That’s what the CEO hopes at least
The Oculus Rift is a marvelous piece of technology, yet the only versions available right now are development kits. So what about a retail ones? Edge Online caught up with Oculus Rift CEO Brendan Iribe at the Develop in Brighton 2013 event recently and he revealed they’re still trying to figure out exactly how to get this into the hands of consumers. More interestingly, Brendan wants to eventually give out the headset for free.
“The lower the price point, the wider the audience,” Brendan told Edge. “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.”
Brendan imagines subsidizing the headset, much in the same way Microsoft and Sony can do with their consoles in order to pull of his idea.
“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.”
A lovely idea, but like Brendan said this won’t be free in the foreseeable future. In any case, the Oculus Rift is an amazing experience that will certainly be worth the possible $300 asking price.
