as opposed to getting it first.