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The general public was understandably blindsided when Oculus announced earlier this week that its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset would be priced at $600. That kind of financial outlay is usually reserved for a brand new game console or the latest and greatest iPhone.
GamesIndustry.biz’s Rob Fahey believes that this extravagant price tag repositions the Rift as a “platform” that must be supported instead of a “gadget” to be tried. Oculus will need to join the ranks of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo to ensure the Rift has enough content to support a growing audience of gamers:
That brings us back to Oculus Rift and its $600 price point (which is $600 minimum – expect it to be significantly higher in other territories). Six hundreds bucks is a platform, in the eyes of the vast, vast majority of consumers. $300 may, for a fairly broad swathe of consumers with decent disposable income, be worth a punt just to “see what it’s like”, to own the latest thing, to show off to friends; $600 needs to justify its existence in far broader terms. Oculus Rift’s pricing pushes it squarely into the position of being a platform, and it must present and justify itself in those terms. In short, now that the price is on the table, Oculus has to prove itself on a harsh frontier that has often sunk even the toughest and most deep-pocketed of challengers; it has to deliver software, software and more software.
The full article is available for your perusal at GamesIndustry.biz.
