Facebook’s Oculus cuts price of virtual reality headset

Oculus, the virtual reality company owned by Facebook, is temporarily cutting the price of its hardware, as the industry tries to figure out why the technology for immersive games and stories has not taken off among consumers.

Oculus is cutting the combined price of its Rift headset and Touch controllers to $399 (€350) for six weeks beginning on Monday, said Jason Rubin, Oculus vice president for content. That matches the price of another virtual reality set, PlayStation VR, made by Sony Corp.

Vive, a virtual reality set developed by HTC Corp, is listed for sale at $799 (€700) on its website, and it has not recently cut the price.

Facebook paid $3 billion (€2.6 billion) to acquire Oculus and retain its employees in 2014.

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Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said at the time that the medium, which offers a 360-degree panoramic view through headsets, would "become a part of daily life for billions of people".

That has not happened, although it is unclear if that is because of high prices, something inherent in the technology or some other reason.

Wider appeal

Pricing discounts are sometimes a sign of weak product sales. Mr Rubin, though, said in an interview that was not the case with Oculus, which he said could have cut the price sooner but wanted to wait until there were enough games, movies and other entertainment to keep a broad audience busy.

The pace of game releases has quickened, making a wider appeal possible, Mr Rubin said: “We’re now in a space where the mass market can be much happier.”

Oculus cut its price once before this year, dropping it from $798 (€700) to $598 (€525) in March.

In May, Oculus shut the doors of its Story Studio, two years after it launched at the Sundance Film Festival, to focus on external content makers.

Another setback was a $500 million (€439 million) legal judgment against Oculus in February, when a jury found in favour of video game publisher ZeniMax Media in a lawsuit accusing Facebook and Oculus of copyright infringement. Oculus has asked for a new trial.

– (Reuters)