The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Facebook Oculus Rift

Oculus Rift founder apologises for pricing miscommunication

Author

By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

January 7, 2016 | 3 min read

Palmer Luckey, the creator of Oculus Rift, has issued an apology for failing to telegraph the price of the firm's debut virtual reality headset ahead of it opening up to consumers for the first time on Wednesday.

The tech, which is now available for pre-order, was priced at £499 ($599). This clashed with previous claims from Luckey that the hardware would be relatively cheap.

Luckey took to Twitter to address the misaligned expectations of consumers looking to get their hands on the hardware.

Previous media reports had priced the Rift at $1,500 - its price including a high-end PC capable of processing the graphics. He said the current price was cheap when contrasted by the price set by the media.

He also defended Oculus against those criticism its Facebook acquisition.

He’d previously tweeted.

He said: "It is expensive, but for the $599 you spend, you get a lot more than spending $599 on pretty much any other consumer electronics devices - phones that cost $599 cost a fraction of that to make, same with mid-range TVs that cost $599.

“There are a lot of mainstream devices in that price-range, so as you have said, our failing was in communication, not just price."

Facebook Oculus Rift

More from Facebook

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +