There is a reason why the second-generation Gear VR headset hasn't dropped the “innovator edition” tag. Up till now Samsung and Oculus have positioned the virtual reality headset as more of an enthusiast device, or one that's meant for developers, they've never really targeted the headset directly towards consumers. That's going to change later this year. On stage at the GDC today Oculus CTO John Carmack revealed that the Gear VR is going to get a full scale consumer launch with Samsung's next hardware cycle, which means the company is going to spend a big chunk out of its marketing budget to get average consumers to buy the Gear VR.
Carmack pointed out that he couldn't talk about unreleased Samsung devices and thus wouldn't clearly say when Samsung's next hardware cycle will take place. However we know very well that Samsung makes major mobile device announcements twice a year, once at Mobile World Congress and once at the IFA conference in the fall, we're done with MWC 2015 but IFA 2015 is still a long way to go. At the event Samsung's Galaxy Note lineup will receive an update so it is highly likely that the full scale consumer launch of the Gear VR will come then.
