Correction: We originally ran a headline claiming Luckey said the Playstation VR was 'Not As High-End As Ours.' What he actually said was that it 'Isn't Quite As High-End As Ours.' He also identified Luckey as the CEO, when he is actually the Oculus founder. Here is the full quote from the interview with IB Times:
IBT: Sony appears to be best poised to challenge the Rift with the PlayStation VR, which works with the PlayStation 4.
Luckey: That might be true. I think that there’s not many people who already own a PS4 who don’t own a gaming PC who are going to go out and make that roughly $1,500 all-in investment in the Rift. It really is a separate market. They’re bringing virtual reality to a different group of people who I don’t think were ever really a part of our market anyway.
It’s also worth noting that their headset isn’t quite as high-end as ours — it’s still, I think, a good headset — and the PlayStation 4 is not nearly as powerful as our recommended spec for a PC.
Virtual reality is almost here: after years of waiting, three of the biggest tech developers in the industry are about to go head-to-head. Oculus kicked things off in a big way with a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, HTC expanded VR to include an entire room, and Sony is set to bring virtual reality to console players.
Of course, with just a few short months left before the Oculus Rift officially launches, the competition is starting to heat up. While the conversation used to be about the technology itself or new kinds of experiences, now it's all about how one headset is better than the other. It makes sense — these companies now have to worry about actually selling their headsets, not just discussing tech specs — and it should come as no surprise that Oculus has thrown the first real punch.
To be fair, it's not so much a punch as it is a somewhat snide remark: in an interview with International Business Times, Oculus CEO Palmer Luckey spoke about the PlayStation VR and how it can't quite compare to the Rift:
"It's also worth noting that [Sony's] headset isn't quite as high-end as ours - it's still, I think, a good headset - and the PlayStation 4 is not nearly as powerful as our recommended spec for a PC."
In all honesty, nothing about what Luckey said is untrue. High-end gaming PCs will always be more powerful than consoles, simply due to the cost of producing them — otherwise, gamers would be paying upward of $1,000 for an Xbox. As a result, there is a noticeable gap between PCs and consoles, and that won't change for VR.
Luckey went on to say that Sony isn't necessarily his main source of competition — in actuality, getting the public behind VR seems to be far more important to Luckey than starting some sort of hardware war:
"...the real battle here at this point isn't us against them. It's us versus the public and trying to convince them that VR is worth adopting. That it's worth wearing something on your head to use virtual reality. That's the real fight, and I think we're all fighting that together."
The Oculus Rift is set to launch this March, with HTC's Vive headset and PlayStation VR following later this year.
