Why Oculus Rift may die soon.
2 min readDec 2, 2017
The VR headset market is becoming very competitive with every manufacturer offering a headset. Because it’s a pricey investment for a gaming device, consumers want to make sure they are making the right purchase. In reality, there really aren’t that many differences in the performance. The design is becoming unanimous as well.
From software development perspective, we always want to be in the look out for what the dominant product will be in the market. And below are my reasons why I think Rift lose its relevance in the market soon.
- With the launch of Windows Surface Book 2 (Mid November 2017), Windows is now offering a free Lenovo or Acer VR Headset. They are priced at $399 market value. Oh, by the way, Windows Surface Book 2 is VR compatible, only weighs approximately 4 lbs, with NVIDIA 1060 graphic card (for 15" screen). This is the type of promotion that works because of its beautiful synergy.
- Lenovo or Acer VR Headsets do not need sensor installations unlike Oculus Rift. Although they do not come with headphones, this is a highly competitive reason for a developer or a consumer to choose Lenovo or Acer over Rift since the set-up requirements and process will be a lot simpler with less ports needed on the laptop/PC to hook up the VR Headset.
- Rift is just seen as Facebook side project in the industry. (Update 1/15/18: Facebook partnership with Xiaomi is notable I don’t see it strengthening position of Oculus at large considering that they are going to collaborate a hardware exclusive to the Chinese market. There are multiple VC devices there already, data terms are probably as exclusive, and content is typically agnostic of the device unless there’s an exclusive agreement specific to the content.)
- Even the founder of Rift (who as since left the company) has backed the competitor HTC Vive, for its focus on the international market among other reasons. Earlier this year, HTC Vive also announced partnership with Apple.
- Ultimatum will be made in the AR space that is gaining popularity. So we shall see…
