Jordan O'BrienAlready purchased a Nokia OZO? Well, those who have were seriously overcharged, with Nokia now dropping the price of its VR camera by $15,000. The former phone manufacturer announced the price drop ahead of the camera’s official release in China, which will occur in October 2016.
Nokia claims the OZO is the world’s first VR camera for professional content creators; going head-to-head with other VR camera manufacturers, such as Jaunt and even Facebook. It’s unlikely many people purchased the camera for the original $60,000 asking price, with Disney and UEFA two early adopters picking one up – but the permanent price cut to $45,000 in the US and €40,000 in Europe should help spur demand for the VR camera.
Further helping to spur that demand will be the Nokia OZO’s launch in China in October. Ramzi Haidamus, president of Nokia Technologies, notes: “We see tremendous potential for OZO in China, an exciting market with immense growth opportunities for VR and OZO. There’s a genuine hunger among consumers for more immersive, high quality and professionally produced entertainment.
“As a single-body camera giving content professionals a simple way to produce compelling content for their audiences, OZO is tailor made to fill a very important gap.”
In conjunction with the China launch, Nokia also announced a partnership with LeVR – the VR division of LeEco, one of the largest online video companies in China – to distribute OZO content. LeVR intends to deploy OZO VR solutions on its platform.
“OZO was developed with content creators in mind and to ensure little or no disruption to their process, thus allowing them to fully explore the creative artistry, immersive storytelling and new broadcast experiences possible with this exciting new platform,” adds Ramzi. “In less than a year, we have expanded the sales footprint for OZO and our software suite worldwide, and continuously received positive feedback from our professional customers and their own customers as well.”