Three years after its massively successful Kickstarter campaign, and two years after its purchase by Facebook, we finally know how much the Oculus Rift will cost.
Facebook opened up pre-orders today for the VR headset, and the price isn’t cheap. The “next big thing” in gaming will cost you a whopping $600. Experts were expecting the device to be on the pricey side, but I don’t think anyone was expecting that. The number brings to mind a certain E3 event when a certain gaming console was announced and priced.
There is some good news, if you can call it that. You won’t have to pay for the order up front, only when the unit ships later this year. Customers will also get a free copy of EVE: Valkyrie, if you’re into that sort of thing.
In more good news, backers who backed the developer kit reward tiers will be getting the final product for free. You could look at that as the rich getting richer since the dev kit reward tier was only $300, but… actually that is kinda what’s happening, sorry.
I hate to play the part of Ms. Deborah E. Downer III, but I don’t see the Oculus succeeding at that high a price point. I especially don’t see it working with the Playstation VR rumored to be priced anywhere from $300 to $500, the Samsung Gear VR out at only $100, or the HTC Vive, which no one knows how much will cost to be fair. VR in general strikes me as an expensive sequel to the 3D rage a few years ago, and we all know how that turned out.
Still, we’re going to have to wait and see. What do you think of the Rift’s price? I’d be interesting in seeing how many people were interested in the Rift but are now turned off by the price.
599.99!!! You’ll get two jobs just to pay for it 😉
Hah, right? I was thinking of getting one because I think it’ll be great for strategy games. But yeah, that’s a lotta cash!
Hehe…The thing is VR is going to be a thing, just not now! For VR to have mainstream appeal, the price needs to be right, and it needs to be an independent device; not a peripheral that requires a gaming PC.
Totally agree. Maybe there just needs to be that one killer app that no one can live without. As of now I don’t think it exists.
You’re right. I don’t think the technology is there yet, from a pricing standpoint. It technically works, yes, but it costs so much to make it work it’s not really worth it I don’t think.
That is a pretty high price point. Of course, they could just be floating it out there to see the reaction then adjust it accordingly. Easier to come down, then add on I suppose?
Still at 600$ a pop, I suspect they are not going to be move any large amounts of headsets any time soon.
Great point! I’mm be curious how much it’s going for next Christmas, especially if the games are nothing but jump-scare horror games.
That could be, seeing as how they aren’t charging for pre-orders until after they’ve shipped. Still, I don’t see the price coming down any time soon.
To be fair, I don’t think anyone in the industry expected the Rift to be much cheaper than 600 bucks after Oculus started talking to developers and publishers in earnest. However, there are two more details that warrant a mention:
1. 600 dollars only buys you the basic setup. No room full of sensors, no nifty motion controllers.
2. Try changing the country on the pre-order page to anywhere in Europe, and the price jumps from USD 599 to EUR 699. Nice, eh?
Oh the joys of international commerce. And you’re right, they haven’t even announced the price for their motion controller yet.
Well, it gives me motion sickness. So, i don’t think i’ll spend any money on it. Like Ever.
I tried some VR prototype already, i almost throw up (or i did..i can’t remember..)
[…] Even With A High Price Tag, Oculus Rift Does Right by Kickstarter Backers […]
[…] CV1 units will be shipping out on March 28 to both pre-order folks and Kickstarter backers who previously paid for DK1 reward tiers. Excluding the Kickstarter bunch, those pre-orderers are quite an exclusive bunch. I say this […]
The good news isn’t that Oculus Rift is $600, the bad news is that you only need one less expensive product to unseat it.
[…] It was also known that a fair portion of the original Kickstarter backers would also receive their complimentary headsets alongside that of pre-order folks. The weekend before launch, Oculus co-creator Palmer Luckey […]