Virtual reality: a term historically laden with potential, yet mired in empty promises. It's hard to forget the hyperbolic gimmickry that almost completely swallowed the mid-90s, but it's equally hard not to get excited by the potential that the concept holds today – particularly following Sony's recent official unveiling of Project Morpheus at GDC. Assuming that this round of VR treatment is the real deal, then, how much is it likely to cost?
In an interview with EDGE magazine, software engineer Anton Mikhailov suggested that although VR is enjoying the media spotlight at the minute, the medium is largely untested within the wider consumer public. “I’m not a futurologist, but I do know that humans have a funny way of acclimatising to technology,” he said. “So that makes it very hard to predict what’s going to stick and what’s not. I think that it’s too early to tell.”
Shrewd in his response, Mikhailov couldn't speculate on price points at this early stage, but did suggest a consumer friendly price tag. "We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t know that we could make this for an affordable price,” he said. “Obviously, there’s a wide range of what people consider affordable, but this is going to be a consumer-grade device. The reason that we’re announcing this now is because before we couldn’t see a path to product, and now we can see some way to accomplish a product that’s valuable for the console market.”
From a financial point of view, recently acquired competitor Oculus VR has set the pace in the headset race, announcing that the latest edition of the Oculus Rift will retail for $350 (£209). Therefore, we wait with bated breath for Sony's next move. How much would you pay for a fancy pair of goggles? Strap yourself in courtesy of the comments section below.
[source edge-online.com]
Comments 11
$150, or less, and I'll pick one up. Anything over $200 will be a complete bomb.
At least E3 is not far away and we'll find out just how affordable it will be. I seriously can't wait. If it turns out to be a good product with good games I wouldn't mind spending £200 for it.
@Longaway you people are mad I tell you. Mad fire $200 at laugh? Only in your lucid dreams
$200 if it comes with the move controllers would be great.
id rather use my DS4 with it anyway though, so I'm hoping for a price of $150.
Even if it is technically comparable to Oculus, Sony really cannot sell it at nearly the same price as the PS4! If they sold it at $350 like Oculus, that would mean as a consumer you'd have to drop $750 to get the full experience of Sony's VR vision. I know I certainly can't afford that.
I kept my move controllers and I have the PS4 camera so as long as this thing isn't too expensive I'll jump on board. But I'm gonna need that Omni treadmill as well.
£200 and I'll be all in!
$300-350 would be a good price.
I wouldn't get it if it's over 150 usd.
I'm thinking $200 would sell them like hot cakes, but to be honest, anything below £300 is too cheap. If they make it too cheap the quality suffers and when that happens we loose accuracy. Loose accuracy and you get motion sickness and eye strain. When that happens the mass market won't buy it and it just becomes a geek novelty. $1000 and above is a killer. £500 would be pushing it, so I think the sweet spot will be £350-$400. About the same as the actual console.
I could see Sony charging around $300. Still cheaper than the OR, but only $50 more than the Vita. It's an nice amount of money sure, but for the first-gen tech it's reasonable.
Better still, lets all jam a cable in the back of our skull like The Matrix and be done with it already. :^D
The Oculus Rift is $350 for a developers kit, which is not for consumers. They have stated that the consumer price will be significantly cheaper.. So it will be interesting to see how Sony prices theirs.
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