Oculus Says Rift May Not Launch in 2015, But Nothing Has Gone Horribly Wrong

Oculus founder and inventor of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset Palmer Luckey previously said that something would have to go "horribly wrong" to prevent the device from an official launch in 2015. Three months into the year, we still don't have a release date.

Did something go horribly wrong? Luckey answered the question while speaking at a SXSW panel.

"I did say that before we made a lot of changes to our roadmap and we've expanded a lot of the ambition we had around the product and what we wanted to do," Luckey said. "Us partnering with Facebook allowed us a lot of things that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise like hire 300 people to be working on getting the Rift out as quickly as possible at the level we want it.

"I can't comment on the date one way or another in either direction but I can say that nothing is going horribly wrong. Everything is going horribly right."

Luckey commented on whether he feels more pressure to release the Oculus Rift now that Sony and Valve have announced that they will release their own virtual reality headsets in 2016 and 2015 respectively.

Luckey said that it doesn't add more pressure because there "couldn't possibly be more pressure anyway," and that Oculus wants to launch the Rift as soon as possible, but without comprises.

"I do still think that it will be [the best VR headset at any price]," he said. "That could change because that means that there's something even better out there, but I think that's unlikely right now."

You can watch the SXSW panel in the archived Twitch stream above.