Want a free Oculus Rift? Oculus’ CEO is hoping to give you one

The Oculus Rift, an advanced 3D virtual reality headset that responds to movement, could be offered for free in the future.

In an interview with Edge Online, Oculus VR CEO Brendan Irbe revealed that, in the long term, “We’d love it to be free one day.” In the short term, you’ll have to pony up US$300 for an SDK version – meaning that the Rift is in a good position to make even more money after raising US$16 million on Kickstarter. That said, US$300 isn’t a bank-breaker for a hardcore PC gamer, is it?

Irbe says that the Rift is more like a console than a peripheral and is willing to work with partners to subsidise the VR headset. “Let’s say there was some game you played in VR that everybody loved and everybody played and we made $100 a month – or even $10 a month – at some point the hardware’s cheap enough and we’re making enough that we could be giving away the headset.”, he said.

So, Oculus won’t be doling out Rifts for free just yet – but if the hardware proves to be a success, the price could plummet. So the only downside is trying to exercise enough willpower not to buy one now.

[Edge via GamesIndustry.biz]