FUTURE VISION
Sources say facebook plans a cheaper, wireless version of the Oculus Rift,
SAN FRANCISCO— Facebook Inc. is taking another stab at turning its Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset into a mass-market phenomenon.
Later this year, the company plans to unveil a cheaper, wireless device that the company is betting will popularize VR the way Apple did the smartphone.
Currently, virtual-reality ( VR) hardware comes in two flavours: cheap headsets that turn smartphones into virtual-reality players (such as Samsung’s $170 Gear VR) and high-end gaming rigs (such as Facebook’s $679.99 Oculus Rift) that hook up to $1,000-plus desktop computers.
Facebook’s new headset is designed to bridge the gap — a device that will sell for as little as $200 and need not be tethered to a PC or phone, according to people familiar with its development. It will ship next year and represent an entirely new category.
Like current Oculus products, the new headset will be geared toward immersive gaming, watching video and social networking, said the people who asked not to be named to discuss a private matter.
Code-named “Pacific,” the device resembles a more compact version of the Rift and will be lighter than Samsung’s Gear VR headset, one of the sources said.
The device’s design and features aren’t finalized and could still change, but the idea is that someone will be able to pull the headset out of their bag and watch movies on a flight just the way you can now with a phone or tablet.
At Oculus’s developer conference last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described a “sweet spot” for a device that sits between the Gear VR and Rift. “This is the kind of thing that we believe will exist,” he said. In an emailed statement, Oculus spokesperson Alan Cooper said: “We don’t have a product to unveil at this time, however we can confirm we’re making several significant technology investments in the stand-alone VR category.”
The global market for VR headsets remains tiny. In the first quarter, hardware makers shipped 2.3 million of the devices, according to IDC, compared with 347 million smart- phones. Buggy hardware, pricey headsets and insufficient content are all holding back mass adoption.
That’s starting to change as the second generation of devices starts to roll out. Last year, Sony Corp. debuted the PlayStation VR, a $549.99 headset that has sold close to a million units and taps the company’s gaming and entertainment ecosystem. Meanwhile, HTC and Lenovo Group, which both use Google’s Daydream OS, are working on their own stand-alone headsets and expect to release them this year. Ditto for Samsung Electronics, which uses Oculus technology.
Also gearing up is Apple, which is betting on augmented-reality technology that lays maps, text messages and more over the real world — a bet that most consumers won’t want to be isolated inside VR headsets.
Facebook has said it’s also working on a prototype device code-named Santa Cruz that’s basically a wireless Rift, with the full power of the original device sans PC.