The CEO of the virtual reality firm, Oculus VR has announced that virtual reality is “months, not years away.”
Brendan Iribe, founder and CEO of Oculus VR has stated that their virtual reality headsets are just months away from being released.
The virtual reality market is just getting warmed up which means that launching the headset at the right time would be paramount to its success.
Iribe is no stranger to the hesitation of virtual reality however, stating that the industry is fresh but has the potential to take off.
“The PC started with a small audience at first and it quickly ramped up,” he stated. “Virtual reality we think will take a similar path. It will be a few million people who use it at first, predominantly in the home, and then quickly as the technology matures and more companies get into the space, this will take off.”
Some users who have been lucky enough to try virtual reality headsets however, they have complained of dizziness or other ill effects. To this, Iribe commented that disorientations and motion sickness is part of the process but something they are confident they can surpass with their high end technology.
“We are a little worried about bigger companies putting out products that aren’t ready,” Iribe stated. Eluding to the fact that these premature products could tamper with the success of virtual reality headsets in general.
While there are a few companies attempting virtual reality, Oculus VR really stands out as one of the big ones, especially after they were purchased by Facebook back in March for $2 billion.
Since this acquisition, Oculus VR has been growing and now has around 200 employees.
“As a start up we weren’t previously able to fully attract some of the people , especially some of the researchers who were more comfortable with a bigger company, where they know research is not going to be one of the first things to get cut when funding gets tight,” stated Iribe. “A long term commitment to research and development is really important to where this goes.”
Iribe also commented on the fact that Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg was extremely excited for the world of virtual reality to be launched. What the exact timeline is however, no one really knows.