Slashdot Mirror
Oculus Cuts Price On Rift Goggles and Touch Controllers (usatoday.com)
Oculus said Wednesday it is cutting the price of its Rift headset and Touch motion controllers by $100 each, dropping the cost of a complete system to $598. From a report: The Rift and Touch combination will drop to $598 from $799, or roughly $100 off each piece of high-end hardware. The discount applies even if the devices are purchased separately. Earlier this week, Oculus announced it was expanding its gaming content selection by eight titles. Brendan Iribe, who heads up the Oculus PC/VR group, refutes the notion that the price slash is in response to slow sales. "VR is a whole new platform and medium, it's the first time people are putting a computer on their head," Iribe, 37, told USA TODAY at the Game Developers Conference here. "We are cutting the price to bring VR to more people, and that's always been our goal."
Running on VC money. Cash flow isn't the issue. They are grabbing market, or at least trying.
Hopefully they are over trying to own the market. Their API has been subsumed by SteamVRs. For devs, the choice is Oculus or Vive and Oculus. I don't see any reason any dev would choose Oculus only.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If this is trying, it's not trying hard enough. The Playstation VR is arguably the best from this generation -- it's certainly far and away the best selling -- and yet it can be bought with camera and motion controllers for $500 list. (And even bought separately, it comes to only $530.) Oculus is still overpriced by about 60% with its new $800 list price.
Oculus is still overpriced by about 20% with its new $600 list price.
FTFY.
Rift offers better resolution, better frame rate, better tracking, and better controllers for the extra money, though the PSVR is a little more comfortable. But a $100 price disparity is likely small enough that the user's preferred games & gaming platform (PC or PS4) matters more. Certainly the cheaper prices of Steam games will quickly make up the difference.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
>> The Playstation VR is arguably the best from this generation
By what metric? If just by # of users then OK, but as a VR experience it sucks compared to Rift/Vive.
>> Oculus is still overpriced by about 60% with its new $800 list price.
I think you're confused about the pricing, Vive is $799, Rift including Touch is now $598.
You're joking, right? 99% of the population would never watch one of these competitions in the first place. the 1% who might actually watch one, coincidentally enough, are typically going to be the same folks who would buy a VR rig solely for the geek value. VR competitions would not change VR adoption even slightly.
I have tried all three side-by-side myself within the last two months. The Vive and Rift have a slight resolution advantage, yes, but it's nowhere near what it's been made out to be. The PSVR was far and away the most comfortable, which given that you *have* to wear it to use it is pretty critical. Plus you need the market to support it with software, which is likely with Sony's sales volumes, but quite a lot less likely with Oculus or HTC's sales volumes. Oh, and you're right. I misread the price in the summary as I was rushing to post before I walked out the door. So yes, it's $600 versus $500, or 20% too expensive.
5K per eye? You can't even run twin 4K on one videocard. What you're asking isn't feasible with current technology at consumer-grade cost.
You might as well be seriously complaining "Why don't we all have flying cars yet?!"