Meant to be Seen

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/07/15/oculu ... -for-free/
This is how you start a revolution.
If the Rift would only sell for 150$/€, IMO it would go away like icecream. They would sell 50-100 millions in one year, my guess.


Brendan Iribe:

“The lower the price point, the wider the audience,” Iribe said. “We have all kinds of fantasy ideas. We’d love it to be free one day, so how do we get it as close to free as possible? Obviously it won’t be that in the beginning. We’re targeting the $300 price point right now but there’s the potential that it could get much less expensive with a few different relationships and strategies.”

“You can imagine if Microsoft and Sony can go out and subsidise consoles because there’s enough money to be made on software and other areas, then there’s the potential that this, in partnership, could get subsidised. Let’s say there was some game you played in VR that everybody loved and everybody played and we made $100 a month – or even $10 a month – at some point the hardware’s cheap enough and we’re making enough that we could be giving away the headset.”

very honourable to hear that from an entrepreneur

That form of 'free' sounds like 'free with subscription' or 'free with substantial purchase'. I usually prefer outright paying/owning to that noise.

I don't believe he's suggesting you'd only be able to pay an explicit subscription fee. There will be options, in addition perhaps to partnerships with developers for a royalty thing to subsidize the cost of the headsets.

See the reddit thread, Palmer made a whole bunch of comments there: http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments ... _for_free/

i dont like the idea to pay for a service monthly at all.
Interests of users may overlap too much and then this model wouldnt make much sense.
That would be the wrong way.
It doesn`t make much sense at all to praise sth as free but in the end it isnt and you are bond to services you only like partially.
Thats bad publicity like this prepaid phones you can buy for 5 € but in the end you have to pay minute tarifs that are twice as high.
This could be a true damper for VR.

well, you could have a free/cheaper rift, that would display 20-30 second 3D Adds every time you turn it on- similar to what Kindle does. You would be able to remove this by paying some more cash or by hacking.

Additionally, Oculus could partner with game devs to deliver freemium games with In App Puchases (micro transactions), thus giving more fun to the player!

Although i like this idea of adds and free buying very much i honestly prefer if adds stay out of the realm of VR.
In the end VR should stay a personal holy place of refuge for everyone.

I like the idea of having both the option to buy outright at to have a cheap, subsidized version for the masses. Also [wild speculation incoming], if there is a consumer rift with an android phone/tablet guts built in, more the better

Clever, but I think they'd be better off creating the Oasis and pairing that with the Rift as a biz.

Game Companies are not going to lock themselves into one HMD. The hmd is a commodity that can't be patented. Game companies might just ship with a white labeled version..

I wonder why gamedevelopers haven't had this in mind already. They could have advertisingboards in the game, just like the real world which shows ads from paying companies. The ads can easily be changed through the net (with the tiny value of a slight changing environment). For games that unfolds in an urban environment it's gonna be like in the real world.
It's a double-edged sword though. I would not like to see ads on the trees in a tombraidergame where a part of the point is to reside in places where no civilization yet has reached... But then, hopefully there will be an option to pay full price for removal.
Nah, who am i fooling... In the end we will pay double price for twice as much and ten times as disturbing ads. Forget everything i mentioned...

Likay wrote:I wonder why gamedevelopers haven't had this in mind already. They could have advertisingboards in the game, just like the real world which shows ads from paying companies. The ads can easily be changed through the net (with the tiny value of a slight changing environment). For games that unfolds in an urban environment it's gonna be like in the real world.
It's a double-edged sword though. I would not like to see ads on the trees in a tombraidergame where a part of the point is to reside in places where no civilization yet has reached...

Ads in 3d games have been tried for a decade plus. They don't move the needle enough to warrant how off putting they are.

I hope they don't have a free version, it'd mean another wave of tossers joining this forum.

I don't think a free one will be coming anytime soon. Even with subscription services, and services that are subsidised, you still don't get free.
Even with an app store, you wouldn't be getting your smart phone for free. Unless you do and I'm unaware of it !