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Oculus' Palmer Luckey discusses Oculus Rift price criticism, front-facing camera, Apple, and more

As part of the recent Xbox press event, Shacknews' Greg Burke had the opportunity to speak with Oculus founder Palmer Luckey about Oculus Rift, the company's focus going forward, possible Mac support, and the reception to the Rift's $600 price tag.

Ozzie Mejia

March 1, 2016 12:30 PM

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The folks at Xbox recently held a press event featuring a chunk of its spring lineup and Oculus was among those in attendance. Our own Greg Burke managed to stop and chat with company founder Palmer Luckey about various items regarding virtual reality. That includes the focus on hardware and software, the lack of a front-facing camera, potential Mac support, and media reaction to the price of the Oculus Rift VR headset.

"I don't want to say it was blown out of proportion, as everyone's interpretation is valid," Luckey told Shacknews. "But at the end of the day, we're building a really good product. We've talked about the fact that we're not making any money off the hardware. It costs a lot of money to make a really high-end VR headset and for those $600, you're getting a lot more than you get spending it on a phone or on a TV. You're getting multiple OLED displays, a high-precision tracking system, a lot of really fancy and robust and precise mechanicals, really high-end optics that rival the complexity of many DSLR lenses. You're getting a lot of stuff for that $600. When you buy a phone for $600, you're not getting nearly as much stuff for that $600. Over time, cost is going to go down, quality is going to go up. The good news is that there's a lot of different people in the market, including people like Samsung with Gear VR that are really serving the lower end of the market. I think that we're doing the right thing by releasing a product that pushes VR as far as possible that really makes an incredible experience."

For more with Palmer Luckey, check out the full interview below.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?