Oculus Rift will be "affordable" says creator

One major mystery that continues to surround the Oculus Rift is what it will cost when the consumer version is finally available. We still don't know for sure, but creator Palmer Luckey said in a new interview that you won't need to break the bank to buy the headset.

"[Price] is to be determined but what I've always said is that if VR isn't affordable it might as well not exist for most people. We're not looking to make a rich person's toy, we're not looking to make a research tool," Luckey told GamesIndustry International. "We want to make a consumer VR headset that pretty much anyone can afford."

Content is what typically sells hardware, and if Oculus Rift is too expensive, the development community for the headset will be a wasteland, Luckey said.

"You can't sell an expensive piece of hardware and expect tons of content to show up," he said. "We're not doing market research around what's the breaking point for people to buy a VR headset; we're just trying to sell it as cheap as we can while still existing as a company."

Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe said in July that the company is currently targeting a $300 price point for the consumer version of Oculus Rift. This is the same price that developers must pay to get their hands on a development kit. Over time and potentially through subsidized offers, the company would like to see the headset become free one day.

"The lower the price point, the wider the audience," Iribe said at the time. "We have all kinds of fantasy ideas. We'd love it to be free one day, so how do we get it as close to free as possible? Obviously it won’t be that in the beginning. We're targeting the $300 price point right now but there's the potential that it could get much less expensive with a few different relationships and strategies."

The Oculus Rift may soon face serious competition, as Sony is rumored to announce its own virtual reality headset designed specifically for the PlayStation 4 this month during the 2014 Game Developers Conference.