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The consumer version of the Oculus Rift is now available for pre-order at $599 (USD).

Units are expected to start shipping in April 2016 and each unit comes with the Oculus Rift headset, a wireless Xbox One controller and two games - Lucky's Tale and EVE: Valkyrie. The much touted Oculus Touch controllers will be sold separately at a later date.

What do you think of the price? Are you jumping into the Oculus Rift or waiting to see what the other companies, such as Sony and HTC have in store with their own versions of VR? Or are you simply not interested? Let us know in the comments below.

Source (official site)

 

[Sheimi]

$600

Could get me food, beer, gas money. I won't buy it because I don't need it and its priced very high.

 

[Yil]

$600

Could get me food, beer, gas money. I won't buy it because I don't need it and its priced very high.

Not to be racist but most games in Japan does not need ps3's full power to reach its maximum visual which is why the shift moves to the west, but slowly forget about quality, content and replay-value. That was why indie are becoming more of a thing.
Then f2p came and the entire japanese market get corrupted.
I'd better work on dream maker than on games

 

[nando]

the price doesn't even include a console to play it on?

 

[Yil]

the price doesn't even include a console to play it on?

Nah, the gpu would cost the same as that. Wait for amd's new polaris line.

 

[Xzi]

To be honest, I haven't and I couldn't care less - it just doesn't interest me, just like 4K doesn't. I'll go VR/4K when it's dirt cheap, and I've done so before with HD, completely skipping the whole "720p HD-Ready" era, saving a pretty penny on not one but two TV sets I would've bought if I wanted to be on the highly experimental and overpriced "cutting edge". It is absolutely fair to have this kind of approach because early adopters *do* cover development costs in addition to the actual price of a unit and the mark-up. I'm not going to be one of those early adopters because I have no faith in this technology, plus I'm not interested in buying something that currently has no competition on the market because you just know you're getting ripped off in those scenarios. Once the competition releases equivalent hardware, prices will start to drop and that'll be the time to even start considering an investment like this.

The price for entry to VR is almost certainly always going to be high, because the hardware requirements will continue to go up as GPU and HMD tech improves. Surely there will be a "leveling off" point of sorts, but I wouldn't expect that to come for at least 3-5 years.

OTOH the price of the initial releases like the CV1 here will go down as newer and more improved headsets release. It's still a matter of having the PC hardware needed to run it, though, and that's going to stay expensive for a good while too.

 

[Yil]

The price for entry to VR is almost certainly always going to be high, because the hardware requirements will continue to go up as GPU and HMD tech improves. Surely there will be a "leveling off" point of sorts, but I wouldn't expect that to come for at least 3-5 years.

OTOH the price of the initial releases like the CV1 here will go down as newer and more improved headsets release. It's still a matter of having the PC hardware needed to run it, though, and that's going to stay expensive for a good while too.

Entry class gtx/r9 and smartphone with cardboard will do.

 

[Xzi]

Entry class gtx/r9 and smartphone with cardboard will do.

Well those are two separate experiences. PC VR is obviously a lot more high-end. Google cardboard isn't going to look even 1/3rd as good, nor is it near as comfortable. And it's not just a GPU we're talking about here...a whole lot of people don't have the CPU to run the Rift, either.

 

[Yil]

Well those are two separate experiences. PC VR is obviously a lot more high-end. Google cardboard isn't going to look even 1/3rd as good, nor is it near as comfortable. And it's not just a GPU we're talking about here...a whole lot of people don't have the CPU to run the Rift, either.

There are ways you can use smartphone as display with gyro.

 

[zoogie]

We paid $599 for the ultra revolutionary experience the um ... PS3 was, so I don't see why it's not a fair price for this fap simulator game platform.

 

[Xzi]

There are ways you can use smartphone as display with gyro.

You mean output your PC's display to the smartphone? Hadn't heard that before, that's pretty cool. Still won't look near as good as a dual display built specifically for VR, but a good less-expensive solution none the less.

We paid $599 for the ultra revolutionary experience the um ... PS3 was, so I don't see why it's not a fair price for this fap simulator game platform.

Yes, the components themselves are darn near $600 to manufacture. It's not an outrageous price for something that requires an expensive PC anyway ($900+ at a minimum). People are clearly willing to pay what they're asking, since the initial batch of Rifts sold out 14 minutes after the pre-order went live.

 

[3DSPoet]

Just to play devil's advocate a bit, the Galaxy S6 was $600 when it came out..and it's just a silly phone! (Though I'm sure it runs Google VR like a boss!..my S4 does a pretty good job!)

 

[Foxi4]

The price for entry to VR is almost certainly always going to be high, because the hardware requirements will continue to go up as GPU and HMD tech improves. Surely there will be a "leveling off" point of sorts, but I wouldn't expect that to come for at least 3-5 years.

OTOH the price of the initial releases like the CV1 here will go down as newer and more improved headsets release. It's still a matter of having the PC hardware needed to run it, though, and that's going to stay expensive for a good while too.

I disagree. Even the facts that at some point the manufacturing costs will drop and the engineering costs will be paid off alone means that the price will drop significantly. That, and improved future headsets won't necessarily mean that the prices will plateau or rise - it's still the same technology, you're just changing the screens to higher resolution ones. The prices of GPU's have nothing to do with entry point VR set prices simply because VR companies are not selling GPU's - a GPU is something you have to own either way.

 

[Margen67]

the price doesn't even include a console to play it on?

>console
>vr
sure
http://ps4daily.com/2015/03/ps4-vr-headset-120-fps/

 

[RikuKawai]

Expensive for me, waiting for sony as i have ps4

That's barely gonna work, the question is, will it have any games?
Sony wants developers to shoot for 90FPS with a 60FPS minimum at 1080p, the PS4 barely maintains 30FPS at 720p in most games so even with the coprocessor how are they gonna pull it off?

And don't say optimization, it doesn't work like that.

 

[Xzi]

That's barely gonna work, the question is, will it have any games?
Sony wants developers to shoot for 90FPS with a 60FPS minimum at 1080p, the PS4 barely maintains 30FPS at 720p in most games so even with the coprocessor how are they gonna pull it off?

And don't say optimization, it doesn't work like that.

The games developed for VR have to be significantly less advanced, graphically. VR requires 7x the rendering/computing power for gaming.

I don't see the PS4 VR market getting a whole lot of traction, though, since we've already got PC VR (high-end) and mobile VR (low-end), and for both of those markets the platform is a lot more open to developers. Especially if there's any truth to the rumors that PS4 VR costs $800. :0

 

[Yil]

That's barely gonna work, the question is, will it have any games?
Sony wants developers to shoot for 90FPS with a 60FPS minimum at 1080p, the PS4 barely maintains 30FPS at 720p in most games so even with the coprocessor how are they gonna pull it off?

And don't say optimization, it doesn't work like that.

No but with proper api nvidia are easily out classed.

 

[Margen67]

No but with proper api nvidia are easily out classed.

"APIs" "drivers" and other buzzwords aren't going to make console hardware any less underpowered.
The problem isn't the "optimization" or whatever nonsense you think it is.
It's the hardware. You can't polish a turd.

 

[jamsplodge]

I ordered one. Told myself it was too expensive and that I was angry with being lied to about the price. Then I ordered one anyway. I am weak.

 

[RemixDeluxe]

1. Why is the consumer version more expensive than the developer kits, isn't it usually the other way around with extra specs and applications to work with?

2. Why is this being shoehorned with a controller that most like everyone already owns or does not need/want? The games included are nice too but I'm really bothered by how tacked on it is to this bundle and inflating the cost more than nessesary.

I'll get it when it comes bundled with the touch controllers instead, a price drop would help too.

 

[Yil]

"APIs" "drivers" and other buzzwords aren't going to make console hardware any less underpowered.
The problem isn't the "optimization" or whatever nonsense you think it is.
It's the hardware. You can't polish a turd.

While if you sink into the experience you will not need super good graphic.