Oculus co-founder reveals the future of VR at CES 2017

You might expect one of the co-founders of Oculus to say that the future of VR is going to be Oculus Rift or the recently released Oculus Touch controllers. And yet, talking to Jack McCauley, one of Oculus’s co-founders, that’s wasn’t the case.

He’s pretty set in the idea that mobile is going to be the future for the medium, even if it’s not the best way to experience VR right this minute. 

In a conversation with TechRadar, McCauley recounted his first experience with the Oculus Rift from all those years ago and talked about where the Facebook-owned company could improve down the road.

His ideas and opinions on the six-month-old consumer version of the hardware were refreshing, honest and blunt. 

“Oculus Rift is heavy and it’s costly. They need to reduce the cost of it, and if that means sacrificing a few features that are incremental improvements, that’s what they need to do.” A harsh but absolutely true statement. 

What was more telling however, was McCauley’s take on the future of VR – one in which he believed that mobile phones might be more popular than big gaming rig-powered systems.

When asked what he thought about what the future is going to look like, McCauley said: “Oculus announced its sales numbers on Wednesday and it sold 5,000,000 Gear VR units. That’s very impressive. That’s a smash hit … it’s kind of looking like it’s mobile.” 

Interested in learning more about the future of VR according to one of its founding figures? You can watch the full four-minute interview with McCauley for yourself below.

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Nick Pino

Nick Pino is Managing Editor, TV and AV for TechRadar's sister site, Tom's Guide. Previously, he was the Senior Editor of Home Entertainment at TechRadar, covering TVs, headphones, speakers, video games, VR and streaming devices. He's also written for GamesRadar+, Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer and other outlets over the last decade, and he has a degree in computer science he's not using if anyone wants it.