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Oculus Rift Pre-orders Begin At $600 (oculus.com)
New submitter jerome writes: Pre-orders have just started for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. The $600 price tag is higher than most people were expecting — and that doesn't even account for the required upgrade needed to fully enjoy VR apps. "In September of 2014, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said to expect a $200 to $400 range for the Rift." The device will first begin shipping on March 28th, though the store is already showing an estimate of April for Rifts beyond the initial stock. "The Rift package also doesn't include the relatively powerful Windows PC that will be required to use the device. Oculus recommends a rig with an Nvidia GTX 970 (or equivalent), an Intel i5 processor, and at least 8GB of RAM." In February, they'll start taking pre-orders for a package that does include a full, "Oculus-ready" system for $1500.
You know, for my ass?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Sounds like Luckey really meant "$200 + $400 range" - I mean, small wording change and he was right on the money...
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Its a high end gaming screen. I paid $800 for my last monitor and it didnt have head tracking, 3d audio, etc....
when i'm sitting next to her at night with this thing on?
I was an initial Kickstarter backer, and they sent a message saying that backers that supported the project at the level of getting a dev kit are getting a final version for free as well (a "Kickstarter Edition", whatever that means - though in included the pack-in games).
This is a classy move and something they didn't have to do, but really shows some appreciation for those of us that helped launch the company high enough to attract Facebook...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
VR has been "emerging" for the last 20 years. Don't get me wrong - they seem to be finally to a point where they can make something a consumer would actually want to buy, it's not a brand new tech. As a matter of fact the only reason people might be willing to pay $600 is specifically because VR is starting to mature as a technology.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Twin fail.
Although to be honest once they announced they were halting support for Linux, I stopped being interested.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I think this price is too high. A VR helmet should not be a goal, but a means. VR games should be the goal. If you want VR to be a success, a VR helmet should be available for many people. $599 (for me it will be €699), is simply too much money for too many people. What they should have done is make the helmet relatively cheap and let game developers pay a small fee to have support for that helmet in their game. Or a business model comparable to those of 3D engines. So, you pay a big portion of the price of the helmet during the actual purchase of the helmet and pay the rest in small portions with every game you buy. That makes the helmet available for many people, which will make VR more interesting for game developers. Is seriously thing $599 is a missed chance.
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
Maybe it isn't targeted to the average person? Since the average person isn't likely to have the computer capable of running the thing in the first place.
With 2 billion dollars to purchase the company and who knows how much else invested into R&D, it has to be targeted at the average person just to break even. At $600 they will run out of money very soon and we can thank Facebook for killing Oculus. Maybe Valve/Steam will come up with something better.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Maybe they were hoping for the "iPhone effect", where people enter this reality distortion field and justify buying one no matter how much it costs. But Zuckerberg is learning he's not Steve Jobs.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
What's with the whining? This was never meant to be a console crowd device and it sure as hell isn't a Virtual Boy. This was targeting the PC gaming world where entry level systems start around $1500. Given the hardware packed into the Rift it's pretty hard to imagine it not costing that much. Luckey had a nice goal, but he probably should have crunched the numbers before spouting off.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Most people weren't about to buy Oculus even if it was $200 because they wouldn't have a PC powerful enough to run it so I'm really not sure your logic holds up; especially as it was pretty obvious it was never going to be aimed at the 'average person'. I doubt it's ever been likely its target at launch would be the average PC gamer. As for blaming Facebook, that seems like a massive uninformed leap. If anyone could afford to subsidise a loss making device it's them, so god knows why you'd expect it to be cheaper or last longer while losing money if they weren't owned by a major tech company.
The Oculus' price has nothing to do with GamerGate. Now if Kotaku came out praising the Oculus, and telling all gamers to play Depression Quest on it, you might have a point.
I remain skeptical that this will be anything but a niche product, anytime soon.
Apps will be severely limited by the motion sickness problem. Also, pretty much everyone with children are automatically ruled out unless they hire a baby sitter have a very tolerant significant other.
That said, Google Cardboard was the hit of all the parties I attended this holiday season. But only for about 5 minutes.
It had better be targeted to the average PC gamer at least, if they plan to make money. It is *just* a peripheral, and while I'm sure some people are content dropping $800 for a monitor, most gamers (going by the most popular monitors) are only willing to spend $150 for a big 1080p monitor, or $250 for a 144hz big 1080p monitor. The Rift's price point is 50% more than a PS4.
I'm sure they are going to sell some to boutique PC gamers (like the ones with two Titans and water cooling systems), but I have a hard time believing they are going to sell enough volume to cover their R&D costs at that price point.
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It's more than I expected (I was guessing ~$400), but I can't say that I am all that surprised or outraged. For a long time, the Oculus folks insisted that they were going to focus on making it good, not making it affordable. This makes sense, because VR technology has been around for decades, but nobody has really managed to make a GOOD VR set prior to the Oculus. Assuming the consumer version is in fact good, they can then focus on making it affordable. If you want affordable, there's always the cardboard VR sets to play with.
If they manage to succeed with making a good set, then VR will start to catch on and prices will fall for other good sets. I wouldn't be surprised if Oculus eventually releases different models to fulfill low and high end price points.
I also don't understand the outrage over the PC specs. The fact of the matter is that based on years of testing, it was determined that you really needed high resolution (i.e. 4k) to get rid of the screen door effect that has always been the bane of VR implementations. I wouldn't be surprised if 8k will be needed to really get rid of it. That takes a lot of computing horsepower and there just isn't any way around it.
There are a LOT of folks out there that have plenty of disposable income, where dropping a grand here or there isn't really that much of a second thought.
You see them every day, driving higher end cars, living in well to do neighborhoods and nice homes....and not struggling.
Not everyone flips burgers for minimum wage you know.
And if that's all you do, your time might be better spend doing what it takes to get a higher paying job than playing games and worrying about not being able to afford the latest and greatest luxury item toy....
Then there are the people like me, who (while married) live in a house affordable on 1 income, pay $125 a month to own a basic car rather than spend $300-$400 a month leasing a brand new high end car, and are actually able to save money instead of only being able to get by through using credit cards every month. There's a pretty big segment of the population like me that are perfectly willing to spend money, but you better give us a pretty good reason to do so. And the Rift right now does not provide that reason.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Two AMOLED screens binned for the best possible quality. The screens aside, there is a lot more to the thing. Its worth at least as much as a decent smart phone I would think.
I was talking to a friend about Oculus, Valve/HTC, and Sony; and we arrived at the decision that Oculus is probably going to get creamed in the VR industry. The main problem is that the unit is just too expensive and is coming to market way too close to other units that are coming. At $600, I may as well hold out and see what HTC and Sony have to offer here in 4-6 months when they come to market.
In the conversation, I also brought up the question of why didn't Oculus just take a loss on the first 10,000 units or so in order to bring the price down (I actually guessed that it would probably cost at least $600). As someone that was on the fence about buying a unit, $600 is just too much for me to spend when I know that in 6 months HTC or Sony will have their own unit out. The interesting revelation that me and my friend came to however, was the fact that HTC and Sony are in a better position to actually take a loss on their VR units compared to Oculus since they are actually backed by another platform that they can make money off of. To Sony and Valve, their VR unit is very similar to a game console, where they want to try and get as many adopters to buy into their system as possible so they can make money off of the games and peripherals that go along with it. So the smart thing for Sony and Valve to do now is to come out with a price now that is $200-$350 cheaper than the Rift, even if it means they have to take a loss on the first 10k units or so.
Personally I'll be holding out to see what HTC/Valve do since I want something that I know will work with the SteamVR SDK.
Well it's just a question of mathematics. Even if $600 was pure profit they would have to sell over 3 million units to recover the initial investment. Facebook exists in another reality distortion field, one where money comes easily. This was created by the banks that floated the IPO, and is maintained by Wall St. which for some reason values FB stock at incredible multiples. But in reality, money is not that easy to come by for average folks. And while Zuckerberg might have come into his billions quite easily, it's not all that easy to actually earn billions from a product.
I blame Facebook because they bought Oculus. Ultimately they are the ones reponsible.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Yeah. Divide 2 billion by $400 and see how many units they need to sell. BEFORE paying any costs. While some people can afford a $400-$600 toy, not everybody can. Especially when you need a pretty uber PC to actually run it, too.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
1080x1200 per eye is too low of a resolution? What do you want, 16K per eye?
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