Oculus Rift founder apologises for pricing miscommunication
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.
To reiterate, we are not making money on Rift hardware. High end VR is expensive, but Rift is obscenely cheap for what it is.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) January 6, 2016
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.
Last thought of the day: Remember when many were certain Facebook would turn the Rift into a low-end casual machine? Or abandon gamers?
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) January 7, 2016
Instead, we turned it into the best VR headset possible, with a strong library of games through both Oculus Studios and 3rd parties.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) January 7, 2016
He’d previously tweeted.
1st gen VR users are being heavily subsidized by major players who want VR business to grow, though few seem to understand that.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) December 24, 2015
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."