Facebook’s Oculus cuts VR headset price
Facebook’s Oculus SANFRANCISCO division is looking to get virtualreality headsets into more homes by way of a significant price drop.
The social-media company cut the price of its flagship Oculus Rift headset to US$499 from US$599. It also lowered the price of the Oculus Touch system, a pair of motion-sensing controllers, to US$99 from US$199.
Facebook bought Oculus for US$2 billion in 2014 as part of chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to use virtual reality to offer richer ways of communicating online.
So far, high prices for the hardware have limited adoption to mostly video-game players. Just over 350,000 units were sold in 2016, according to SuperData Research estimates. That’s fewer than rival products from HTC and Sony.
It’s also a long way from Zuckerberg’s late 2014 goal of 50 million to 100 million units over about a decade, and the more than a billion people using Facebook’s free social network.
“We know that price is definitely one of the concerns,” said Nate Mitchell, Oculus’ head of product, while noting improvements in manufacturing and falling component prices let the company pass savings onto consumers.
Like some other VR devices, the Rift still requires a Windows PC with a powerful graphics processing system. Compatible computers range from about US$500 to more than US$3,000. Sony’s VR headset, which costs US$399, requires a connection to a US$350 PlayStation 4 gaming console, while the PC-tied HTC Vive costs US$799. Alphabet’s Google and Samsung Electronics offer sub-US$100 headsets with less-advanced graphics performance that work with smartphones.
Former chief engineer and cofounder of Oculus VR Jack McCauley said Facebook’s VR headset is still too expensive, even for gamers.
“When you get above US$300, it’s really hard to move product in the gaming world,” he said.