Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

$599 may seem like a perilously steep price to debut at, but right now, Oculus faces a much bigger risk than low sales volume: Poor reception. If this was the MSRP required to ensure a comfortable, nausea-free experience, it's far better to have a killer product at a high price point than a "don't buy the first generation" product at the price point people were expecting. The former can lead to a cheaper gen 2, but the latter can lead to ruin.

In a world where hard core gamers will pay >$500 for a graphics card, this price will work fine for a 1st gen. It'll be a smaller audience at first but that will also help them out as they need to focus on their customer support for issues they find in the wild.

I think the biggest risk to adoption is real-world interest.<p>I get that VR is a fun tech, and has some potentially cool possibilities. But to me and seemingly many other people, it&#x27;s just not that interesting. I don&#x27;t know why, maybe I&#x27;m not geek enough, but I just have zero interest. And frankly it feels kind of like a gimmick. I&#x27;m especially averse to the idea of strapping on a clumsy headset every time I want to use it.<p>In fact, I wish Carmack and Newell would stop messing around with it and go back to producing quality games.<p>Downvote away

Going to have to pass on $599. More than I was expecting.

If you&#x27;re not an early adopter enthusiast: it may not be a great idea to purchase this right now. You will probably need a PC upgrade to match your new $675 toy. The new generation of Intel&#x2F;Nvidia is right around the corner. Don&#x27;t dig yourself into a hole where you buy current flagship and need to upgrade it 9 months down the road from now for Q4&#x27;s toy.

Graphics card question: If I wanted to run my own software on this (ie. I don&#x27;t care about AAA games), would any old graphics card do, as long as I&#x27;m only rendering very simple, low polygon scenes? Or is there something inherent in the high end graphics cards that makes them essential?

599... not to mention I have a very high end computer by today&#x27;s standard but it still needs upgrades. I have one of the better AMD processors but it tells me I need an Intel, which means I will have to buy a new board and rebuild the entire thing, as well as replace the GPU... right.

Unlike a lot of people, I don&#x27;t think $600 is an insane price to pay for a good piece of good VR kit... The insane part is the fact that they don&#x27;t even list basic technical specs on the marketing site?! Am I missing something obvious? I&#x27;m supposed to drop $600 on a piece of hardware that relies on a high-resolution screen to work well, without knowing the screen&#x27;s resolution? They know they&#x27;re selling mostly to nerds at first, right?

For all the complaints of $599, consider the prices of graphics cards, gaming monitors, phones, (4K) TVs, and so on. With this price, they are targeting the alpha consumer, who (hopefully) will have a great experience, tell their friends and the world, and prepare the markets for the eventual mass market version that will be in the $200-$400 range. AAA devs were never going to participate in this first gen anyway (there was no way they&#x27;d recoup their dev resources, so why would they).<p>While I think the concern for content is a valid one, I think indies and non-gaming apps will come through with a few breakthrough experiences that will drive the first set of sales, paving the way for the AAAs.

Good to see the Oculus Rift is on its way. Early tech will always have nosebleed prices and growing pains, but after a generation or two we&#x27;ll be able to experience high-quality VR without getting a headache or our cars repossessed for nonpayment.<p>And it means we will have decent competition to the Rift, for those who don&#x27;t want Facebook monitoring our every glance and gesture.

This might be a better URL to link to: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oculus.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;blog&#x2F;oculus-rift-pre-orders-now-open-first-shipments-march-28&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oculus.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;blog&#x2F;oculus-rift-pre-orders-now...</a>. Shipping to 20 countries starting March 28 and in select retailers in April.

Interesting tweet from Palmer (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;PalmerLuckey&#x2F;status&#x2F;684772857625231360" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;PalmerLuckey&#x2F;status&#x2F;684772857625231360</a>) on high load and fraud. Always interesting to see large launches not considering load&#x2F;security on the web app. Out of curiosity, why is www.oculus.com not using a CDN (direct to AWS), and shop.oculus.com not using a CDN with rate control capabilities.

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;shop.oculus.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;shop.oculus.com</a> - blank screen...awesome. It has been since the moment the pre-order link showed on oculus.com.

Among the giant debate over cost and power, I&#x27;m just wondering what would&#x27;ve happened had they waited, say, two years to release. Suddenly, the cost (of both the device and of the desktop PC) go way down. With something like this, a poorly received first launch can torpedo not only the product but the entire VR industry, and when someone&#x27;s spent over $2k to get it to work their expectations will be very high.<p>I&#x27;m sure that there are very viable reasons to release now, but I still have a feeling that it was more of a &quot;release as soon as it&#x27;s acceptable&quot; than a &quot;release as soon as we can be sure the launch will go amazingly.&quot;

That&#x27;s $750 (€699) for those of us in Europe.<p>So much for the &quot;ballpark of $349&quot;.<p>Edit: That&#x27;s without shipping. With shipping its $800 (€745).

All I want for christmas is a Portal 3 and a VR headset for Linux (that actually is using a standrad like VGA was)... ;)

Gaming will be neat and all, but how is reading?<p>I&#x27;d really like the infinite space for terminals and docs. Maybe turning my head to look over at stackoverflow would suck, but my glasses are thick, so even through the lens vision is blurry at the edges.<p>I can imagine a goofy hackers style 3d world would be amusing for a while. Even a really pedestrian window manager would be nice. terminals could be very tall, so i could look up to see many commands back. heck, i could float docs where the keyboard is right now.<p>Full visual field seems neat.

The deed is done. I guess I have about 2 months to figure out how to convincingly explain to my wife, just as our baby is born, that it&#x27;s a business expense and I neeeeeed it.

linux support was dropped, thank god I have a good reason to not give them all my money

(my) reasons to wait:<p>- touch controllers not available yet<p>- Valve&#x2F;HTC Vive may be considerably better -- wait for solid reviews of consumer units together with the games we&#x27;re interested in<p>- AMD &amp; NVidia will have card refreshes in a similar time frame. These refreshes finally move to a new process, from 28nm to 14nm FinFET, so the performance increase should be quite massive. This means that a mid-range video card should be enough.

Pricing and strategy of expensive desktop dependency now looks like a huge mistake. My guess here is that Apple or Google is going to come up with VR enhanced phones + cardboard like cheap device that has experience pretty close to Rift before the end of the year. If that happens, their VR devices would be under $200 which would be just accessories for the new phones. That would be far more acceptable to most people then dedicated beefy PCs that fewer and fewer people want in their houses. So the end result might be that Apple&#x2F;Google VR product might become first mass produced and mass accepted which defines platform, apps and APIs while Rift might slide in to niche for hardcore gamers who want that extra ounce of oomph. There is Occulus Gear VR type devices that might be able to compete but here key thing is that they will really need to control end-to-end experience and this has to be the strategy from the start instead of future pivot or backup plan.

Has anyone with vision issues been able to try out the hardware? I suppose it&#x27;s more of a software issue, but I&#x27;m blind in one eye, and if applications assume you have vision in both eyes, you could end up with usability issues when controls are only displayed on one screen or the other.

Excited about getting a free Rift because we backed them for the first development kit on Kickstarter. :)

This is for sure too expensive for casual gamers. And probably too expensive for serious gamers - at least until there are some serious VR games. By the time that serious VR games arrive, the price of a quality VR headset - with built-in GPU - will probably be around $400.<p>This will remain a small niche market until mainstream killer apps arrive - and those won&#x27;t be games. The obvious killer apps are a) immersive major league sports, b) immersive animated movies, c) immersive porn. Then the tech gets cheap enough that useful killer apps will emerge (education, history, etc.)

My biggest fear for VR is that it&#x27;s going to introduce a much more severe form of console exclusives. I really don&#x27;t want to drop $600+ on an Oculus Rift only to find out that some other killer game from Valve is going to support VR, but only on the also very expensive Vive.<p>It&#x27;s frustrating enough having to own multiple redundant game consoles to play all AAA titles, but it&#x27;ll be even worse (and basically unaffordable) having to own multiple VR headsets.

It&#x27;s been available as a &quot;development version&quot; for almost two years.[1] The price was $1000, and anyone could buy it on Amazon. This is a 40% price cut, which is nice, but not a mainstream price.<p>Is there a killer app for this yet? The roller coaster simulators are fun for about ten minutes. Second Life now works with the Oculus Rift [3] but few people care.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=kGIIQf3krMM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=kGIIQf3krMM</a> [2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Oculus-Rift-Developers-Kit-Dk2&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B00F5CWD0I" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Oculus-Rift-Developers-Kit-Dk2&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B00F...</a> [3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;secondlife.com&#x2F;destinations&#x2F;oculus" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;secondlife.com&#x2F;destinations&#x2F;oculus</a>

I regretted cancelling my devkit in righteous rage after the facebook sellout, but the somewhat tepid uptake of VR2.0 the last 18 months or so sadly makes it seem like the right decision, if maybe for the wrong reasons.<p>I kinda hoped that the other vendors would have had something remarkable by now.

Amusing that they went for $599. The PS3 was launched at $599 during a much-ridiculed E3 keynote and the price tag was ultimately looked back on as a huge strategic error.<p>The Oculus is a different kettle of fish, of course. But $599 seems almost like a deliberate reference.

ouch, I was all set to preorder but $599 is too much for me to buy this without seeing it in person first.<p>I will have to wait for retail demo units or something.

Will wait to see how all the major players compare Oculus, HTC&#x2F;Steam, PS4&#x27;s VR and let&#x27;s not forget some interesting alternatives like <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;castar.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;castar.com&#x2F;</a>.

So many people talking about how its &#x27;too expensive&#x27;. Obviously expense is subjective, but if you ask me, purchasing THE premium product of THE emerging market, means you can expect a high price.<p>Oculus is the Apple of VR.

I see one of the requirements is a Windows computer...<p>So for a Mac user like myself, that $599 would include a good $1k+ for a Windows PC ?<p>Nevertheless I&#x27;m very excited about this tech, although I will not jump into it just yet.

TIL 700 EUR is in the ballpark of 350 USD

I refuse to give money to Facebook. I&#x27;ll wait for SteamVR.

In the UK it&#x27;s basically the cost of an Xbox One and PS4 together. I wonder if PC gamers would prefer one of those consoles for the exclusives.

Subtotal: $59900<p>O_O

Well I really wanted this to be a huge, consumer hit that turns VR on to the masses, but like many the price is simply not going to make that possible.<p>I think it&#x27;s unwise to target &#x27;hardcore gaming pc users&#x27; who will drop 600 on a new video card enough to not bat an eye at this price. In that context it might be a hit, but that&#x27;s hardly going to forward VR into the mass market as was the original hope of this device, at least for me.<p>Like other have also touched on, Sony seems to be in a better position now. They are a consumer product company and have learned the hard way of the perils of a roughly 600 dollar gaming device and how that works out in actual sales (the original PS3 was 599 at launch at got pummeled by Xbox360).<p>This would all be a moot point if there were that one true killer VR app that made us all want a Rift but it doesn&#x27;t exist right now either from what I can tell. This again plays into Sony&#x27;s hands as they can sit and wait for that one product to emerge and maybe have already grabbed it (they seem to be holding the reins now on No Man&#x27;s Sky, which could very well be the VR killer app we are all waiting for).<p>Time will tell but I&#x27;m disappointed. VR for the masses will have to wait a bit longer.

The price and hefty GPU requirements make this a no go for me.<p>I think PSVR, which is already rumoured to be cheaper will be far more successful, and the install base for the PS4 is already there.<p>Sony are in a unique position to use the PSVR as a loss leader to sell VR software, which Oculus can&#x27;t (currently) compete with - hence the high price.

$600 is a bit more than people expected, but it doesn&#x27;t seem &quot;unreasonable&quot; for a high-end consumer product. When Apple&#x27;s first computer (the Apple II) came out, the launch price was ~$5,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars. The TRS-80 was the &quot;cheap&quot; computer, and it cost ~$2,300.

What&#x27;s really interesting is that studios may be able to make the first round of oculus games very cheaply.<p>The resolution is lower than typical on PC games, framerate is important, and the experience is very different.<p>So I bet they could get away with repurposing a lot of old content into new oculus games.

I for one is super excited that the Rift consumer version is finally released!<p>I experIenced a lot of overload issues: &quot;Something went wrong. Please try again.&quot; in red when I try to pay. I solved it by just keeping on trying. Issue was oveload, not my credit cards. See followup too.

I&#x27;m very interested but will wait until the reviews are out and to see what their long term business model is. Video game consoles don&#x27;t really make that much money but rather the software does so I want to know what their plans are.

Ouch. That poor Canadian dollar.

I thought Samsung has been doing a pretty decent job of integrating VR into their smartphones. Will there be a substantial improvement to the VR experiences using Oculus?

$399 should be an all-in-one price anyway. Not going to be mainstream till 2017-18 even but we&#x27;ll see some nice kiosks and promotional booths in businesses.

599 is more than I am willing to pay right now, maybe once both it and the vive are out.<p>The part that really pisses me off is the 30 dollars for shipping. What a joke.

Why is Xbox One Controller included? Not PS4 compatible? But hey you&#x27;d now think &quot;why didn&#x27;t I back Oculus on Kickstarter?&quot;

I assume an overclocked i5-2500k will also work, hopefully. Performance hasn&#x27;t changed all that much from Sandy Bridge to Broadwell.

Aside from this pre-order thing, will you be able to purchase a Rift only from Oculus directly? What about Amazon or other stores?

Cool, but I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ll buy this first version. Might be worth keeping on in a box for 30 years though.

Shipping to Australia is $132. _ouch_

This reminds me of the 3DFX Voodoo2 release and I think it will be as big a deal.

I&#x27;ve tried both the Oculus and the HTC Vive in their latest dev kits, and the Vive is incredibly more awesome. My advice is to wait for the Vive. In addition to the way better technical experience I had, I think the HTC&#x2F;Valve mashup is incredible (and it showed in the demo).

Hope that mall booths start popping up where you can use them.

Anyone know what the specs are for the screen?

Not available in India. :(

Oh man, the people complaining in &#x2F;r&#x2F;oculus on Reddit. Insane.

$675 after taxes.

Besides gaming and AE is there any reason to get this?

Stop with &quot;Virtual Reality&quot; hype. People feel dizzy after trying this out. You will see how this hype will decline after the product launch. We see hype because big companies bet on this product and now want to get their millions back...