Oculus Rift is $599

lol...

With this price, I don't think it will have even a 0,01% adoption rate.

I prefer buying a 4K TV or monitor than this...

I'll never understand this attitude. This is brand new tech. Did you go out and pick up a $8000 32" flat screen TV when they first came out?

Did you bemoan the price and insist that the technology was dead, and that market penetration would only ever be .01%?

You probably did, and yet everyone owns a god damn flat screen TV now a days.

Prices will come down, technology will improve. In 3 years a good headset and a good PC to drive it will cost 30% less. In 5, 50% less - and the tech will be even better.

That's how technology works, that's how almost ALL consumer technology has always worked.

Honestly, it's like some of you live under rocks.

LOL, no thanks, I'd pick up 980Ti instead.

I might get it...though I am leaning towards Vive at the moment. I'm really interested in the technology and $600 isn't a huge chunk of change for me for something like this.

Because $599 is retarded and no one will buy it at that price. They first mentioned a price of $350. Now it's dead before it even releases. You're comparing apples and oranges, $8,000 TV's were not marketed towards the average consumer like the Oculus Rift was. The Rift is double the price they first gave us...that should explain "lol".

i agree

When I looked at the expected ship date earlier today for pre-orders it was March 2016, now it's May 2016...something tells me it's selling just fine.

They could have had a stock of 25 for all you know, which they probably did. Also you don't have to pay a penny to preorder so it's not "selling" at all.

@saintsatan: The first release date was March, if they pushed it back it's not stock they are worried about fulfilling it's manufacturing capacity. Yeah, they had 25 units lol...what a joke. They may have priced it out of your spending range but there's tons of people who can afford it...this is extremely common in early adoption for new devices.

Yeah...so out of my price range.

I just don't want to waste $600 on something that I will have little to no support a year or two from now, especially when much more advanced VR like the HTC Vive is three months away. For $600 I could have a nice 4k monitor or a 980ti rather than wear that on my head all day. Maybe if it was the price they first claimed ($350). Rift will end up like 3D screens, all hype and then completely forgotten.

Whatever, doesn't matter, fact is you are wrong. You can come up with all sorts of things you personally would rather buy but the fact of the matter is it is selling.

The price does come with a bit of sticker shock, for sure. I got my order in on the March shipping batch, partially because I was sitting on the page hitting refresh. Since the price was up in the air I had $500 already earmarked for this. I am a bit surprised that this price does not include the Touch. I was figuring that Oculus CV1 plus Touch would run about 600-700 combined.

-Byshop

@Renevent42: The only thing wrong is them selling it for double the price they first mentioned. And again, it's not selling. They haven't made a penny. It cost $0.00 to preorder it. They don't charge people until March. Anyone can put in their info to hold a preorder. They haven't not sold a single one.

The price point is irrelevant to the argument, that's what you are salty about of course but has nothing to do with if it's selling or not. It is selling, if someone cancels their pre-order that's a different story but as of today tons of people are pre-ordering the device at the current listed price point regardless of when they will collect.

Nice trying to move the goal posts, though. First they aren't selling, then when that's shown to be false then it's just they have 25 units in stock, and when that stupid argument is also shown for what it is now it's only that it's a pre-order.

Obviously people are putting in pre-orders. There's no way to know how many unless Oculus tells us but considering the original KS had over 9,500 backers I think it's fair to say that there's some interest out there. Yes, people can cancel their pre-orders between now and March but you can't place a pre-order without putting down a payment method. I doubt there are a ton of people placing pre-orders with the intention of cancelling when they potentially have to shell out over $600 if they don't cancel the order in time.

The logic that they are "not selling" doesn't really make much sense because if you aren't including a pre-order as a sale then that means they aren't technically for sale yet. Not for sale and "not selling" are two wildly different things.

-Byshop

Will this go down the same as 3D monitors did?

Stay tuned....

For sure. Oculus Rift isn't comfortable to wear for extended periods of time and the novelty wears off in about an hour. That with fairly limited support, high requirements, and sky high price....RIP.

I will admit that I was excited until I saw the price. If it came with the touch controllers, it would be easier to accept. I am still not convinced on the quality of the device either. I don't want to pay that much and then be disappointed with some flaws that will be worked out in later revisions. I know it is an early adopter product, but I am not convinced that I want to jump on board at that price.

@Kinthalis: Flat screens caught on because everyone already had TVs and flat screens were a logical UPGRADE.

The prices dropped over time because manufacturers had a legit reason for dropping the price.

In VRs case its entire future is based off of it initial install base. If a new TV comes out and doesn't sell it doesn't matter. The price will edge down and all losses will be made up eventually.

You remember when TVs FIRST came out? People actually rented sets rather than buy them which drove demand up and increased the rate of uptake.

If VR doesn't sell well, developers won't make games for it, which means people will stop buying them and it will die. The only way VR will take off in that case is if Oculus, Valve and Sony are willing to play the long game, absorb all of the inevitable losses they will take after that point and drop the price far enough for them to actually sell and encourage games to be made. Which I don't think any of them have the revenue for right now.

F*cking Sony can't even support their own handheld.

At this price I don't think the uptake will be enough to drive prices down and development up. I will hold my hands up if I am wrong but if Oculus are selling it at $600 and are making no profit at that price I don't think there is any wiggle room. By the time these have dropped in price enough developers will already have moved on.

I'll let you guys know how it is when I get it.

-Byshop

Way too expensive for what is ultimately a gimmick with very little current support. I mean yeah it would be cool to have, but it's way outside of my price range and I'm willing to bet most other people's price range as well. You can get a top of the line GPU or monitor for that price.

Way too expensive. VR looks interesting to me so I hope it can survive was is bound to be a low adoption rate.

There are still two other VR solutions coming out this year. It's quite possible that neither of them will be as expensive as the Oculus (even likely, I'd say).

-Byshop

I have no problem paying $600 for something like this if it's a high quality device. Unfortunately, I know that most people wouldn't even pay $300 for something like this. And since most people wouldn't pay $600 for this - most developers would laugh at the idea of sinking their man hours into supporting something that 1% (or less) of PC gamers use. What's the point? I haven't been knocking VR just for the sake of being an asshole. Conceptually, it's far fetched and obviously will not be mainstream any time soon. As much as I appreciate for some sort of technological push forward, I don't think that warrants blindly supporting everything that sounds like a good idea on paper like a lot of VR users have been doing. Given the context of what's technologically capable given certain price points, Oculus nor its competitors make a ton of sense right now. I can see it making sense in the near future, but right now the VR race just seems silly. Seems less about what makes sense now for consumers and seems to be more about posturing and establishing brand identity for these companies involved in VR.

I wouldn't say that. At the moment, the HTC Vive is looking to be the most expensive of the lot...

I think the Vive will probably cost more. I can see PSVR going for $450 or $500. I don't give a shit about PSVR though. I want a good PC solution.

Here's a hilarious quote from the maker of the Oculus Rift from two years ago. The irony...

Personally I'd wait a couple months to at the very least see the price of the HTC Vive. I think it's a bit silly to adopt one this early. If the Vive is around the same price as the Rift I'd take the Vive without question. It will no doubt have far better support and features.

@saintsatan: When you are owned by Facebook, I don't think budget is a concern. It is far too early to talk about support and features also. I would actually say Oculus has more support right now just because more developers have access to it.

Where does the Microsoft Holo-Lens fit into all this?

@FelipeInside: It doesn't really. AR is different tech. It will have cool uses for interacting with the real world, but it won't fully transport you into new worlds like VR can. Holo-Lens isn't really targeted at gaming. It is like a much more advanced Google Glass.

Yeah that's true. Forgot Facebook bought them out. I'd still trust Valve and HTC more.

I think the Oculus Rift is the one I would probably buy right now. It is supported on the games that I am most excited to play in VR. Project Cars, Assetto Corsa, and Dirt Rally. Vive seems to really be focusing their experiences on the room scale. Oculus has shown that this also works with the touch controllers and the extra sensor. However, I am not so interested in room scale as it just seems like more of a gimmick. You are restricted by the space in the real world. You will not be able to freely roam around in a game like Fallout 4 with this setup. This will require an Omni treadmill type setup which is not ideal. You won't be able to dive, jump, roll and shit. So yea... I still think VR is best used for cockpit style games. There can be some neat room scale type games, but VR isn't there yet when it comes to traditional open world games. I still think those are best played on a regular screen.

"Update 1/6/2016: Looks like that initial price of $599.99 wasn’t enough to deter people from snatching up an Oculus Rift. According toVentureBeat, the device sold out in minutes after going on sale. Demand for the device is so high in fact that the Oculus VR’s website was having problems processing all of the orders."

Well well...I guess there are people out there that have lots of money.

+1.

People would try it if it was around $300, maybe less.

And for people that think this is expensive cause its a new tech, remember that Oculus Rift is the only major player at the moment in VR.

And we all know what's happening in IT world when only one player exists in a product.

Like @saintsatan said, wait for Valve and HTC to respond and you will see how the "new(lol)" tech will have price drops...

It's already sold out dude.

It is but that was a limited number, and probably the people who bought it were the enthusiasts waiting for it.

I don't see it becoming mainstream though.

@Kinthalis: @FelipeInside: They're just trying to generate a false buzz for it. "omg its sold out omg the website is overloaded!@2!@!!!!!~~~~!!". Nintendo has done it many times and it worked out well for them. I bet it's back in stock within a week or so. We don't know how many they even had. They haven't said how many they're making, for good reason probably.

Two words: Google Cardboard.

There's no reason for me not to get the Oculus right now for a few reasons. First, it's more of a "known quantity" to me because I have had a DK2 for nearly a year. I get the specs of the DK2, I know what it does well and what could be done better so I have a rough idea of how the CV1 will perform. Because of the money on the earlier version, this is less of an unknown plunge to me than someone new to VR tech or who may have only tried it at a trade show.

Also, based on the info available I'm not convinced that the Vive will necessarily be significantly better than the Oculus. They look pretty comparable at the moment, except the Vive has a larger tracking area. While some have said that the Vive will have a better tracking system, the tracking on the DK2 is amazingly accurate and even with the Oculus' tracking range I can stand in the middle of a room and move around in 3D space.

Also, there are a lot of unknowns around the Vive for me to wait. Price isn't known. Audio is promised but nobody has seen it yet. Release date is "April" but there's some ambiguity around whether that'll be for the dev kits or the consumer model.

I also get a "fund" from work to spend on my own computer equipment that I'll be depleting with the Oculus being the last purchase of the fiscal, but by August the fund will be replenished and if I want to I can get the Vive as well without spending any out of pocket should it turn out that it's worth the investment.

And no, I doubt that Oculus is trying to generate "false buzz" by pretending to be running out. These are pretty complex devices and I suspect that the initial runs are probably only a few thousand units at most.

-Byshop

This is 600 2016 dollars, which is basically nothing in 1999 dollars.

Yet such an incredibly small percentage and niche of PC gamers even possess the enthusiast gear to run this VR stuff smoothly. The Oculus is a niche within a niche, i.e. probably dead on arrival.

I would gladly pay if it worths but I doubt it. I feel like it will be just like Kinect, best game being Dance Central. Now, this has an advantage Kinect didn't have. It will support porn. If that experience becomes popular it may have some chance.

Hahaha, I'll def pass... could build a decent PC for $600.

I deliberated the order all day and I just went ahead and pre-ordered the Rift. I already bought a racing cockpit and wheel earlier this year. VR is the final missing piece of that setup. So, while I don't like the price, I just want VR really bad. My expected ship date is June, so I have until then to cancel my order and switch to Vive if I choose to. If I see it in retail before then, I will pick it up and cancel my pre-order. My order ended up being $914 CAD with shipping. That is also without taxes/customs included. I know some of you may think I am crazy, but you only live once and I am not going to let the price deter me. I can afford it anyway, so it is not the end of the world. I currently have a 980 Ti that should work well with the Rift (ultra settings), but I am probably going to get a top end Pascal GPU when they release. I was looking to get the Pascal anyway because I want 1440p/144fps with a single GPU on most of my games. It looks like 2016 is going to be pricey for me. lol

Anybody else pre-order? (besides Byshop)

will not be purchasing this, I will ok will regular monitor and steam controller/keyboard mouse

The difference is that flat screen was obviously, undoubtedly, a good invention compared to the old mountain monitors. Just like how SSD is undoubtedly better than HDD, but the higher price still keeps some people away.

The thing with VR is that it's not necessarily better solution for gaming than a TV/monitor (my eyes were sore after just tens of minutes with the dev kit. i could also imagine some disorientation in a long run). It's new and interesting, though. Think hologram keyboard or zip drive or or or... i think you can come up with more tech disasters. Do you think people should've adopted them just because they were new, even though they were worse solutions than the existing ones? I'm not saying that VR is a disaster, but it's definetly not clearly better either.

Then we got 4K. It's new, and it's clearly better than 1080p. You can, however, argue wether or not it's worth the cost at this point (screen + possible hardware upgrade requirements combined).

NEW ≠ BETTER

edit: oh, now that i mention hologram keyboard; have you ever wondered why all office and home computers still use mechanical keyboards, even though many other NEWER input methods (touchscreen,holo/laser,voice,motion etc.) have been invented? yes, you guessed it; because mechanical keyboard is still simply the best solution, despite being the oldest. and before you mention the domination of iphone, mobile devices are different story. they don't need to have as effective input method in favor of making them more sleek/slim in design. it's a compromise that pays off on mobile devices.

I think it's funny how many companies are throwing money into VR, I just don't see it taking off at all, the only one to really benefit from it would be gamers and Nvidia said we'd need hardware 7x more powerful to actually make it happen.

Waiting for "virtual reality" wikipedia entry to be updated with new paragraph, ca. 2018, about how because of cost and bulky, uncomfortable hardware, VR tech never really caught on with consumers, but has gone on to have legitimate applications in certain industries (military, gas and oil exploration, prototyping and simulation trainers, etc).

I get what you're saying but here are a few points to consider.

You're right that VR is not necessarily a "better" solution for gaming but whether or not something is "better" is a bit subjective. No, VR solutions will not make you any better at controlling most games, it won't improve your Counterstrike play, and the display is not necessarily better than a standard monitor (although headtracking is generally very helpful in flight/space combat games). All of this most people would assume is true. VR is trying to do something different rather than be a better version of something that already exists. If VR does take off, it'll be in a similar fashion to how mobile/portable gaming did. Granted, those are waaaay more accessible which helps tremendously, but with some exceptions the games that sell best on those platforms are games that are designed -for- those platforms instead of trying to shoehorn existing games into those platforms. Sure, you have a few MGS and GoW games on PSP and Vita that did well but the DS and 3DS took off tremendously based on entirely new games made specifically for those formats. Same goes for mobile. VR will not succeed based on adding VR support to a ton of existing games, it'll be based on the new games that are either designed for VR from the ground up or at least with VR in mind. VR isn't trying to be a better monitor, it's trying to create an experience where your brain thinks you are physically in a different place than you actually are. For example, there are a ton of mediocre horror games/tech demos out there on the Oculus sharing sites that when compared to most indie horror titles out now are pretty lackluster, but even a simple game like Dreadhalls or a linear haunted house experience like Affected are -extremely- effective because the experience of VR so successfully tricks your brain into thinking that you are there in a way that a computer monitor never could. There isn't a lot of that out there right now, but that's what I look forward to seeing much more of in the coming year.

P.S. I get your example about 4k monitors, but that's also an example of how "better" can be subjective. Many 4k monitors exceed the specs of high end gaming monitors in resolution and literally nothing else. In most instances, they are actually worse in most other specs like refresh, g2g response time, size, weight, bezel width, and features.

-Byshop

Actually, when flat screens first came out they weren't better in every way than old CRT's. While they were slimmer, lighter, and used less power, the picture quality was worse in most cases and things like refresh rates/response times were also typically poorer, and early LCD's were also typically locked to specific resolutions. Over time LCD's became clearly better in almost every application, but initially things weren't so clear. In fact, even when LCD's started to become more affordable many gamers still didn't want to switch out over their flat screen CRT's due to these differences. Over time LCD's became the clear winner, but the first some odd years had the same exact issues we are seeing with the Rift (and most brand new technologies)...mainly being price prohibitive and in many cases not a total improvement (other than weight/power consumption) over what people (gamers especially) already had.

So no, that isn't a difference, and is in fact a pretty apt comparison. For both initial costs are higher than many people can afford (the broader market) and the specs maybe even might not be where it needs to be for broader general public use. That being said, over time with growing user bases and manufacturing improvements costs will come down VR, the experience improves, and (well, at least I hope) the product becomes more widely used.

I personally skipped out on the pre-order...I think it's still cool and might even pickup a Vive (which is what I want anyways)...but general adoption will most likely start next year, not this year.