Palmer Luckey: PSVR Has A Fair Price, Oculus Has A Different Market

Palmer Luckey has shared his initial thoughts on PlayStation VR and how it compares to the Oculus Rift.

Luckey was interviewed about it at the Game Developers Conference, the same event where Sony first revealed PlayStation VR‘s price and release details. Luckey lauds Sony for giving PlayStation VR a fair price. He credits them for keeping pricing down and recognizing that this was a priority for Sony. In fact, Sony stated as much just early this month.

However, Luckey stated that even though PlayStation VR is cheaper by $ 200, it is not that far off from the Oculus Rift. As he points out, the Oculus Rift consumer package already bundles in a controller, a remote, and a few games. He also cites the quality of the product that Oculus VR has assembled.

Perhaps most interestingly, Luckey expresses his belief that Oculus VR serves a different market. As he puts it, Oculus Rift serves consumers who own a capable gaming PC, or are willing to purchase a new PC powerful enough to run it. On the other hand, PlayStation VR will appeal to PS4 owners, or to consumers who want to try VR and are willing to buy a PS4. There will even be PSVR adoptees who picked up a PS4 for different reasons, but will decide to jump on the bandwagon anyway. Luckey does not believe these potential audiences have much overlap with each other.

Luckey was earlier put in the position of having to defend Oculus Rift‘s $ 599 retail price. He admitted that initial messaging on the price was poor, but Oculus VR is not making money on every unit sold, and consumers will be getting good value with that price. This minor gaffe has not completely destroyed the Rift’s momentum, as Elite Dangerous was just announced as a launch title for the device. Oculus Rift will be releasing this March 28.