Oculus Rift could land on smartphones

The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is aiming to release in 2014 for PC, but developer Oculus VR has ambitions to bring the technology to other platforms down the road.

Speaking with Edge, CEO Brendan Iribe said the company has tested the technology with Kinect and Move, but the focus is really on PC and smartphones.

"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," he added. "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 explained that the Oculus Rift's 2014 date is loose because the company still has a number of design issues to resolve, including finalizing the form factor and eliminating motion blur, among other things.

Also in the interview, the executive said he expects--and welcomes--competition in the virtual reality space, because it will only drive innovation faster and further.

Oculus Rift headsets are currently available at $300 for development kits. Oculus VR recently secured $16 million in venture capital funding to "accelerate" development. No public release date for the headset has been announced.