Oculus, the virtual reality company owned by Facebook Inc, 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 yesterday cut the combined price of its Rift headset and Touch controllers to US$399 for six weeks, Oculus vice president for content Jason Rubin said.
That matches the price of another virtual reality set, PlayStation VR, made by Sony Corp.
The Vive, a virtual reality set developed by HTC Corp (宏達電), is listed for sale at US$799 on its Web site and it has not recently cut the price.
Facebook paid US$3 billion to acquire Oculus and retain its employees in 2014.
Facebook chief executive officer 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.
Pricing discounts are sometimes a sign of weak product sales.
Rubin 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, 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 US$798 to US$598 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 US$500 million legal judgement against Oculus in February, when a jury found in favor of video game publisher ZeniMax Media Inc in a lawsuit accusing Facebook and Oculus of copyright infringement. Oculus has asked for a new trial.
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