Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research recently put out a pretty lengthy profile in VR and AR... Anyway, they have an estimate for the BoM Costs for each HMD
Oculus : $500
Vive : $400
PSVR : $350
I'm not willing to share the pdf or any more excerpts.
Hololens : $1500
Oculus : $500
Vive : $400
PSVR : $350
I'm not willing to share the pdf or any more excerpts.
Facebook Oculus Rift: This HMD is reported to be designed to adapt to Windows 10 PCs. We assume it will leverage the CPU of the host PC for primary processing. However, it is reported that Oculus Rift will have a built-in processor to compute head- tracking and positioning tracking. Whats special about Oculus Rift is its Constellation Positioning Tracker, which consists of at least 40 IR LEDs on the HMD and a standalone camera station. The mechanism of this tracking system is that the LEDs emit infrared intermittently and the camera station, which sits in a corner of the room, can sense detailed changes of IR light from the HMD. As the LEDs face different directions, not only can the users position in a room be measured but also the users orientation
HTC Vive: This is a discrete HMD co-developed by HTC (2498.TW) and Valve. Similar to Oculus Rift, HTC Vive is reported to target PC users as well. As it mainly targets gamers, it adopts slightly superior displays to Oculus Rift. However, we do not assume HTC Vive to have a built-in chip and SSD storage as it has a different position tracking system from Oculus Rift, which lowers its BoM cost a bit. We also assume that HTC Vives lenses system is slightly cheaper than Oculus Rift as it might not adopt adjustable dial design. The Lighthouse tracking system, developed by Valve, has an opposite mechanism to the Constellation Tracking System. While the Constellation system emits light from the HMD to a standalone camera, the Lighthouse emits light from two standalone base stations to a number of light sensors on the HMD
Sony PlayStation VR: Unlike Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, PlayStation VRs host system will be a PlayStation 4 game console. PlayStation VRs positioning tracker technology is based on a PS (PlayStation) camera and LED lights on the HMD. To improve the quality of input signal, Sony will separate the digital signal processing units into a PU (processor unit) box, which can fine tune the digital signal from the game console and send to the HMD and a TV. We assume PlayStation VR to have the lowest BoM cost among the three discrete HMD models. The main gap comes from the fact that it does not have an independent sophisticated positioning tracking system as it is likely to leverage a PS camera to do the job. Similarly, being bundled with PS4, PlayStation VR does not have to come with its own processing units, storage, battery and controllers. These together drive the cost down.
BoM Costs: Oculus has said that it is selling Rift at its BoM cost and we expect Sony and HTC to follow suit. That said, we believe the BoM for all three of these offerings can decrease as the products gain scale. We estimate an average HMD discrete BoM of $350- 500, with Oculus at $500 (excluding our estimate for the cost of an Xbox controller and 2 games that come in the current package), HTC Vive at $400, and PSVR at $350.
ASPs: As we expect vendors to sell discrete HMDs at no gross profit to drive product adoption, we assume ASPs in line with our BoM estimate at $350-500 which excludes accessories and games that come in the retail package.
Hololens : $1500
Microsoft HoloLens: The 3 major components in a HoloLens are processors, displays (micro projection systems) and cameras. First, Microsoft is reported to have adopted Intels most powerful CPU, Atom Cherry Trail, which has a 2.7GHz clock rate and supports wireless charging. GPUs and HPUs substantially increase the total cost mainly because the chips are so unique that Microsoft is unlikely to gain economies of scale in the short run. Second, for displays, Microsoft uses two HD micro projectors (one for each side of the glass) to keep the lenses transparent. Google adopted liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) display modules for Google Glass and Microsoft is reportedly using LCoS for HoloLens as well. Finally, HoloLens has at least 7 cameras to track the motion of the user and make sense of the surrounding environment.
BoM Costs: An integrated HMD typically has superior specs to consumer PCs or smart devices, which significantly increases the cost. For example, Microsofts yet to-be-released HoloLens would adopt three processing units, which together cost approximately $375 in our estimates. All-in, we estimate a BoM of $1,500.
ASPs: Taking HoloLens as a benchmark, we estimate integrated AR HMD models launched in 2016 would be priced at around $1,500.