 Hi everybody, I'm Addie from The Verge and I'm here at CES with Oculus founder Palmer Luckey. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Oculus Rift just started pre-orders on Wednesday and so it's going to be shipping a couple months from now. So I know you probably haven't gotten to see a lot outside of Oculus, but what's your feel for this year VR at CES? It's a huge year for it. I mean, it is a huge year. It's not just Oculus. There's a lot of other people here with both hardware and software in the virtual reality space. There was a big change from a year ago or especially two years ago when basically it was just Oculus that was here and a handful of other people. Now you have really proof that this is a whole industry that's moving together to try and make this thing happen, not just one company. There's mobile headsets, there are desktop headsets, there's all integrated headsets. Like how is that going to play out over the next few years? Well, it's hard to say over the next few years, but in the long run, I've talked about this before, I think it's largely going to converge towards all in one solutions. It's going to converge towards the render horsepower being on the headset or at least on your body, whether it plugs into your phone or it's built into the headset itself. That's not to say you won't be able to tether to more powerful devices when you want to have higher quality experiences, but for many people, there's going to be a limit to how good the experience needs to get before you just want the convenience of having something that's able to work wherever you go without being tethered to a big box. Yeah. Well, you've also said that's going to converge with augmented reality and I'm just wondering, are there any concrete steps that people are taking towards that yet? Because they still seem very distinct. People are taking concrete steps, but I don't think the things you're seeing at CES today are necessarily showing those steps. Like what should we be looking for? Real augmented reality that has a real understanding of the environment and is able to either place objects in that environment well or bring the real world into a digital space and also represent it well. I don't think that there's much in the way of that going on here at CES. How long do you think it might take us to see something like that? Can't say. But I'm assuming you're working on it. It's no secret that we've acquired a lot of computer vision companies. 13th Labs, Nimble VR, Surreal Vision, Pebbles Tech. We showed off a video at Oculus Connect that showed some of the possibilities of doing real time 3D world capture and augmentation, but we don't have anything to really show around that yet. The other thing I'm curious about is when, so augmented reality, things like the whole lens, there are a lot of applications that are not consuming things. A lot of applications that are active and more like computing. Do you think we're going to see that in virtual reality in the near term? We are already seeing it used for a lot of things like architectural visualization, medical training, people who are designing things in CAD and virtual reality. I'd argue there's probably a lot more people using VR for productivity and industrial applications than AR right now. There's a lot of concept stuff. There's a lot of, look, this will show you how to install the screw in the place it needs to go. But there's very few companies that are actually doing that in real life. Yeah, it was actually, the Oculus Touch is incredibly cool and it's been great to see it. Is it sort of the ultimate interface for your products? It's not necessarily the ultimate interface. It's going to be one of, I think it's going to be one of the main ways that we interface. Some applications really, you do want to have full markerless fingered hand tracking where you can just interact with things that way. For others, you really do want to have a prop. You really do want to have haptic feedback. You want to have some form of reliable digital actuation like buttons or triggers. I think that Touch is going to evolve over time, but that what we ship now or in the near future is going to be about as far as you get in terms of big shifts. Kind of like when the first computer mouse was created. The mice we have today are certainly better, but they are not radically different than the concept of the first mice. They think if you're going to be using VR that requires holding a prop, holding a controller, the things that you do with Touch are going to be very similar to the things you do with those types of controllers in the future. Just sort of going beyond that, for a long time, whenever I would ask about Sony or HTC, it would be, we're not in competition. Their VR space is just trying to grow. So when are you going to be in competition? You're selling a product now. It's not really about selling a product. Well, there's two things. First of all, Sony is very much targeting the PlayStation 4 market. I don't think that there's going to be a lot of people who would have bought a high-end PC and a Rift that decided to buy a PlayStation VR headset and set. I think people who have PlayStation, honestly, that's almost certainly what they're going to choose over investing everything in a Rift. If they do invest everything in a Rift, it's because they want to have a higher quality experience and they're willing to pay for it. But I don't think there's a mass market of people who are necessarily willing to do that. It doesn't really become a competition until it becomes a zero-sum game where when you sell a headset, that's me not selling a headset. You know, at a fair, at something close to a one-to-one ratio. Right now, the more people that are in the VR space, the more VR developers will start making VR games. The more people there will be that are interested in VR. Something I've said a lot is that the real battle is not us versus other companies that are getting into VR now. It's all of us together against the public perception of virtual reality that's been built up over the decades. We have to convince people that virtual reality is worth using, that they want to use it, and that they want to wear this crazy thing on their face no matter how slim it gets. And that's the uphill battle that we're all fighting together. And I'm glad Sony's doing that. And I'm glad that HTC's doing that. I'm glad that Samsung's doing that. I'm glad that all of us are taking this pretty seriously. Do you think that there's a danger in over-promising with VR still? A lot of people will talk about VR not just as being there, but it's like a teleporter. It's like literally being in a place. Do you think that that's overselling things? I think that there is a risk of doing that. That is one of the things that hurt virtual reality the last run around. You had Hollywood and you had media and you had people in the virtual reality industry hyping VR up as, it's going to be this amazing thing. It's going to absolutely change the world. And I think they were right in the long run. But at the time when you needed a $100,000 SGI workstation and you needed this $50,000 VR headset, you were getting 10 frames a second at QVGA resolution. There was just no way it was ever going to become a consumer-ready thing. And what was interesting about virtual reality a few decades ago is that the people who were most excited about VR were the ones who had not tried it. They could imagine what it was going to be and that's what excited them. Once they tried it, they realized that it had a long way to go. And that's really what caused that whole collapse. Today I think it's the opposite. When people try VR, that's usually when they're convinced. People who try VR, they'll try it, they'll have a realistic expectation, they understand what they're getting and they're able to understand how it'll get better, but they see that it actually does make sense and that it is going to be a cool thing. I think it's mostly people who haven't tried VR who have artificially inflated expectations. And the best thing we can do is get VR in front of their eyes as fast as we can so they can see what this is going to be, how it's going to get better and how it's going to become part of their lives. Cool. Well, it's been great having you on and thank you so much. Thank you very much. Bye.
 Hi everybody, I'm Addie from The Verge and I'm here at CES with Oculus founder Palmer
 Luckey.
 In case you haven't been paying attention, the Oculus Rift just started pre-orders on
 Wednesday and so it's going to be shipping a couple months from now.
 So I know you probably haven't gotten to see a lot outside of Oculus, but what's your feel
 for this year VR at CES?
 It's a huge year for it.
 I mean, it is a huge year.
 It's not just Oculus.
 There's a lot of other people here with both hardware and software in the virtual reality
 space.
 There was a big change from a year ago or especially two years ago when basically it
 was just Oculus that was here and a handful of other people.
 Now you have really proof that this is a whole industry that's moving together to try and
 make this thing happen, not just one company.
 There's mobile headsets, there are desktop headsets, there's all integrated headsets.
 Like how is that going to play out over the next few years?
 Well, it's hard to say over the next few years, but in the long run, I've talked about this
 before, I think it's largely going to converge towards all in one solutions.
 It's going to converge towards the render horsepower being on the headset or at least
 on your body, whether it plugs into your phone or it's built into the headset itself.
 That's not to say you won't be able to tether to more powerful devices when you want to
 have higher quality experiences, but for many people, there's going to be a limit to how
 good the experience needs to get before you just want the convenience of having something
 that's able to work wherever you go without being tethered to a big box.
 Yeah.
 Well, you've also said that's going to converge with augmented reality and I'm just wondering,
 are there any concrete steps that people are taking towards that yet?
 Because they still seem very distinct.
 People are taking concrete steps, but I don't think the things you're seeing at CES today
 are necessarily showing those steps.
 Like what should we be looking for?
 Real augmented reality that has a real understanding of the environment and is able to either place
 objects in that environment well or bring the real world into a digital space and also
 represent it well.
 I don't think that there's much in the way of that going on here at CES.
 How long do you think it might take us to see something like that?
 Can't say.
 But I'm assuming you're working on it.
 It's no secret that we've acquired a lot of computer vision companies.
 13th Labs, Nimble VR, Surreal Vision, Pebbles Tech.
 We showed off a video at Oculus Connect that showed some of the possibilities of doing
 real time 3D world capture and augmentation, but we don't have anything to really show
 around that yet.
 The other thing I'm curious about is when, so augmented reality, things like the whole
 lens, there are a lot of applications that are not consuming things.
 A lot of applications that are active and more like computing.
 Do you think we're going to see that in virtual reality in the near term?
 We are already seeing it used for a lot of things like architectural visualization, medical
 training, people who are designing things in CAD and virtual reality.
 I'd argue there's probably a lot more people using VR for productivity and industrial applications
 than AR right now.
 There's a lot of concept stuff.
 There's a lot of, look, this will show you how to install the screw in the place it needs
 to go.
 But there's very few companies that are actually doing that in real life.
 Yeah, it was actually, the Oculus Touch is incredibly cool and it's been great to see
 it.
 Is it sort of the ultimate interface for your products?
 It's not necessarily the ultimate interface.
 It's going to be one of, I think it's going to be one of the main ways that we interface.
 Some applications really, you do want to have full markerless fingered hand tracking where
 you can just interact with things that way.
 For others, you really do want to have a prop.
 You really do want to have haptic feedback.
 You want to have some form of reliable digital actuation like buttons or triggers.
 I think that Touch is going to evolve over time, but that what we ship now or in the
 near future is going to be about as far as you get in terms of big shifts.
 Kind of like when the first computer mouse was created.
 The mice we have today are certainly better, but they are not radically different than
 the concept of the first mice.
 They think if you're going to be using VR that requires holding a prop, holding a controller,
 the things that you do with Touch are going to be very similar to the things you do with
 those types of controllers in the future.
 Just sort of going beyond that, for a long time, whenever I would ask about Sony or HTC,
 it would be, we're not in competition.
 Their VR space is just trying to grow.
 So when are you going to be in competition?
 You're selling a product now.
 It's not really about selling a product.
 Well, there's two things.
 First of all, Sony is very much targeting the PlayStation 4 market.
 I don't think that there's going to be a lot of people who would have bought a high-end
 PC and a Rift that decided to buy a PlayStation VR headset and set.
 I think people who have PlayStation, honestly, that's almost certainly what they're going
 to choose over investing everything in a Rift.
 If they do invest everything in a Rift, it's because they want to have a higher quality
 experience and they're willing to pay for it.
 But I don't think there's a mass market of people who are necessarily willing to do that.
 It doesn't really become a competition until it becomes a zero-sum game where when you
 sell a headset, that's me not selling a headset.
 You know, at a fair, at something close to a one-to-one ratio.
 Right now, the more people that are in the VR space, the more VR developers will start
 making VR games.
 The more people there will be that are interested in VR.
 Something I've said a lot is that the real battle is not us versus other companies that
 are getting into VR now.
 It's all of us together against the public perception of virtual reality that's been
 built up over the decades.
 We have to convince people that virtual reality is worth using, that they want to use it,
 and that they want to wear this crazy thing on their face no matter how slim it gets.
 And that's the uphill battle that we're all fighting together.
 And I'm glad Sony's doing that.
 And I'm glad that HTC's doing that.
 I'm glad that Samsung's doing that.
 I'm glad that all of us are taking this pretty seriously.
 Do you think that there's a danger in over-promising with VR still?
 A lot of people will talk about VR not just as being there, but it's like a teleporter.
 It's like literally being in a place.
 Do you think that that's overselling things?
 I think that there is a risk of doing that.
 That is one of the things that hurt virtual reality the last run around.
 You had Hollywood and you had media and you had people in the virtual reality industry
 hyping VR up as, it's going to be this amazing thing.
 It's going to absolutely change the world.
 And I think they were right in the long run.
 But at the time when you needed a $100,000 SGI workstation and you needed this $50,000
 VR headset, you were getting 10 frames a second at QVGA resolution.
 There was just no way it was ever going to become a consumer-ready thing.
 And what was interesting about virtual reality a few decades ago is that the people who were
 most excited about VR were the ones who had not tried it.
 They could imagine what it was going to be and that's what excited them.
 Once they tried it, they realized that it had a long way to go.
 And that's really what caused that whole collapse.
 Today I think it's the opposite.
 When people try VR, that's usually when they're convinced.
 People who try VR, they'll try it, they'll have a realistic expectation, they understand
 what they're getting and they're able to understand how it'll get better, but they see that it
 actually does make sense and that it is going to be a cool thing.
 I think it's mostly people who haven't tried VR who have artificially inflated expectations.
 And the best thing we can do is get VR in front of their eyes as fast as we can so they
 can see what this is going to be, how it's going to get better and how it's going to
 become part of their lives.
 Cool.
 Well, it's been great having you on and thank you so much.
 Thank you very much.
 Bye.