A Free Oculus Rift? It’s Not Out Of The Realm Of Possibility, Says CEO
The Oculus Rift really is a cool concept. By putting on a lightweight VR set on your head, you’re able to get real 3D gaming, without having to buy a fancy TV or monitor, and what’s more you can use it for fully immersive VR. When you turn your head, you turn in the game. There’s a lot that can be done with this system, and despite only being available for developers right now everybody is wanting to get their hands on one.
Right now the devkits are available for $300, but CEO Brendan Iribe wants to go cheaper. How cheap? How about free.
He has this to say:
“The lower the price point, the wider the audience. We have all kinds of fantasy ideas. We’d love it to be free one day, so how do we get it as close to free as possible? Obviously it won’t be that in the beginning. We’re targeting the $300 price point right now but there’s the potential that it could get much less expensive with a few different relationships and strategies. We’re not there yet, but we’re sitting there thinking all the time, how can we make this free? You want everybody to play it and the cheaper it is, the more people are going to go out and buy it. Today it’s a $300 dev kit but we’re thinking about how to get it out to as many people as possible.”
I don’t know if they’ll ever be able to get it out for free, but at the same time it’s pretty cool that they’re not trying to market this as a product only the fantastically wealthy can afford. That being said, I’ve got a feeling that you’re not going to see too many college kids in dorms with an Oculus Rift, unless they somehow managed to get an entire room to themselves.
