Oculus Rift Release Date: It has been confirmed that the Oculus Rift release date will be sometime in early 2016 and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg thinks the VR headset will usher in a new age of tech heaven.
"This is going to grow slowly, like computers and mobile phones when they first arrived," Zuckerberg told analysts during Facebook's third quarter earnings call.
Oculus Rift is set to launch early next year and Zuckerberg says it could take some time for the tech to reach its potential.
"So we've said often that we think that virtual reality and augmented reality could be the next big computing platform," Zuckerberg told analysts. "Virtual reality has the potential to be the next computing platform that changes all our lives, [but] it's important to also recognize that this will grow slowly."
Zuckerberg said he wouldn't be surprised if Oculus Rift sales figures only numbered in the hundreds of thousands next year.
"Just to put that in perspective and compare it to the development of previous computing platforms, like phones and computers, I think the first smartphones came out in 2003," Zuckerberg said.
"In the first year I think BlackBerry and Palm Treo were the initial smartphones that came out. I think they each sold in the hundreds of thousands of units. So, just to kind of give a sense of the time frame that we're thinking about this and how we expect this to develop, that's how we're thinking about that."
Zuckerberg compared the new Virtual Reality tech with smartphones, which hit the market running in 2003 with hundreds of thousands sold.
Analysts believe Facebook predicts Oculus sales to be in the same range for 2016.
"We believe FB management may have quelled investor fears of an expense growth surprise in CY16 given commentary that Oculus's virtual reality platform could take time to develop and might just sell hundreds of thousands of units in its first year," according to a report by Goldman Sachs.
Microsoft recently announced its new-found partnership with Oculus VR, and hinted they could improve the upcoming 'Oculus Rift Consumer Version'.
"This zip file contains CAD files and source code necessary to build and use an improved lens for the Oculus Rift HMD. The source code works with the Unity game engine to correct the lens distortion for the Oculus display. The lens was automatically designed by the LensFactory program developed at Microsoft Research. The optical quality is significantly better than the lenses that come with the Oculus. The lens uses off the shelf lens elements from Edmund Optics," Microsoft opined.
Palmer Luckey, Oculus Rift creator and company CEO, sees virtual reality as the start of a completely new form of global interaction.
So far there has been no confirmation on pricing.
"So we haven't announced the final price yet," the Oculus Rift creator and company CEO said. "We'll be doing that when we launch pre-orders. But the thing to keep in mind is that the majority of the price isn't coming from the headset, it is really coming from that PC that we've talked about. You know, we've talked about it costing roughly $1,500 if you don't have a PC that's capable of running Rift to buy the PC you need, to buy the Rift, to buy everything else you need and the majority of that is going to be in the computer."
"People now understand that good virtual reality that tricks your subconscious is possible," Luckey said. "They understand that it's within the realm of possibility to make something that is as real as the real world. If enough people know that, we're never going to stop. We are going to make this happen."
"Nobody knows what the killer application of VR is going to be yet," Luckey concluded.
