By the looks of it, the next generation Oculus Rift is going to be priced more than $350 (about RM 1530) that developers put down for their kits, as revealed at the recent Oculus Connect event.
The virtual reality device is still set for a launch in early 2016, but is going to cost more than the aforementioned amount due to the consumer version having more tech in it compared to the dev kits.
In an interview with RoadToVR.com, founder Palmer Luckey talks about the reasons:
“It’s just the reality that when you make this thing, you have to decide what tradeoffs you’re going to make,” Luckey told RoadToVR.com. “Are you going to optimize for absolute lowest price possible, even if it’s going to be a lower quality experience?”
“We need to put a stake in the ground and say, ‘This is the best possible experience that we were able to make. No compromises were made in terms of quality,'” he explained.
It appears that Oculus are more concerned about letting down potential new users with skimpy tech rather than the larger price tag. But given the situation, it does make sense why it would cost more, especially since the new version comes with an inbuilt pair of headphones.
For those who don’t have the buck to spare, there’s the much cheaper Samsung Gear VR, assuming you already own a compatible Samsung Smartphone. There are other VR devices also out there, Sony’s PlayStation VR that will also be hitting the market in the same quarter as well as HTC and Valve’s Vive which has yet to be priced, set for Q2 launch.
