Oculus VR consumer headset 'months not years' from launch reveals CEO Brendan Iribe
Oculus VR, the company behind the hotly anticipated virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, is "months" away from launching a consumer product, according to founder and chief executive Brendan Iribe who has revealed a consumer headset is "largely finalised".
Speaking on stage at the Web Summit in Dublin Iribe said Oculus VR, which was acquired by Facebook this July, has held off rushing a consumer product to market as the company has worked to "set the bar" in the virtual reality space and give developers a clear path to how they can successfully launch a consumer app or game.
"We've set this bar saying we are going to get it right and we're not going to ship it until we get it right. We also don't want that to be four or five years from now; we're all hungry for this to happen and we want content developers and the ecosystem to show up and if you don't give them a road map to a plausible consumer market then it's hard for them to come and invest in the space.
"We still have a ways to go and there are still a number of things we are working on but we are getting much closer and we'd like to say its months not necessarily years away. It's many months not a few months, but we are getting very close. I would go on record as saying hardware products for the headset are arguably almost there for the consumer product and [the product] is largely finalised."
While Iribe commented that it is too early to say which sector, such as gaming or entertainment, will produce "the killer app", he did reveal that the sector that could be transformed the most by virtual reality is communications, with the idea that eventually people will be able to speak from different countries but feel as though they are in the same room.
"I think what resonates with most us internally, and what is the long-term vision, is that this [VR] is going to have a big rooting in gaming and it's going to have a big aspect of gaming to it... [but] the real thing for thing for me that's going to transform the world long term is when we can have face to face communications.
"When we can put on a pair of sunglasses, or even ski goggles, and we can have this kind of conversation [in person] but be in different places in the world. Just think about how big of an impact that is."
Speaking about the challenges of operating Oculus VR post acquisition, Iribe said that one of the largest hurdles is that the company is still figuring out "who we are" while also maintaining the culture and excitement level and ensuring Facebook "shares the mission".