22-year-old Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey has responded to his goofy Time magazine cover, which was promptly ridiculed with tweets and funny Photoshops following its reveal yesterday. Luckey told GameSpot today at Gamescom that he has no issue with the cover, and said he doesn't think the silly nature of the image will hurt virtual reality's mainstream appeal, as some have suggested.
"You know, not really," Luckey said when asked if he was surprised by the reaction to the magazine cover. "I don't get caught up in it too much. I think it's fun. I love the cover."
The kooky cover won't hurt virtual reality's perception among the mainstream audience because print magazines like Time magazine are fading in popularity and relevance, Luckey contends.
"People have said, 'Oh, this is going to set virtual reality back so far.' I'm like, are you guys really giving that much importance to an old-media cover?" he said. "It's insignificant in the scheme of this massive explosion in virtual reality's popularity. I love the cover; I think it's great."
We'll have more from our interview with Luckey in the days ahead.
Oculus VR is owned by social networking giant Facebook. Founder Mark Zuckerberg recently said he believes virtual reality will become the "next major computing and communication platform."
The first Oculus Rift consumer model is scheduled to launch in early 2016. Pricing has not been officially announced, but Oculus has said you should expect to pay around $1,500 for an "all-in" setup, which includes the headset (which comes with an Xbox One controller) and a capable gaming rig.
