In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe discusses the challenges the company now faces with the Rift Consumer Edition just a couple of months away from shipping. When asked whether how the sense that VR's inevitable arrival will affect the Rift's chances in the market, Iribe replied:
"You’ve got to stay super focused on shipping product. There isn’t a version two or three if there isn’t a great version one."
With much of the general sentiment surrounding VR that this first generation of new devices will be for hardcore enthusiasts only, and commercial adoption is still a few years - and thus, a few generations - away, VR manufacturers like Oculus could be facing an uphill battle. Though the company has Facebook as a safety net, and PlayStation VR has the PS4's existing install base, while Valve tends to do whatever it wants to regardless, how does Oculus plan to tackle this challenge?
"Managing expectations is super important," says Iribe. "There are still a lot of challenges in terms of the computer you need to power the device, the form of the device, the amount of time you’re going to spend inside. This is a 30- to 60-minute experience. We will get to hours, but that’s not necessarily the first generation."
With those expectations set, Iribe went on to define what success will mean for Oculus - and it's not necessarily just about sales.
"Right now the goal is optimizing quality of the experience over adoption," he explained. "We are trying to set the bar for quality and deliver the absolute best VR experience in the world ... We’ve already seen an overwhelming number of preorders - more than we expected. If we can get one million units over the lifetime of the Rift, that’s going to be an incredible success."
The consumer edition of the Oculus Rift launches in April, and will see a retail presence along with availability in online stores.
But Vive's front facing camera tracking is so very important. Surely Oculus knows their first iteration isn't as great as what they hoped for. So no RIFT 2 then?
I feel when you are introducing new tech, that the first few iterations no matter what you do will always be lacking massively. I mean it has taken 20 years for moores law to not really matter, and I would expect VR to be a long investment before it starts paying off