I believe that quote was in reference to the Rift DK1, which had a 1280x800 full persistence, slow response panel but pretty poor panel utilization. The usable

I believe that quote was in reference to the Rift DK1, which had a 1280x800 full persistence, slow response panel but pretty poor panel utilization. The usable resolution per eye was something below 600x600. It was plausible to build a DK1-like headset in 2008. That is, something just good enough to show that compelling gaming content could be created for VR and that a device could be delivered at a consumer price point. Getting to an actual comfortable consumer-quality product would still have required solving for low-persistence, fast response, higher PPI, and positional tracking. We couldn’t have delivered that in 2008, but if we had DK1 in 2008, we could have pulled it in a few years from the consumer Rift launch in 2016.