For most of the mainstream market, the entry-level cost to get into PC-based virtual reality goes well beyond the $599 Oculus is charging for its first consumer Rift headset. Factor in the cost of a high-end gaming PC needed to power the Rift, and the "all-in" price for most consumers soars to at least $1,500.
But Oculus founder Palmer Luckey says he sees VR headsets like the Rift driving demand for that kind of high-end PC hardware, driving down overall costs in the process. "Most people have not had a reason to own a high-end PC for a long time," Luckey said in a wide-ranging AMA" conversation with the "Glorious PC Master Race" subreddit yesterday. "Your crappy PC is the biggest barrier to adoption [for high-end VR]..."
That won't be true for long, according to Luckey, as demand for VR drives adoption of high-end graphics hardware "much like video-related stuff drove high-end CPU adoption." In the near future, that demand will push PC technology to the point where even that "crappy PC" that most people have will be able to power a convincing virtual reality experience, Luckey said. "If 'normal' PCs get good enough to run VR, then the majority of people will be able to buy a relatively cheap headset and just use whatever computer they already own to drive it."
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