Credit: Mark Zuckerberg Facebook
We are kind of in the infancy of virtual reality devices. They are relatively new and still pretty expensive, which limits their audience. But that trend is starting to change for the better as they always do with cutting edge technologies as they mature. Very recently Facebook’s premium VR headset the Oculus Rift just came down in price to $399. And now according to Bloomberg, Facebook will reportedly bring a new Oculus VR headset to the market soon for around $200. We can look forward to this new untethered Oculus codenamed “Pacific,” to be officially announced at the end of 2017 and ready to ship to market in 2018.
Of course to offer this lower pricing there will likely be some feature sacrifices, and the first one being rumored is that Pacific will not come with positional tracking offered on the Rift utilizing Oculus sensors. However there are hints of favorable design features in that Pacific VR will weigh less, and will be powered by a Snapdragon mobile processor with better graphics capabilities than the current model Samsung Gear VR headset. Facebook, which acquired virtual reality pioneer Oculus for $2 billion in 2014 is going full throttle to market. An Oculus spokesperson said of the Pacific rollout: “This is in addition to our commitment to high-end VR products like Oculus Rift and mobile phone products like Gear VR.” Currently Samsung is the revenue leader in the VR market Sony, HTC and Facebook are second, third and fourth place, respectively, according to the International Data Corporation.
