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Comment by JavaScriptrr | Hacker News Reader

It seems history is repeating itself. This VR hype is going to be killed by lack of business innovation. We've seen this exact scenario with 3D printers. Awesome tech, but with a pricetag that has kept those devices from going mainstream. With VR, the guys are delivering innovative tech, but with the oldschool business model, trying to make money on the hardware. Sony would lead the game if they would lose money, offering a simple to use VR headset for $99 -$199, dominating the market and then make money on games and apps.

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According to [1], the parts costs of the PSVR is $350. That's without manufacturing,retail, etc.

[1]http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1174769

What sort of VR headset do you expect for $99? At that price, you get Cardboard and Gear, at best, and those have underwhelmed the market and people who have tried them & Vive/Rift/PS.

The question is: why not lose money on the hardware, to accelerate distribution and put an awesome device in people's hands and then make money on software. So my suggestion would be to sell the $399 devixe for $99. Not push out something crappy

Come on Javascript (no pun intended), they'd lose money very quickly. They are already below the price tag of the competition.

Currently they are the cheapest, and it's easier to reduce prices than to increase them, so maybe they are saving that for later, especially when they learn more about game sales and the business ?

Occulus VR doesn't make money from selling you a Rift.

I totally agree that a different business model with low-priced devices might be needed for consumer gamer VR to take off any time soon.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw adoption of expensive VR/AR devices for industrial/enterprise applications in a much bigger way long before consumer stuff takes off. In a lot of ways gaming us a bad place to introduce VR - immersion doesn't necessarily make for a "better" gaming experience once the novelty fades, motion and speed and high quality graphics are hard to deal with, and buyers are fairly price-sensitive. 3D printing is doing relatively well in industrial usage, despite the consumer hype having faded.

That's the release price. I'm sure they will make a bundle or reduce the price after a few months.

VR hype will be killed. What will remain is vr without the hype.

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