Oculus Founder: Rift Will Be Sold at Cost

Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus, has apologized for the poor communication regarding the price of the Oculus Rift. He indicates that the Rift is being sold at cost and that the company is not making a profit on it.

In an ama on reddit, Luckey says he did a bad job communicating about the price of the device. He is referring to the well-known quote in which he says that the price of the Rift would be close to 350 dollars. He claims he said this to refute previous reports of a cost of $1500. The $1500 price he quoted was for the Rift with a VR capable PC.

The Oculus Rift is available now and costs $599, or $699. According to Luckey, no profit is made on the sales of the vr set at this price point. He indicates that this is due to the quality of the parts of the Rift, including two special OLED screens with a high refresh rate and pixel density, and a good tracking system. Luckey refuses to give real specifications of the parts for the time being.

When asked how many games will be available before the end of this year, Luckey answers that there will be at least a hundred games. Among those hundred, there are more than twenty that are developed by Oculus Studios itself. Luckey won’t go into detail about the price of the games, but he does indicate that they will range from free to the level of the higher-priced games from major publishers. In general, they should match the prices for PC and console games. Luckey does not say anything about the price of the controllers; he claims to have learned his lesson about giving price estimates.