Oculus Rift could be coming to smartphones

Oculus VR is scheduled to launch its Oculus Rift headset for PCs next year, but the company is already planning to bring the peripheral to new platforms. Speaking with Edge, Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe said the company had toyed with technology like the Xbox 360 Kinect and PlayStation Move, but its current focus is bringing the headset to PC and next-gen mobile devices.

"I love consoles but internally we're a lot more excited about where mobile's going to go, and being able to plug it right into a next gen cellphone," Iribe said. "It's the innovation, and how fast cellphones are now improving - where we'll be with the next Galaxy or the next iPhone compared to where consoles are. Those things are almost doubling every year, compared to a console that's just stuck it out for eight years - it just makes us very excited. There's a lot of improvements that can be made on the hardware side for VR that no-one's doing yet because it's a new thing. The mobile rate of innovation is going to be able to make a lot of those improvements."

Iribe also explained the company's vague 2014 target release window, saying there are still some technological hurdles to be cleared.

"We don't want to announce any dates because frankly we just don't know when it's going to be really ready for the consumer market where everything is tied together," Iribe said. "You have the form factor, HD, motion blur eliminated... so we don't know how long that will take, but it's close. We have internal prototypes which have a lot of each thing solved and it's such a magical experience when you see it all together."

Iribe has said that when Oculus Rift does arrive, the goal is to keep the launch price as close to $300 as possible.