Oculus’ VP of Content Jason Rubin has come out swinging at the company’s GDC talk today.
Opening up the session, titled ‘Inside Oculus 2018’, Rubin stated that “Oculus is winning in every hardware category it has entered, on PC and mobile,” later adding that “it’s a pretty inarguable statement that Oculus builds the best hardware.”
By ‘winning’, we assume Rubin is referring to sales of the company’s VR headsets, the Oculus Rift and Gear VR. Oculus has never revealed official sales figures for the Rift, which is mainly rivaled by HTC’s Vive headset, so we can’t comment as to if Rubin’s claim is true or not. That said, earlier this month we reported that the Rift had narrowly overtaken the Vive as the most-used VR headset on Steam on the platform’s latest hardware report.
It’s also important to note that Rubin specifically labeled PC as a category. That alienates Sony’s console-based headset, PlayStation VR (PSVR), which we know to have sold over two million units thus far.
When it comes to Gear VR, Oculus last year noted the headset had sold over five million units. Again, we don’t know what competitors like Google’s Daydream View have sold, so we can’t verify Rubin’s claims.
Either way, these are bold claims for Oculus to be making. Looking ahead for the year, Rift will face renewed rivalry with Vive as the enhanced Vive Pro goes on sale for $799, while Oculus will also look to lead the pack in the emerging standalone sector of headsets with its soon-to-release Go headset.
