Oculus Headset to Hit the Market 2016
Facebook Oculus Headset to Debut Next Year for Around $1,500 with PC!
The Facebook virtual reality headset “Oculus” is slated to hit the consumer market early next year but the price of the headset is yet to be determined. No one knows exactly how much this VR headset will cost but the ballpark figure is somewhere around $500.00 per unit. Pairing the VR headset with a PC costing less than $1,000.00 and your cost is now inflated to around $1,500.00. The good news is you don’t have to wait until next year to get your hands on a VR headset, the Rift headset is available today as a developer version for around $350.00, its uses a screen pressed against your eyes to simulate 360-degree environments.
According to the CEO Brendan Iribe, the Rift could cost anywhere from $500.00 to $800.00 and when you factor in the cost of upgrading your computer’s graphics cards to handle intense 3D imagery, you are looking at spending a couple of hundred dollars extra. The market for VR devices has grown astonishingly fast boosted by Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR in March of 2014. Determining the price has been a sticking point with consumer VR headsets because no one knows how much money everyday consumers would be willing to pay for a 3D headset. Health factors are another issue clouding VR devices which tend to induce nausea in the viewer. Oculus VR has been working overtime to eliminate the nausea issues since its inception.
Nonetheless, VR technology promises to revolutionize the way we do everything from entertainment to medicine to travel. At present, VR headsets will be used primarily for gaming, 3D movies, live theater, music performances and sports. However, as 3D VR headsets are perfected and the prices brought down we will witness an explosion in their everyday use. Three dimensional gaming is the next dimension in gaming technology and VR headsets will be well positioned to accommodate this expansion. With the advent of the Oculus headset next year, the company is exploring the replication of the real worlds not just creating virtual ones. With the acquisition of Surreal Vision, a small startup company specializing in computer vision that re-creates 3D worlds as the human eye sees it, Oculus has positioned itself to become the industry leader in the creation of realistic real world environments such as your living room. The concept is known as augmented virtual reality where 3D images are over laid onto everyday backgrounds. Oculus is not the only one dabbling with these concepts, Microsoft HoloLens, and Google funded Magic Leap are all involved in the race.
Currently the focus of VR technology is on creating high quality virtual reality. What is the purpose of having a VR headset if the quality of the virtual reality itself is poor? For that reason the Rift headset currently available will require a computer with powerful memory and graphics capabilities. Virtual reality technology offers a promising future but the long term effects of using VR headsets are virtually unknown. In addition the many fixes required to make VR headsets acceptable, safe, comfortable and affordable would also have to be ironed out before we see it becoming widely accepted.
Press: CNET
