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While we won't be getting an Oculus Rift pre-order option this side of Christmas, we're not far away from being able to put money down on a first-generation, commercial VR solution. That stack of cash may be a bit taller than we initially thought though. In a number of tweets over the past few hours, Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey seems to have been easing us into the idea that the first generation of the Rift is going to be quite expensive.
Initially the plan was to have the Rift cost around the same as the developer headsets ($350), but it became clear earlier this year that that wouldn't be the case. On top of spending extra to pre-order the Touch motion controls which will launch later on in 2016, Luckey said that with the Rift CV1 being the first real consumer VR product, it needed to provide a premium experience that everyone wanted, before everyone could have it.
That sentiment was backed up by today's tweets.
@PalmerLuckey Future advancements and high volume will make VR available to everyone eventually, but 1st gen will be mostly early adopters.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) December 24, 2015
When some suggested that the Facebook backed Oculus merely sell the Rift CV1 at cost to keep the price down, Luckey responded that even then the “cost and desired priced,” would not align. The problem, he said, was all of the custom hardware, something that wasn't used in the creation of the devkits.
@PalmerLuckey Multiple custom VR panels, high end optics, and an endless list of specialized hardware and manufacturing techniques add up.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) December 24, 2015
However it's not necessarily the Rift itself that will be the big expense for commercial grade virtual reality, but the whole package. People will need a decent PC to run it all, with a recommendation for at least GTX 970 or R9 290, over 8GB of RAM and an Intel Core i5 4690 or better.
If you don't meet those specifications now, that's another £250+ on top of the price of the headset itself that you'll need to factor in.
KitGuru Says: How expensive do you think the first generation Oculus Rift will be? I wouldn't be surprised if with the Touch controls, bundled games and Xbox One controller, if it edged towards £500.
Basically, be prepared to invest over a £1000 if you want to play VR and have had the same PC for at least a year. No thanks, I’m happy to wait five or ten years to see if it is actually going to be fun. For most games I play, it would be a complete waste of money.
Wouldn’t it be absolutely hilarious if Oculus began its life promising a headset for 399 USD and got bought for a billion bucks, only to come to market with a headset for 1,000 USD only to find that HTC has developed theirs for the price point of 550 USD? That would be remarkably funny.
I was a huge Oculus fan in the beginning.. A promising young startup with so much promise!! But they’ve turned to the dark side, aligning with Facebook and Microsoft. They’ve sold out! Simple as that. Thankfully, there is a white night poised to save the day, HTC Vive, you are our only hope!
This little ****bag can stick it somewhere the sun does not shine. First he sells out. Then delays. And then they keep increasing the price. With every passing day it becomes easier to choose between the two headsets. Vive it is going to be, even if it costs more than Rift. At least those guys have always been upfront that their headset will have a high price point unlike this douche, moving the goalposts with every interview.
All this talk of selling out is ridiculous. Do you guys come from sort of quasi-communist repressive dictatorship? Getting bought by a bigger company is not a bad thing – look at Microsoft of DOS, Apple of NeXT, AMD of ATI, Google of Android…external funding is a totally necessary part of competitive business, and there has been no signs whatsoever yet that any of Facebook’s acquisitions have done anything but improve the companies it has bought so far.
Stop trying to be “too kool for skool” by knocking anything associated with Facebook – I bet you all use it anyway, you hypocrites, and there’s no logic in the proposition that because Mark Zuckerberg owns one company that you don’t like, that all of the companies he owns are bad.
oh reallyyyy…we ll see how it is when ur sale is down to toilet due to price competition…u should learn one or two lessons from microsoft surface when it first came out…lol
yas should update this page.
https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/680124334120288256
https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/680125746719805440
Only proves how ignorant you are about why most backers were upset when he sold out to FB.
HTC can’t even sell phones, what makes you think that the Vive without external head tracking is going to work? Heck, they even just delayed it 3 days ago to April due to issues with the current design (sold to consumers as a technology breakthrough).
you are joking right, which dark side. Sorry to shatter yor dreams but if you think HTC will give you that walled garden free utopia – think again. HTC WILL have its own DRM locked store despite partnerring with Steam. So hows that for openness.
Um, Oculus has evolved quite a bit since that time, and for the better. Go ahead and go with the subpar Vive. You want the world for free? Go with google cardboard, genius.
Yeah! How dare they improve their product and get pretty much limitless financial backing!! Lose Lose if you ask me. Theres no way they could deliver a quality product now!!
I am prepared. And Im done waiting. Have fun.
People are mostly ignorant.
I bet you were one of the people who spammed messages about Zuck giving away millions on 12/28. Now you’re mad that it was a hoax. Understandable.
Assuming stupid shit does not make you intelligent. Only further illustrates your ignorance.
“Go ahead and go with the subpar Vive.”
Yeees….you keep pulling facts out of, well, like I said, where the sun does not shine….
Come back when you actually have hard data to back up your statements…like how Vive is ‘subpar’….lol.
Exactly my point!! Everyone was assuming they were getting money from that, but damn tards just wouldnt stop and think. You sat there and assumed stupid shit, illustrating your own point. Well, I commend you on calling yourself out. 🙂
lol, still with the wannabe clever replies…I see intelligence isn’t your strong suit.
BTW to illustrate how making false assumptions can be stupid and detrimental to the person’s own argument, let me give you an example. I assume you’re an idiot because you support Trump. See what I did there?
Subpar Vive. You are the reason why people are shit. Have fun with your little HTC machine that certainly hasn’t “sold out” or moved their “goalposts”. lol.
Awesome argument. I am blown away by the detailed reasoning in your reply as to why Vive is technically subpar. You should totally do this for a living.