In an interview with CNBC, Oculus CEO and co-founder Brendan Iribe has revealed that the Oculus Rift will have a retail presence in April. This won't just mean the Rift will be available in stores for purchase - instead, Oculus plans to allow shoppers to try out the Rift in its retail locations before considering a purchase.
It's a smart move, as VR's current high cost of entry means potential customers need to be sold on the experience - something that can really only happen once they've tried it. “Virtual reality is a very experiential product and experience," Iribe elaborated. "You’re maybe a little skeptical before, you’ve heard of VR in the past and it hasn’t really worked, but now it does and it works in an incredible way, but you have to see it to really believe it.”
Oculus has not confirmed which retail stores will carry the Rift come April, or which countries will stock the headsets. Furthermore, as the Oculus Touch controllers won't be complete until the latter half of the year, it's unlikely these retail demo stations will include the controllers to showcase the Rift's full potential.
But as a way of igniting interest in potential customers who otherwise have no means of testing the waters with this generation of VR, it's a smart move - and one that HTC and PlayStation will need to consider in order to compete.
