Oculus Rift Now Available For Pre-Order For $599, Will Ship In April

[Alec Mowat]

The Canadian dollar is just killing me, and it's the main reason I won't prepurchase. It's not worth the investment.

It's hard to justify that much money when the economy is so shacky this week.

 

[killerchickens]

I really want to try a vr headset before dropping $600 on one.

 

[clonazepam]

Q. What kind of 3D support can we expect for traditional, non-VR games? If I want to play Overwatch or Heroes of the Storm or Counterstrike on my Rift, can I use it as a dummy 3D display? If not, why?

A. This may be enabled via 3rd party applications, but it isn’t something we’re focused on for Rift launch.

From PL's ama on reddit. I'm really not sure if I want to really geek out and try to get even a portion of my library up and running in VR.

Another thing noted is that your Oculus name (their forum / store) will be accessible to game developers for use in multiplayer titles. That, coupled with having their own digital distribution for Rift and Gear VR "apps" sounds like yet another Steam, Uplay, Origin -like.

 

[uglyduckling81]

I bought the Gear VR since it's only AU$180 and I already owned an S6. VR is fairly amazing. I'm excited to do it properly on PC in the future but I'll wait at least until Gen 2 stuff is out before diving into more expensive options.
I put a 3D dinosaur on for my 3 year old. He was so funny. He loves dinosaurs. He was trying to pat it, then he realised he couldn't see his arms. He had to take the head set off just to make sure his arms were still there. Now he constantly asks me if he can look at the dinosaur some more.

 

[kancaras]

Oculus just broke their own preorders to get more hype from media. I wonder what their stocks trade at. Should fall soon, lol.

 

[eldragon0]

Hello Oculus fanbois, please stop bitching about the price. If it's too expensive for you wait a few years, if not enjoy it. 350 was their "target" never the set price. Quit being butt-hurt, it's pathetic.

 

[cats_Paw]

Anyone who is surprised needs a reality check.
1st, its pre-orders because its not even done yet.
2nd, its pre-orders because they want to cash in before negative reviews can come out.
3rd, the price is as high as the company thinks people will pay. (Facebook bought this for 2 billion, they expect a return on their investment... kickstarter supporters be damned).
4th, the Xbox controller is a deal with microsoft, you can count on that.

Is that because fecebook=evil? No
It is because it makes sense from a business perspective.

 

[yorugman]

The price isn't too high. Computer hardware has become so disposable lately, we need to support these kinds of companies that are making premium products.

"need" to support a kind of company that received 2 billion dollars from Facebook?
.....Or didn't you hear about that.

 

[yorugman]

(double-post - no edit function Tom's?)
To those who are shocked over the price - welcome to 1st generation tech. No, wait, the first release of first generation tech.
Be wary.

 

[DrakeFS]

Hello Oculus fanbois, please stop bitching about the price. If it's too expensive for you wait a few years, if not enjoy it. 350 was their "target" never the set price. Quit being butt-hurt, it's pathetic.

Missing your target by nearly ~60% is a pretty bad miss. That being said, once that have a controller free option, I will purchase a kit.

 

[Wrought]

The Vive will be more expensive, probably $699-850. Of the two options, though, I think the Vive has the best shot at being worth the price. If Vive matches the price of the Rift, it's a no-brainer.

 

[clonazepam]

The total price for the Oculus experience is at least $900, considering the Touch isn't available yet and that's rumored to be about $300ish. Since the xbox elite is around $150, that makes sense. Overall, that's a reasonable price for the hardware.

If they were sourcing the Touch from the same manufacturer as the xbox one controller (hey, its free of charge with Oculus), lets hope some key components are made of metal, or those $300 virtual reality controllers will drift within a month to a year.

I suspect the Touch wasn't included to keep the price at $600 for pre-order, but also because its possible the Touch controllers may have a separate warranty, like 90 days. I'd assume 1 year for the Rift (laugh) and 90 days for the Touch.

He said product life cycle is like cell phones or game consoles, but more like cell phones. I imagine they'd want to get newer, higher resolution screens out asap. They need that and a higher field of view.

 

[flybri]

Hello Oculus fanbois, please stop bitching about the price. If it's too expensive for you wait a few years, if not enjoy it. 350 was their "target" never the set price. Quit being butt-hurt, it's pathetic.

Missing your target by nearly ~60% is a pretty bad miss. That being said, once that have a controller free option, I will purchase a kit.

Having a controller free option will probably save you like $30 at most. Yes, it'd be nice to still have that option, but if you're already paying near $600 for the Rift, it's not that big of a deal.

 

[flybri]

Honestly, anyone who thought the Oculus Rift was going to be anything less than $500 was fantasizing. I understand it -- many people want to be able to afford new, cutting edge hardware like the Rift, but if you look at the whole VR market and hardware realistically, you wouldn't come to any other conclusion other that the Oculus Rift would be $500 or more. Getting upset about it, blaming Oculus, etc. though because you feel it's too expensive and/or because you can't afford it is ridiculous. VR isn't anywhere close to a mature market yet, so expect limited software and expensive hardware for a little while until the tech is more developed, there are more competitors, etc. Sorry to be blunt, but have to bring people back to reality here.

 

[alidan]

Honestly, anyone who thought the Oculus Rift was going to be anything less than $500 was fantasizing. I understand it -- many people want to be able to afford new, cutting edge hardware like the Rift, but if you look at the whole VR market and hardware realistically, you wouldn't come to any other conclusion other that the Oculus Rift would be $500 or more. Getting upset about it, blaming Oculus, etc. though because you feel it's too expensive and/or because you can't afford it is ridiculous. VR isn't anywhere close to a mature market yet, so expect limited software and expensive hardware for a little while until the tech is more developed, there are more competitors, etc. Sorry to be blunt, but have to bring people back to reality here.

the devkits were either 350 or 400$ and those were low run devices which would have costed more because no real consumer bulk purchases, and at the very least dev kit 1 and possibly dev kit 2, i don't know the production time and aquisition, were not able to be made at proffit, they would have needed to be made at cost. at the very least.

i found out rift said that they stopped worying about cost, and started to only focus on quality, personally for first run i would have prefered them focusing on cost to get the units out there than focus on quality subsequent runs.

 

[jasonelmore]

I do find it weird that the kit comes with a controller. They should have saved some money and had a no-controller kit. $600 is too steep for me to preorder, will have to wait for reviews and a kit without the controller. If this is a wireless XBOne controller, it is only compatible with Win 10.

Nope, Microsoft reversed course on that decision and windows 7 and windows 8 fully support the xbox one controller now, with official drivers.

 

[KastaRules]

I can't undertsand the huge price difference between Dollars and Euros. I assume that if I pay 700 euros (+ shipping) I don’t have to pay import fees and VAT once it goes through the customs, right?

Otherwise it would get in the $1000+ range and that would be just ridiculous. At that point I'd never buy one just out of principle.

I might even consider getting one if the fees are already taken care of. Still, if we were allowed to pay the American price for it and cover the import fees and VAT on our own, it would be cheaper.

 

[Tyler_40]

Many of "whom."