As part of Facebook‘s latest quest to make virtual reality an everyday part of our lives, the company’s CEO is bringing out the biggest weapon he can think of to win over customers: deals he thinks you can’t refuse.
The world’s biggest social network, which jumped into VR when Zuckerberg bought startup Oculus for more than $2 billion in 2014, dropped the price of its Rift headsets by $100 to $399 at its VR developer conference on Wednesday. It also announced the Oculus Go, a $199 mobile VR headset that loses the wires, attached computer and sensors you need to power the Rift. The Oculus Go is due sometime next year.
“We believe that the future can be a lot better,” Zuckerberg said in a 15-minute presentation on the first day of the Oculus Connect developer conference in San Jose, California. “It’s not about escaping reality, it’s about making it better.”
When you put on a VR headset, it holds a screen so close to your face that you’re tricked into thinking you’re actually in a computer-generated world. You might feel, for instance, that you’re traveling in space, or you could look at a model of your heart before surgery, Zuckerberg said. “We’re legitimately excited about the future and we’re committed to making it a reality.”
“We want to bring people from ‘it’s crazy to own a VR device’ to ‘it’s crazy not to,'” Nate Mitchell, an Oculus co-founder and the company’s vice president of product, said in an interview. “I think demand is there at the right price and with the right content.”
“There are challenges to work through,” Zuckerberg said, acknowledging some of the concerns in his speech. He also said the devices need to be less bulky. “That’s not great, we’re working on it.”
Milcom Urban 