Facebook bought Oculus VR back in late-March for $2 billion , and the move was met with strong criticism from some early adopters and supporters of the its virtual reality device, the Oculus Rift.
While it has been established that Oculus VR will remain unchanged from Facebook’s purchase, the founder of Facebook itself, Mark Zuckerberg, has expressed that the Oculus Rift will have to exceed a particular milestone of sales before the virtual reality headset can really be something meaningful as a platform.
“ It needs to reach a very large scale–50 million to 100 million units–before it will really be a meaningful thing as a computing platform, ” Zuckerberg told analysts during Facebook’s earnings call (you have to register to read the transcript beyond page one), adding that this milestone is a long-term goal for Oculus VR.
“ It’s hard to predict exactly but I don’t think it’s going to get to 50 million or 100 million units in the next few years. So that will take a few cycles of the device to get there,” he said during the earnings call ,” Zuckerberg continued.
“ And then when you get to that scale, that’s when it starts to be interesting as a business in terms of developing out the ecosystem. So when I’m talking about that as a 10 year thing, it’s building the first set of devices and building the audience and the ecosystem around that until it eventually becomes a business. ”
It’s already known that Oculus VR have yet to put forward a consumer-friendly version of the Oculus Rift, so far it’s only been putting forward development kits for the device to enthusiasts and game developers.
Even though he has set a lofty target for the Oculus Rift developer, Zuckerberg is still encouraged by the amount of success the Oculus Rift has already garnered in terms of apps and games being developed for the platform. The platform itself has shipped over 100,000 units to over 130 countries.
“ We continue to see a lot of excitement in the developer community and we’ve now shipped more than 100,000 of Rift developer kit to over a 130 countries, ” Zuckerberg went on. “ It’s still early for Oculus but we are encouraged to see the variety of apps and games being developed for this platform. ”
We’ll bring you more news on the Oculus Rift should further information reach our ears.
[ MCV ]