Virtually a reality: Oculus Rift goes on sale for $599

Pre-orders are open ahead of March ship date for consumer version

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[Ars Moriendi]

Now to see what all the others come in at. I read today that sony is expecting a couple million of theirs to be sold this year, just have to wonder what the price point will be. Me, personally, cant see spending more than $350 on something like this at this point.

 

[SudoShinji]

I was all ready to preorder and try to be one of the first until I saw that price tag. I'll wait.

 

[eathdemon]

I was ready to pay up til 500, but no way in hell am I paying 600

 

[laitpojes]

I'm in!

Been waiting my whole life for something like this....*have* to try it out...

 

[FireWraith]

It's certainly too much for an impulse buy. For that sort of price tag, I want to know that it's going to be usable with the kind of games I want to play, and more importantly, how well it does so. For instance, can I use it in something like Fallout 4? And how well does it perform? For me at least, it needs to do more than just work with games specifically designed for it.

 

[The questioner]

I can have a little self-control and wait a couple of years for version 2.0 which should be cheaper and have better performance. In addition graphics card performance should improve and the games that support the oculus rift. I think there's a whole lot of "Win" for waiting!

 

[Benzyl]

I have a DK2 and for $350 it was a fun gizmo to play with. I have enjoyed the hours of Elite Dangerous and iRacing in VR, but I can't justify the price of CV1 especially since I will need a new graphics card and possibly new system to enjoy fully. I guess I wait and see what Sony can deliver on the PS4 and how much it will cost.

 

[monty845]

To join the chorus, $600 just seems too high. I would have probably gone for it at $350-400, maybe even $450, but $600, on top of upgrading my graphics card to support it? Really hard sell, particularly when there are competitors hitting the market soon... I really hope they aren't shooting the entire VR movement in the foot with this price point.

 

[dermott]

$500 was pretty much the "I NEED THIS RIGHT NOW" cutoff for me.
If it were <$400 I'd have probably bought and asked my wife to forgive me later.

$600? Yeah, not after building a 3 screen surround rig this time last year.

I appreciate that they don't want compromise in the hardware. That's great. But the expectation setting up to this event was crap. "It will cost more" than $350 hardware? Technically true! It's almost double...

 

[hubick]

It was $850 Canadian, plus $65 for shipping, making it $914, and that doesn't include taxes or duties, which it says it will add when it ships. I ordered, but damn.

I haven't actually even tried one yet, but I've been waiting for them to work out the kinks, and I'm super excited!

 

[PandaCheese]

And the site's already not working under all the load I imagine...keep getting "session expired" when checking out.

 

[IntergalacticWalrus]

So I guess non-Windows support is dead at this point?

Disappointed, but not surprised.

 

[TomXP411]

SudoShinji[/url]":1xcfvvo3]I was all ready to preorder and try to be one of the first until I saw that price tag. I'll wait.

Same here. I was expecting around $400, considering the DK's $350 price tag.

Ouch.

What do you want to bet these will be down to $400 by Christmas time?

 

[metalliqaz]

$600?? Hahaha, no. Coupled with a new video card, that's more than a $1000 investment just to play a restricted subset of PC video games. No way, man. No way.

The CEO knew what he was doing when he speculated that the price point would be around $350. He was just creating hype.

Smartphone-based headsets can be had for as little as $30 and they can be used anywhere with surprisingly good results. I'll stick to that.

 

[athan]

At this price, it became a wait and see.

If there's a PS4 "slim" or hardware refresh and sony's VR headset is reasonably priced, that might be enough to get me back on the console bandwagon. Graphics card anxiety at every new game announcement is stressful!

 

[TomXP411]

IntergalacticWalrus[/url]":34nusoby]So I guess non-Windows support is dead at this point?

Disappointed, but not surprised.

For the first gen product? Yes. Since Linux and Mac together make up less than 10% of the desktop computer market, it's a sensible move.

 

[Serrin]

You know when they refused to announce the price ahead of the launch I thought that was really weird and decided it must be priced at a ridiculous amount like 800 or something. Then they announced they were giving free ones to early backers so I thought "Oh maybe the reason they aren't announcing the price is because it's going to be surprisingly reasonable and they want the extra PR bump the surprisingly low price will give them."

Now... I just don't get it at all. Announcing the price ahead of time would have allowed some of the sticker shock to wear off and if they had announced it at the same time they announced the free ones for early backers it would have sort of given a balance to the news or at least distracted from it a little bit.

Honestly it almost feels like a cowardly act now in retrospect, like Luckey was afraid to announce the price so just didn't.

 

[solomonrex]

Compared to the first HDTVs or similar, this is nothing. I know it's not a self-contained unit, but plenty of people have gaming PCs. This seems reasonable to me.

 

[Cheezem4n]

Their site is having a meltdown. Been trying to order and it keeps erroring out "something went wrong". Tried with a CC and with PayPal. Just checked my back account and there's like 20x $1 pre-autorization transactions from the failed attempts... LOL. This will not go well with my bank...

 

[Got Nate?]

At this price, I'm going to wait until the VIVE ships and then decide. OculusVR just shot themselves in the foot.

 

[TomXP411]

monty845[/url]":3u4lcvlc]To join the chorus, $600 just seems too high. I would have probably gone for it at $350-400, maybe even $450, but $600, on top of upgrading my graphics card to support it? Really hard sell, particularly when there are competitors hitting the market soon... I really hope they aren't shooting the entire VR movement in the foot with this price point.

This is the early adopter price. It'll be down in the $400-500 range soon enough and probably $399 by Christmas time.

 

[MisterGrumps]

I'd have bought it regardless down around $350-400 but the $599 pricetag is making me wait to see what the competitors are bringing to the table. I'm still not sold on Oculus in general as I really want to see what Steam is working on, and that extra dough confirmed the wait for me.

 

[Vigilante1024]

300, easy. 400, sure. 500... Ok, I'll bite, grudgingly. But $600? Double what you originally hyped it at, half again the most recent predictions? No. Love to try it; can't do it.

 

[qchronod]

All I need is the headset and the camera. Could I shave $100 off if I give up the XB1 controller, 2 games (that I'd probably never play), carrying case, and cables?

Oh well, I wasn't planning on upgrading my 760 until later this year when the new GPUs came out, so I can hope that the price drops a little on this by then as well.

 

[pokrface]

FYI, it's $680-ish after $30-ish in shipping and $50-ish in tax (if applicable—I'm in TX and had to pay sales tax, but Ken is in MA and didn't get hit with sales tax).

My order came to $680.89. So for anyone having to pay tax, it's not a $600 product—it's essentially an almost-$700 product.

 

[TomXP411]

Got Nate?[/url]":w8mky4kd]At this price, I'm going to wait until the VIVE ships and then decide. OculusVR just shot themselves in the foot.

Considering the fact that they will sell out of pre-orders at this point, I doubt it. This is the early adopter price.

Just like the first iPhone was like $800, and Apple had lines out the store and down the street, this will be the same. Oculus is just making their R&D money back right now, and I'm certain the price will come down fast as competitors enter the market.

 

[Serrin]

Also, I have to pay shipping too? Really?!

 

[Flit]

They really, really hurt themselves pricing the DK2 at $350. That AMA today is going to have to do a lot of explaining of why CV1 has come in at nearly double the price, when people like Lee say that DK2 is "good enough" to be an enjoyable experience.

I'm starting to think that the controllers are partially getting removed from the initial release to help with the sticker shock.

HTC's/Valves move...

 

[lewax00]

Well, I have the rig to support it, but since I'm about to start a mineral oil cooling side project I definitely do not have the funds for this right now. Oh well.

Also, $30 in shipping? That's ludicrous.

 

[gijames1225]

Interesting, I thought that with the Facebook backing they would release the product at cost or even a loss for the first gen to help adoption, but that's obviously not the case.

 

[ElectricBlue]

No thanks, I'm going to wait for the new Nvidia cards anyway so no problem

 

[greatn]

Five hundred ninety nine US dollars?

But does it play ridge racer? Remember that one? Riiiidge Raceeer!

 

[tim1_2]

I don't get why people are so put off by the price tag. This is an innovation in what is going to take gaming to the next level. Nvidia will release the next flagship video card at this price and no one will blink. But someone comes out with the first viable, mass marketed VR headset and people freak out at the $600 price tag?

I certainly am not getting one until the kinks have been ironed out and more games support it a little better, but man...this is a revolution, not just a little step forward.

 

[EmeraldArcana]

Even though it's expensive and is way into "try before you buy", I bet that these will sell like hotcakes, and that by November 2016, they're going to have a hard time keeping up with demand.

 

[Papageno]

Too rich for my blood, plus my PC would pretty much need a new motherboard, CPU and video card. 1200 bucks later...

 

[dermott]

Pokrface[/url]":3kvfsu9t]FYI, it's $680-ish after $30-ish in shipping and $50-ish in tax (if applicable—I'm in TX and had to pay sales tax, but Ken is in MA and didn't get hit with sales tax).

My order came to $680.89. So for anyone having to pay tax, it's not a $600 product—it's essentially an almost-$700 product.

So, full review + E experience in March after these ship, right?

 

[sty]

$599 is nowhere near 'in the ballpark of DK2 $350'.

For me, it was 83800JPY without shipping yet. I wouldn't have to pay taxes because Japanese customs is like a sieve and nothing ever gets stopped... but 84k JPY is $704.

I'll wait for the Christmas sales.

 

[TenderBabyMeat]

$450 would have had my preorder. But as much as it pains me to have to wait, $600 means I wait and see what VIVE brings. I'm not saying this isn't a $600 product, but it is untested, unreviewed, and all too soon not alone in the market. I think this pricepoint opens the door for Valve to make a huge move come April.

Sadly, this just became a wait and see situation for me.