PS4, Xbox One "too limited" for Oculus Rift, says inventor

Oculus Rift founder Palmer Luckey believes even the grunt of next-gen consoles is too feeble for virtual reality tech.

Speaking to TechRadar, Luckey said the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One aren't on the company's priorities list for a couple of reasons - the first being that the hardware doesn't keep pace with innovation.

"Consoles are too limited for what we want to do. We're trying to make the best virtual reality device in the world and we want to continue to innovate and upgrade every year - continue making progress internally - and whenever we make big jumps we want to push that to the public," he said.

"The problem with consoles in general is that once they come out they're locked to a certain spec for a long, long time. Look at the PCs that existed eight years ago. There have been so many huge advances since then. Now look at the VR hardware of today. I think the jump we're going to see in the next four or five years is going to be massive."

The next problem is that, powerful as they are, the PS4 and Xbox One can't live up to what VR requires - "rendering at high resolutions at over 60 frames a second in 3D".

"We're seeing games that are already saying they're gonna run in 720p on next gen so they can barely hit 60 in 2D," Luckey said.

"It's hard to imagine them running a VR experience that's on par with PC. And certainly five years from now the experiences and the technology for virtual reality that will be available on PC is going to be be so far beyond anything that a console can provide.

"What we're most excited about - really the core direction of our company - is trying to make something that works on platforms that are moving quickly and that are continuously getting more powerful, and consoles are not those."

Thanks, games.on.net.