Sony VR Headset/Project Morpheus/PlayStation VR
**here's quietly hoping Sony will start making TVs out of that technology**
Another argument from Palmer refuted then. Although, they are getting their custom made oled displays from Samsung, so maybe they are getting ripped off in that deal, who knows? In any case, i'm glad Sony is thinking of the world wide VR market instead of US only like Valve and Facebook.
D
Deleted member 86764
Guest
Most Sony TVs can already be "overclocked" to run at 120hz. I remember bookmarking a website all about it a while back (but that was before I switched jobs and laptop).
It's pointless unless you have a (high spec) PC attached to it.
Sony doesn't make OLED TVs, that's my point 
I am assuming you are referring to price points as refuting Palmers argument? Or the international price points?
If so, I disagree. That topic would be easily covered by something like competitive advantage. It's the advantage of supply chain, the advantage of having large scale partners to operate with, the advantage of having a longer technology scope with products spanning from consoles, cameras TVs and beyond. The advantage of operating in spaces that aren't exuberant like SF.
There's no way that even if Sony built the exact same spec as OR that they both would have arrived at the same price point.
Palmer said they are not making any money on the rift, because they are using custom materials and the rift is, and i'm quoting directly, "obscenely cheap for what it is".
From this the only conclusions i can get to is either Oculus has been engineered inefficiently (which i don't believe), or it is using significantly higher quality materials than PSVR(which i don't believe once again), which is profitable per unit sold, or Samsung is ripping off Oculus with their deal for oled display supply. Another point that i thought of and maybe that's why Oculus is sold at a loss (or at least not at a profit) is economies of scale and how big production volume actually is for Sony/Oculus. If Sony need to produce more units to cover world wide demand they can decrease the cost per unit produced, whereas Oculus and HTC might have a more limited target audience (US primarily, high-end PC) and they don't need/want to produce as much, which leads to increased cost per unit produced. The basic idea behind this:
I'm just assuming from what Sony and Oculus figureheads are saying though so it may be something else entirely.
Last edited:
I'm fairly positive that R&D is included in the price point. No business is ever successful if those expenses aren't brought into pricing the product. R&D doesn't end just because the product ships, there are still support and service costs as well. Palmer may be the founder but he is not the CEO. I doubt that an experience CEO would make a pricing error by not including these items into the price point. Neither would Sony.Palmer said they are not making any money on the rift, because they are using custom materials and the rift is, and i'm quoting directly, "obscenely cheap for what it is".
From this the only conclusions i can get to is either Oculus has been engineered inefficiently (which i don't believe), or it is using significantly higher quality materials than PSVR, which is profitable per unit sold, (which i don't believe once again), or Samsung is ripping off Oculus with their deal for oled display supply. Another point that i thought of and maybe that's why Oculus is sold at a loss (or at least not at a profit) is economies of scale and how big production volume actually is for Sony/Oculus. If Sony need to produce more units to cover world wide demand they can decrease the cost per unit produced, whereas Oculus and HTC might have a more limited target audience (US primarily, high-end PC) and they don't need/want to produce as much. The basic idea behind this:
I'm just assuming from what Sony and Oculus figureheads are saying though so it may be something else entirely.
Sony will sell more and have larger volumes. They also sell phones, and other devices like handhelds. The type of agreements that Sony make are more flexible because Sony exists in so many segments they can use this screen in several areas if they choose to.
I don't think R&D should be included in the pricepoint, these are numbers that should be added afterwards when computing total costs and ROI with R&D being a fixed cost before production (at least for this iteration of the rift, R&D is something that technically never stops in firms like Facebook). When Palmer says "we don't make money on the Rift" i think he's referring to the cost per unit sold through which includes production cost, packaging cost, shipping cost etc.
R&D is certainly factored into the cost of a product. How it's added is in contention; R&D is a fixed cost, much like Design would be, but if that fixed cost isn't accounted for in the final product when concerning margins, then you're bound to always operate negatively.
That's like saying a price of coffee at an expensive district in a city should cost the same as a price of coffee where real estate is cheap. BOM is the same, but the operating costs are significantly different.
As technology firms use their margins to create the next device/iteration - or support the existing technology stack. They should be developing the next OR, just like how Sony is developing the next Playstation.
I think the price point of PSVR is certainly a competitive advantage they have over the rest of the competition especially when you factor in something like install base/potential market being significantly higher (and because of this incurring less risk)
Not only price but availability as well. Asia, Europe and other parts of the world that aren't US don't have easy access to Vive/Oculus whereas PSVR is a whole different case. I think Sony might have done the whole VR development community a favor with PSVR :smile:
Gradthrawn
Veteran
Why are we comparing the availability of something shipping in March vs something shipping in Oct . By the time the ps vr launches oculus could be shipping in all those countries .
Hopefully that is the case, if Oculus and Valve are able to supply retailers with units all over the world that'll be great! For now though, Oculus and Vive are only attainable through their websites.
Definitely. Sony has a massive advantage over their competitors when it comes to supply chain management. Interestingly enough, there was a documentary about getting clean water devices to remote parts of the world, and even though they wanted to give the water devices away for free to these remote villages with no clean water, they couldn't -- shipping was near impossible, the expertise wasn't there.
So they partnered with Coca Cola - as they found Coke was abundant in these villages. And Coca Cola was able to deliver them. lol.
Anyway, interesting true story, I forget what it's called, but it's one I always remember about supply chain management. I've actually got a similar story myself, I was a product manager for MPLS here in Canada. But because our company's HQ operates out west, and we don't own any lines here in the East, or outside of Canada we must purchase lines from other incumbents. Making our price points here in East Canada completely undesirable. International pricing is a joke. I don't want to get into that.
I don't blame OR and Vive for the price points they are at especially outside of the US (Palmer also has the maturity of a home schooled child who is 23 - business acumen isn't his forte hence some of his tweets).
But I do agree with the sentiment that Sony will likely be the force that pushes VR forward - VR games don't need to look amazing to be amazing, people are quickly finding the immersion being well worth the price point.
Oculus at least has already said they would have units at retail in April.
If they manage to have proper supply to Europe as well i might be getting both Oculus and PSVR
By the way, that interview is great, they go over some of the reasons why PSVR is priced so "low" in comparison to the other VR headsets.
It has to. The cost to make is the BOM. Pricepoint is an amount higher than BOM unless you're a charity or loss leader. A product starts in deficit with investment. It's then sold with a markup beyond BOM that recovers initial investment, and then goes on with the markup to generate profit to pay the investors for their risk and buy the CEO's fast cars and exotic dancers and generate a large pool of cash to buy out competition and make frivolous, competition damaging lawsuits.
Similar threads
