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.

OculusRift2

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.

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About the Author

Josh Griffiths

Josh Griffiths is a writer and amateur historian. He has a passion for 3D platformers, narrative-driven games, and books. Josh is also Cliqist’s video producer. He’s currently working on his first novel, and will be doing so on and off for the next decade.

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