Oculus Founder Discusses Adoption Challenges For VR Headsets

The potential of Virtual Reality is rather exciting and is tipped to be one of the biggest attractions of this week’s CES (Consumer Electronic Show 2016), this is also where the gang of eTeknix are currently stationed in Las Vegas and are ready to bring you the very latest news. VR and the accompanying headsets do bring its own challenges, from adoption to market interest; there are many things to consider, so much so that Palmer Luckey, who is the founder of Oculus VR has discussed such issues and it’s very interesting.

On the subject of Virtual reality headsets replacing smartphones, Palmer Luckey stated that “the technology required many years of further development before it could replace smartphone’s for mainstream users” Mr Luckey also stated that VR headsets would need to be more powerful, cheaper and also slim enough for it to be considered to be both a viable alternative and also an appealing product for a wider adoption.

Asked how long it would take before we would see a ubiquitous use of VR, Mr Luckey stated that it could be anything from “five years – ten years”. The price point is also crucial and analysis by “Touchstone Research” have found that US Internet consumers would be willing to spend the following amounts on a VR device. As you can see, 31% would be willing to spend between $200 – $399 dollars, but if you go to the other end of the spectrum then it conveys that 6% would not be happy to spend a single dollar.

Palmer Luckey also recognises that “the current headset design is “obviously not the ideal form factor” as it is too bulky and needs to be slimmer. Further details include the recent announcement by Oculus concerning the finalization that it will be taking pre – orders for the Rift on January 6,^th 2016 and shipping would be in the first quarter of 2016.

It will be interesting to note how this product performs and also how quickly this new tech is adopted by the market.

Image courtesy of fastcompany