Oculus Rift consumer model to sell 'more than a million units

June 14th, 2014, 00:28 Posted By: wraggster

The CEO of virtual reality firm Oculus has said that he expects the first consumer model to sell over one million units.
Speaking with Ars Technica, Brendan Iribe said that he was predicting "north of a million units" sold in total over the lifetime of the first consumer iteration of the headset.
“It's not going to be a console-scale market," Iribe explained.
"It always could be, but that's not the goal. The goal is to set expectations low, get the enthusiasts and early adopters to get into the space, get their feedback [and] get developers making really great content."
He added that once a foundation of virtual reality content for the device was established “hopefully you'll get many millions of people into VR, playing great games and other stuff”.
“For the system to be fun, it needs content. Content sells hardware," he said.
VP of creative at Ubisoft, Lionel Raynaud, previously said that the games publisher wouldn’t begin producing content for VR devices until one million devices had been sold.
Iribe said that a second consumer Oculus Rift model would be released one to two years after the initial launch.
Concerning the release date of the long-awaited Rift consumer model, Iribe said: “If we haven't shipped by the end of 2015, that's a problem. At least we would be disappointed."
He also added that the firm’s recent acquisition by Facebook would ultimately lead to a lower cost for consumers.
"[The Facebook buyout] is going to allow us to deliver consumer V1 at a lower cost, because we're not trying to drive a high margin on this," he said.
"Mark [Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO] is much more in the mindset of 'let's get this to scale with the best quality product at the lowest cost possible.'"
PCR previously asked retailers what they believe the ideal price for the consumer model of the Rift should be, with the majority of firms advising a sub-£200 price tag in order to attract consumers.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...n-units/034158

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