Been seeing a lot of complaining about the price, and I find it so stupid. As A. $599 for a device that serves practically the same role as a TV is if anything cheap. As a good TV typically will run you over a $1000. The other obvious comparison, high end gaming monitor, also costs about $599.
Not to mention the fact that to even use it to its full potential you need a $500 GPU. So its not exactly aimed at the $299 console $299 TV crowd here.
I'd say the majority of the complaining was due to the fact that Oculus claimed it would be in the ballpark of $350. This was a misunderstanding by Palmer Luckey, and he addressed it in his Q&A on reddit today. Not wanting to pay $600 for a peripheral is understandable, but it is still a great value for what you get.
The 2160x1200@90Hz OLED is very nice, but you can get a very nice G-Sync or FreeSync monitor for that price that can be used all the time for all content.
Even if there were a lot of content, it's still very expensive for what it is and it doesn't work well without a powerful computer. It is literally 2X the price that we were led to believe it would cost and even then I thought to myself, "I'll just wait for a sale."
We'll see. 2016 will be the year of "VR reaction" on YouTube and the local news broadcasts and late night talk show circuit. It will get more media coverage than Donald Trump could ever dream of. After the hype settles down in 2017, as Trump is sworn in, I'd be very curious to see how many Rifts/Vives are gathering dust and how many are actually playing quality gaming titles. I hope it's the latter. Is there a comprehensive list somewhere of games coming out?
Trump sworn in? About as likely as Oculus Rift being successful. I know for fact that it's not for me. I can handle lots of actual reality thrills; roller coasters, sky diving, sailing. But strap those virtual reality...vomit goggles...to my head and I feel sick in just a couple of minutes. There is no way in hell I'm gonna separate myself from $600 for that experience.
My tongue was firmly planted in my cheek when I typed that. I'd like to believe that the Rift being successful is much more likely than Trump being elected, but specifically on topic, the "vomit goggles" seems to depend entirely upon the content being displayed. That's probably the largest hurdle with VR achieving presence is the expectation of movement.
Flight sims seem like the perfect fit because you expect to pilot a vehicle in a certain direction while looking around (look at an enemy fighter while flying a different direction). From what I've seen and heard, a lot of people get sick when using a controller or mouse to look around instead of the helmet due to the expectation not matching reality. I think that's why I like the Vive more than the Rift, since it's designed to have your whole body move around a room and interact with the virtual environment, but that's based only upon demos I've seen.
Lastly, some people just will never be comfortable with VR, just like there are some people that can't see 3D movies. People that love it will love it.
Well this is new technology at this moment! It will get cheaper. And those that are going to be cheaper in short period have really bad hardware. Low resolution, small viewing are and so on. The are other good products also, but I expect them to be reasonable expensive in the beginning. Normal thing with new stuff in computer technology!
The difference is that the Oculus Rift is a peripheral, it's something that isn't needed to play games. It's like a joystick or a racing wheel. Something that adds to the experience of playing. Not something that is required to play. 600 USD is far too much for a gaming peripheral. You need a fast computer to play games on high settings and that justifies spending more on a good CPU, more RAM and a fast GPU. You also need a monitor. These things are basic requirements for PC gaming, not optional extras like the Rift. At 600 USD there's no way I'm buying one. I'm really hoping HTC can offer the Vive at a more reasonable price point. It's actually more attractive to me anyways, since it uses better and less CPU intensive tech for locating the headset and controllers in the room, and is backed by Valve so game compatibility will probably be better anyways.
Well a computer that can run 2160×1200 resolution at 90 Hz smoothly will cost 3000$ at least... So 600$ is nothing. But yep, at this moment it is only for rich players, but a couple of years and this will become more affordable!
Like many people I'd heard early reports of a $400 ballpark price and would have snapped up the pre-order at that. Now, since I wouldn't get it until March 28th anyway, I'm going to actually wait until April when it's in stock and see what the price does then. It might come down if some of the other headsets get competitive.
What I don't want to see is a Rift flop and everyone buying the Gear, so VR gaming on phones takes off but not PCs. That would be terrible.
I think you're wrong to compare the Oculus Rift to a joystick or a racing wheel. Firstly, any particular joystick or racing wheel can be substituted in functionality by any other joystick or racing wheel on the market. What can substitute for the Oculus Rift? Secondly, and more importantly, the Oculus Rift's impact on the gaming experience is far larger than a joystick or a racing wheel. It's not just an input device, it allows a completely different level of immersion from what is possible using traditional gaming techniques. Look at it this way: traditional PC gaming is one technology, and it costs, say, $600? dollars to have the hardware to enjoy it reasonably well. (This is just an estimation of the cost of components above a baseline PC) The Oculus Rift is another technology, and it costs $1400? dollars to have the hardware to enjoy it. But that $1400 also is applicable to traditional PC gaming, so to have both only costs $900? more than just having traditional PC gaming. It's a lot of money but considering the change in experience it creates, it is really not out of line for an early adopter experience. For instance, look at the early adopter premium for another technology that didn't create such a large difference in user experience as the Rift creates. DVD players cost $1000+ when first released. VCR players at the time cost less than $200, as far as I can tell (a quick search didn't give me much information). That is an $800 difference in 1997 money, which is almost $1,200 today. The Oculus Rift vs traditional gaming certainly provides a much bigger change in user experience than DVD vs VHS. Admittedly there was probably a larger library of media available for consumption on the DVD at launch as compared to the Rift, but the DVD would have been useful without that availability, whereas one can still participate in traditional gaming without any or much more investment once one has an Oculus Rift setup.
The big issue is whether people truly see value in the VR HMD experience or not moreso than the cost premium. I think they were right in trying to make sure that people would be happy with the experience at the expense of extra cost, rather than make something that costs less but doesn't really satisfy people.
Sorry the one sentence should read: Admittedly there was probably a larger library of media available for consumption on the DVD at launch as compared to the Rift, but the DVD would have been USELESS without that availability, whereas one can still participate in traditional gaming without any or much more investment once one has an Oculus Rift setup.
I spent $500 on my flight HOTAS setup, $400 on my pedals, and $1200 on 3 40" TVs for a flight simulator. Not to mention an 8 core 5Ghz machine pushing 2 highly overclocked 290 GPUs. Did I mention it's all water-cooled with a geothermal system? Just tell me who to give my $600 to...
Let me know when you gather your family to watch a movie on a single Oculus VR.
I think the complaining is that it's an expensive first generation device (which means it will be obsolete as soon as 2017). If this doesn't gain widespread adoption soon, it has a good chance to fail: users won't buy it because it's expensive, developers won't develop for it because there's no installed user base. Not many can afford to blow $600 on a device that has a good chance to fail. Btw, remember PhysX?
Anyone who thought this would be something that the average joe could afford to have was being very optimistic.
It is true that for the first few generations at least this will be something for people that can splash the cash and for the entertainment industry where putting together a 10 seater VR machine for less than 10k is a dream come true.
Believe it or not, this thing for $650 is a great deal, it may not be affordable but it was never going to be, despite what some people had hoped.
"Anyone who thought this would be something that the average joe could afford to have was being very optimistic."
That would include the people behind the development of the Oculus itself as their estimated price was in the $300 range and their intent was to make it affordable. Whether or not someone considers something a "great deal" at a certain price point is really up to the individual in question. It's hard to apply blanket coverage to everyone by saying a certain price is or isn't a great deal.
That's how new products come to market. However, in this case, not having a large enough user base, makes developing for the platform a tough proposition. Just look at how hard it is for Microsoft to lure developers to Windows Phone, despite Windows Phone being regarded as a good mobile OS. Launching around the $300 mark would have made the way forward clearer. At $600, uncertainty lingers.
It is most definitely NOT "the same role as a TV". You can use a standard display for 99.99% of all games, and for work as well. The OR is not nearly that compatible.
Plus, you saw that "use 2 GPUs for better experience" slide? There is a problem there: a great number of 2015 AAA games simply do not support AFR. See http://www.anandtech.com/show/9874/amd-dual-fiji-g... (and/or have a hard 60fps cap...) So while there are games that you would like to be able to play with VR, you will get into problems with a lot of the "best".
Of course there is a lot of complaining, they indicated only a few months ago the headset would cost in the ballpark of $350. I don't know where you're from, but $599 is nearly double that and the argument of "bundled games/accessories" doesn't make up that kind of difference.
Also, let's not compare a personal viewing device to a TV because they are nothing alike. You'd need to buy 3-4 of these to get a "family" experience and even then the resolution on these is nowhere *near* what a modern 4k TV is that you can easily buy for $800. Gaming monitors are also nowhere near $599 unless you're buying the absolute top of the line, they typically sit at the $300 price point. Oh, and you can get a $250 GPU to easily run this so you've inflated pretty much every single cost you're comparing.
To add insult to injury, this isn't even virtual reality. It's a fancy screen with head tracking, you're still just sitting on your couch using an xbox controller. Virtual reality requires an intuitive control scheme and MOVEMENT in order to be considered anything groundbreaking. This isn't much different than the 3D TV fad from 5-6 years ago, a lot of hype followed by ridiculous prices and bitter disappointment.
Even worse are what those over-ear headphones look like...hey, I've got a great idea! Let's spend $600 on a fancy screen and then slap on $20 headphones that will sound like a walkman from the early 90s! I sincerely hope those are detachable in favor of REAL audio, otherwise even if they lower the price and the platform adapts (control/movement) I still won't be buying one. I have an audiophile quality setup for my gaming PC, I'm NOT playing a game with crappy sound. In case people don't realize: sound has as much (or more) of an impact on immersion than video.
What a let-down. I hope Sony's is better than this.
Edit: I was curious so I went and Googled it and apparently the headphones ARE removable. Not sure how I missed that in the other articles/press releases I've seen but that's at least one positive. My very expensive audio setup won't have to go to waste if I eventually pick one of these up.
Of course it was always going to be a low-volume, enthusiast peripheral for the first few generations; the price bump doesn't change that, due to the horsepower you already need to have a quality VR experience.
More interesting (and potentially disastrous) of a phenomenon will be the Playstation VR; a mainstream play unlike the Rift, running on hardware far, far below Oculus' recommendations. If the Rift represents the high end, the PSVR will test the viability of the low end.
If I recall correctly, the Playstation VR was said to require an external VR 'brick' to run the VR headset. I believe this was thought to entail some form of external GPU to help drive the graphics. I'm curious how expensive all of this will be.
This is one of things I'd have to try myself first before coming with any judgement. Like achieved field of vision, compatibility with seeing glasses, feeling it gives, how it feels after two+ hours on your face, how hot it gets (esp. in summer), quality of colour representation etc.
Some can be objectively measured, some is subjective for everyone and shoud be verified before buying.
Also, whether or not it will cause problems for people with epilepsy. It's interesting to look at early arcade games and see how much rapid flashing of the entire screen was used as a special effect. I wonder if, at some point, games will start to have an epilepsy mode that gets rid of the rapid flash effects. It wouldn't be difficult to add to a game engine.
VirtualBoy, as I recall, gave people without epilepsy headaches pretty quickly.
Ye well, that's though more a problem of represented data than device itself... For example if 3D engine developer makes field of vision stretch or compression for some reason, pple might get nausea after a while but the device itself is not to blame.
As for rapid flash I wouldn't mind this being possible to disable in games in near future, while not having epilepsy or anything like that, it's not comfortable for me to watch it, after a while my eyes start to hurt. I can imagine flashing Oculus would be much worse than flashing screen.
Generic lens can only compensate "flat issues", if you have some cylinders in one of your eyes for example, you need specific glasses (or contact lens) - most likely customized to align the correction properly against your eye and glass frame.
The fact that Palmer set the expectation of in the ballpark of $350 many who were closely following the product expected something north of that, but a ballpark could possibly described as maybe +-30%.
While the price of $600 isn't really that bad, it's >70% increase from the $350 ballpark. That kind of shock for people who were perparing to plunk down in the $400-450 range is sticker shock. Just go talk to nvidia about the ratio of GTX 970s to 980s.
So, they'll be giving these for free for those who backed their kickstarter and everyone else will get to pay for those free units. Nope. Keep your goggles, Oculus. If HTC can undercut Oculus' price by 150-200 dollars with their Vive, Oculus is dead. I'm going to spend ~700 dollars on a new GPU this year, I am not going to spend another 600 dollars on VR goggles. 400 USD/EUR would've been an acceptable price. 600 is just a rip-off.
both oculus and HTC still have to deliver on performance and game support regardless of price so talking about price differences is useless at this point.
I thought spending 600$ on a phone was stupid 10 years ago and I still do, yet in the meanwhile the iphone has 44% marketshare in the US. Cheaper doesn't always win.
I don't think it's entirely fair to compare phones to the Oculus. Phones are firstly subsidized by the carrier and the subscriber usually (unless in the case of a no contract phone) absorbs that cost slowly over the duration of their contract. Secondly, mobile phones were already very commonplace 10 years ago and they were even then considered almost a necessity for most people (now much moreso than then, but still, a lot of people thought of their mobile as a vital piece of technology for everyday life). Lastly...why not, three is the magic number :)...a phone makes many other devices redundant, filling in many common gaps in a person's life for communications services, navigation, photography and so forth. The Oculus isn't subsidized or viewed as a necessity by the general public. It certainly doesn't replace any existing devices or merge the functionality of several preexisting technologies in an elegant manner. In fact, the public at large remains mostly unaware of or apathetic toward the idea of a 3D headset.
While a luxury phone priced above comparable models still fills all those same phone functionality gaps and somewhat justifies its price in the mind of the buyer, the Oculus doesn't. That makes its position based on its price a lot more precarious than say the 1st generation iPhone which is why I'd argue that it's an incomparable situation.
Still even with the hardware they needed I wished they at least shaved down the package a bit. I don't need a €50 xbox one controller when I have my own controller that works just fine, I don't want the headphone as I have a better headphone myself and over ear headpones start to hurt me quite bad after a while.
They could easily just sell the goggles without all the added crap and keep it around 400-450 and it wouldve been much better. I hope they realise that and add an SKU like that
"The Xbox controller costs us almost nothing to bundle, and people can easily resell it for profit. A lot of people wish we would sell a bundle without “useless extras” like high-end audio, a carrying case, the bundled games, etc, but those just don’t significantly impact the cost. The core technology in the Rift is the main driver - two built-for-VR OLED displays with very high refresh rate and pixel density, a very precise tracking system, mechanical adjustment systems that must be lightweight, durable, and precise, and cutting-edge optics that are more complex to manufacture than many high end DSLR lenses."
Everyone was proclaiming 2016 as the year of VR, you only need a $600 set of glasses and a $600 graphics card to go with it. That entry cost means a tiny market, a tiny market means no one is going to write VR games as it's just not worth it. No games and it has no chance. Quite aside from the fact that VR has a whole host of other problems: -it will make a lot of people feel sick, they will hate it. There are ideas to improve this but it'll be 2018 at the earliest before any headset incorporate them. -it's completely isolating, you can't see anything else. Even 3D gaming allows you to glance at a second monitor and look around. You can't see your keyboard, or mouse, or even xbox controller: how many pc gamers even know all the controller buttons off by heart? -the headsets are still too big and too heavy. -the control scheme still hasn't been worked out. An xbox 1 controller is hardly great. Anything else that involves you waving your arms around will tire most people out after 10 mins so don't work either.
Not to say VR doesn't have a future but you know at the end of 2016 it'll be VR that people talk about as the big thing that didn't happen.
1. 3D did too, 3D cinema didn't die because of it, although home 3D did so it will be interesting to see 2. real VR games will use gestures and special controllers or actual virtual reality harnesses, while for games that use the Rift just as an enveloping 3D display, it won't be a problem if they don't need too many keys to be played. Console games have various ways to work without all the keys, like selector wheels to select weapons and stuff. This can easily be ported to the PC so that people don't need to use e.g. the number keys. 3. true 4. what's the point of virtual reality if you don't want to move?
Besides regarding both 4 and 2: you can always put a virtual controller cheatsheet in-game so that you can see the controller and the location of the keys.
At the end of 2016 VR won't have happened, it's still a bit too futuristic, but progress often just looks like this. It's not a problem if you don't fall for the hype.
1. That's partly because the 3D cinema's provide is much more advanced then the 3D home TV's provide so the 3D effect is better and sickness effects are significantly lessened due to various techniques they use. VR headsets are like home TV's, not like the massively expensive cinema set-up right now. There are ways to make them better but they take time and development like everything else.
2. But those controllers don't really exist yet, and how the gestures will work doesn't really exist either. Not saying it can't be done but it hasn't been done yet. Using an xbox controller is flawed as most people like to look at it from time to time to see which button to press, it's also not a very immersive method of control. Also isolation just means you can't be doing anything else at the same time or talking to a real person in the same room. Personally I think just using your hands would be best and having some smart depth sensing camera tracking them would work well.
4. Well we are playing in our bedrooms or lounges, where can you move without banging into something? Also look at how gamers play, there is minimal movement even wrists are supported. That's because it does get tiring fast if your game is the equivalent of an aerobic workout - you're not going to do that for hours on end.
I don't disagree VR has potential but it's going to take a lot of work to get there and the hype train will die long before it's matured.
That is entirely subjective. My 1200p monitor, which has a georgeous screen with accurate colors and black levels, only cost $250. The 1080p variant was $189. Good hardware doesn't have to cost a fortune.
Not to mention that you can use your monitor for: 1) standard Computer work - spreadsheets, photoshop, web browsing etc. 2) playing 100% of all PC games out there. 3) having a SHARED viewing experience - having a few people watching the youtube video or whatever is playing on the monitor.
Comparing the OR to most currently required peripherals is not valid. The issue is the OR doesn't REPLACE any current peripheral, it is in addition to all current peripherals.
Not to mention - how much will the controllers be? another $50? $100? $200?
I acknowledge that the OR is aimed at enthusiast's, not your standard gaming audience. However many enthusiasts already have $2k-$3k gaming rigs, adding another $600 on top as a single purchase is a big ask for many of those, as often those rigs could have been built-up over years, or were major targets there were specifically saved for over a long period of time.
Based on the technology involved, I'm not saying the OR is overpriced, or too expensive for what you get. But maybe they aimed too high? Maybe they could have had a 'lite' version, lower-specced and/or upgradeable. Sure, doing so may have increased the price of this OR by another $50 or $100, however if they could offer a version for $350, you'd get a bigger uptake of VR, with the people who'd spend $600 on VR still buying the $600 OR, and those who can't afford/wouldn't spend that much can dip their toes in with a cheaper, less capable unit.
I will give the benefit of the doubt to them in that maybe they just didn't think any hardware with lower specs would give a satisfactory experience.
I suspect that there are 2 competing issues here: 1) offer a cheaper VR headset, but it's just not good enough (like the VR fad in the late 90's/early 2000's where they were crap...) and that destroys the market for another 10 years. Why would anyone spend even $250 if the experience is crap? 2) offer a great VR experience but that is too expensive, thus no-one buys and therefore no-one develops for therefore destroying the market for another 10 years.
They should present separate bare headset only version for $399 or something along with "optional" accessories pack with sensor, controller and games for $199. This would stop whinnying about too expensive headset, and make much better news coverage
There's a very small market for high end computer hardware and an even smaller subset market of people that would be interested in purchasing any VR regardless of the price. Selling a $600 headset to that small market is going to eliminate a lot of that niche. Add in sales landed by competitors and people who will suffer nausea regardless of the efforts to mitigate that problem and you're looking at virtually (no pun intended) no market for the Oculus.
Many people balk at paying more than $300 for an entire laptop (I'm one of them) and the fact that you need to currently spend around $1K US or more just to own sufficient hardware so you can spend a further $600 on a headset that doesn't in any way replace a PC's standard monitor isn't something that an average or even not-so-average consumer is willing to do. Atop that, any sane wife is going to beat the ever-loving crap out of her zombie Oculus wearing spouse when he's lost for hours in a virtual world instead of helping her keep the household (I know I'd be sharpening a frying pan of an Oculus showed up at my home.) With few headset sales, developers have little incentive to invest money in supporting VR since it won't increase product sales significantly enough to offset costs. Limited software support will put this in a chicken and egg situation similar to the one Microsoft's fighting with right now with Windows Phone and its lack of app support.
It might be possible to wait for technology to catch up since newer, more powerful GPUs are on the horizon on FinFET that will probably bring down the price of entry somewhat. If I'm not mistaken, Facebook owns the company that makes the Oculus and they can probably afford to absorb losses for a while, but unless the price of the headset falls and hardware that can drive it becomes far less expensive (honestly, dual GPUs are a probably a dead horse in the DX12 world where software developers shoulder the financial burden of supporting them so the Oculus NEEDS to be fed by a single graphics adapter to have a chance) we're looking at a niche in a niche with lots of caveats.
"There's a very small market for high end computer hardware and an even smaller subset market of people that would be interested in purchasing any VR regardless of the price."
Except there isn't. I think NVIDIA alone had revenue in the $3.5 billion dollar plus range for consumer GPUs last year. Then take into account revenue from AMD, larger power supplies, input devices, monitors, etc. It's not a small market.
"Atop that, any sane wife is going to beat the ever-loving crap out of her zombie Oculus wearing spouse when he's lost for hours in a virtual world instead of helping her keep the household (I know I'd be sharpening a frying pan of an Oculus showed up at my home.)"
You're certainly not making these wives sound very sane. I think you're overestimating wives' reach here, just like you're underestimating the gaming market.
You balk at paying $300 for a laptop and not only are you not part of the market for this device, you are oblivious to its existence. But it exists.
Well, everyone has their bias. Sales numbers will ultimately speak for themselves (or they won't be proudly announced by the company if they're too terrible) and we can reach better conclusions at that point. I expect Facebook to run this and perhaps one more generation before pulling the plug on the project. VR failed before and despite the advancement of technology, the Oculus is riding a revitalized 1990's era fad that started with those terrible Lawnmower Man movies and ended with the VFX1 helmet being an obscure product no one remembers. You're staring round two of that fad in the face right now and I can't see any future for it aside from a tired wheeze at the end that is akin to the unearthing of 3D video that was all the rage eight years ago.
Aside from that, the price I currently spend on a laptop has nothing to do with my history with computing. Lately, I've just gotten quite a bit more sensible about what I want to do with my computer and how much it costs to accomplish those things. Sitting around playing computer games was always a good way to pass the time, but as you get older you'll realize that other aspects of life (family, maintaining a healthy weight and figure, accomplishing something substantial and enduring, and so forth) take priority over the time thrown into clicking a mouse button and yelling at someone you've never met through teamspeak.
Yes the oculus is expensive yet i would gladly buy one if my wife wasn't so set on vacationing in Italy this year. Btw my wife is a casual gamer and i showed her videos of dreadhalls with the oculus and she wants her own pc and headset. Does that make me fortunate or screwed?
I built a PC with the recommended spec for $500, $225 for an R9 390, $115 for a 4590, $60 for 4X4GB etc. I don't think a $900 PC is what is required to run this, maybe from 2013.
That said I am definitely not paying $599 for a single user screen. I was expecting to pay $250 3-6 months after the launch price of $299, $350 in countries with a VAT.
Woah, you expected the price of this to fall 17 percent within 6 months of launch? What is going to cause such pricing pressure? I think that would only happen if someone else is able to create a similar experience for cheaper or if demand for the product is rather low, meaning people overall don't like it. That was either pretty optimistic of you or pretty pessimistic of you, depending on which of those two events you expected to happen. Besides, the quotes from the founder of Oculus seem to suggest one should have expected a price North of $350.
A "budget gamer" was never who this device was going to be geared towards.
And you didn't build the PC for $500. You still needed a power supply, keyboard, mouse, case, motherboard, hard drive. You may have already had these components, but if I buy new tires for my car that doesn't mean I built a new car for the cost of the tires.
While I'm sure this pricing is relatively fair and reasonable (actually I doubt that because of Facebook's involvement) this will absolutely prevent rapid widespread adoption. Way to limit your audience and piss of a lot of people with your overpromising and (very late) under-delivering. Maybe Lucky's luck has run out.....
It's tough. I think they hoped you could get a good experience with lesser hardware and decided you couldn't. But higher resolution, higher framerate, etc drove up the pc requirements and drove up the price of the vr equipment. It's no longer a mid range gpu and $350 headest, it's a high end gpu (or 2) and a $600 headest. Maybe those are truly the minimum requirements for a good experience, but it's unfortunate all the same.
I've actually been keeping an eye on headsets for some time, as a potential alternative to a hi-res monitor for regular work. For instance, I'd jump on a headset that could deliver 4k at 40 FPS to both eyes (no need for stereo) at a virtual (optical) size equivalent to a 75 inch monitor from 6 feet away. I could hook that up to my laptop, and work away while lounging on a sofa, a recliner, or even in bed :)
Of course, for such a potential use case, Oculus is simultaneously under- and over-spec'ed: needless stereo/3D, needless high refresh rates, but not nearly enough resolution for a virtual desktop.
Pricey considering you need an expensive system to attach this. I believe the price was intentional to control the amount of demand and they are confident for the future of VR. Prices will be dropped till below costs until content and service becomes profitable. Smartphone manufacturers will have to expand to VR for growth. Personally, this has more promise and will become a bigger industry than the 4k video industry.
I wish they would have given you the option to include or not include the xbox one controller. I'd bet that many people buying this will already have one - either because they have an Xbox One or they like to play certain games on the PC with a controller. That option could have knocked the price down a bit for most people.
In the world of VR headsets, this is incredibly cheap, even compared to headsets with poorer performance (e.g. Sensics' X-sight line). The pricing anomalies were the DK1 and DK2, rather than the CV1. Good VR HMDs are expensive, because these are complex devices. In addition to high-end displays, you also have precision optics, and a complex housing (anything that needs to conform to the human head is a product design nightmare to make comfortable for a wide range of people). There's a small chance Sony will subsidise the PSVR because they have a fairly captive revenue stream for it (PS4 games), but HTC do not have that luxury. Not only are they a hardware company who need to make a profit on the hardware (and a struggling hardware company at that) their recent move to develop their own HTC0branded Vive store indicates they wilkl be receiving little-to-no revenue sharing from Valve for Steam salves of Vive-compatible games. For the first generation, expect early-adapter pricing to continue.
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Sttm - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Been seeing a lot of complaining about the price, and I find it so stupid. As A. $599 for a device that serves practically the same role as a TV is if anything cheap. As a good TV typically will run you over a $1000. The other obvious comparison, high end gaming monitor, also costs about $599.Not to mention the fact that to even use it to its full potential you need a $500 GPU. So its not exactly aimed at the $299 console $299 TV crowd here.
pewterrock - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
I'd say the majority of the complaining was due to the fact that Oculus claimed it would be in the ballpark of $350. This was a misunderstanding by Palmer Luckey, and he addressed it in his Q&A on reddit today. Not wanting to pay $600 for a peripheral is understandable, but it is still a great value for what you get.nathanddrews - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
The 2160x1200@90Hz OLED is very nice, but you can get a very nice G-Sync or FreeSync monitor for that price that can be used all the time for all content.Even if there were a lot of content, it's still very expensive for what it is and it doesn't work well without a powerful computer. It is literally 2X the price that we were led to believe it would cost and even then I thought to myself, "I'll just wait for a sale."
We'll see. 2016 will be the year of "VR reaction" on YouTube and the local news broadcasts and late night talk show circuit. It will get more media coverage than Donald Trump could ever dream of. After the hype settles down in 2017, as Trump is sworn in, I'd be very curious to see how many Rifts/Vives are gathering dust and how many are actually playing quality gaming titles. I hope it's the latter. Is there a comprehensive list somewhere of games coming out?
TEAMSWITCHER - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Trump sworn in? About as likely as Oculus Rift being successful. I know for fact that it's not for me. I can handle lots of actual reality thrills; roller coasters, sky diving, sailing. But strap those virtual reality...vomit goggles...to my head and I feel sick in just a couple of minutes. There is no way in hell I'm gonna separate myself from $600 for that experience.nathanddrews - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
My tongue was firmly planted in my cheek when I typed that. I'd like to believe that the Rift being successful is much more likely than Trump being elected, but specifically on topic, the "vomit goggles" seems to depend entirely upon the content being displayed. That's probably the largest hurdle with VR achieving presence is the expectation of movement.Flight sims seem like the perfect fit because you expect to pilot a vehicle in a certain direction while looking around (look at an enemy fighter while flying a different direction). From what I've seen and heard, a lot of people get sick when using a controller or mouse to look around instead of the helmet due to the expectation not matching reality. I think that's why I like the Vive more than the Rift, since it's designed to have your whole body move around a room and interact with the virtual environment, but that's based only upon demos I've seen.
Lastly, some people just will never be comfortable with VR, just like there are some people that can't see 3D movies. People that love it will love it.
haukionkannel - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Well this is new technology at this moment! It will get cheaper. And those that are going to be cheaper in short period have really bad hardware. Low resolution, small viewing are and so on. The are other good products also, but I expect them to be reasonable expensive in the beginning.Normal thing with new stuff in computer technology!
Kepe - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
The difference is that the Oculus Rift is a peripheral, it's something that isn't needed to play games. It's like a joystick or a racing wheel. Something that adds to the experience of playing. Not something that is required to play. 600 USD is far too much for a gaming peripheral.You need a fast computer to play games on high settings and that justifies spending more on a good CPU, more RAM and a fast GPU. You also need a monitor. These things are basic requirements for PC gaming, not optional extras like the Rift.
At 600 USD there's no way I'm buying one. I'm really hoping HTC can offer the Vive at a more reasonable price point. It's actually more attractive to me anyways, since it uses better and less CPU intensive tech for locating the headset and controllers in the room, and is backed by Valve so game compatibility will probably be better anyways.
haukionkannel - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Well a computer that can run 2160×1200 resolution at 90 Hz smoothly will cost 3000$ at least...So 600$ is nothing. But yep, at this moment it is only for rich players, but a couple of years and this will become more affordable!
stephenbrooks - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Like many people I'd heard early reports of a $400 ballpark price and would have snapped up the pre-order at that. Now, since I wouldn't get it until March 28th anyway, I'm going to actually wait until April when it's in stock and see what the price does then. It might come down if some of the other headsets get competitive.What I don't want to see is a Rift flop and everyone buying the Gear, so VR gaming on phones takes off but not PCs. That would be terrible.
Yojimbo - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
I think you're wrong to compare the Oculus Rift to a joystick or a racing wheel. Firstly, any particular joystick or racing wheel can be substituted in functionality by any other joystick or racing wheel on the market. What can substitute for the Oculus Rift? Secondly, and more importantly, the Oculus Rift's impact on the gaming experience is far larger than a joystick or a racing wheel. It's not just an input device, it allows a completely different level of immersion from what is possible using traditional gaming techniques. Look at it this way: traditional PC gaming is one technology, and it costs, say, $600? dollars to have the hardware to enjoy it reasonably well. (This is just an estimation of the cost of components above a baseline PC) The Oculus Rift is another technology, and it costs $1400? dollars to have the hardware to enjoy it. But that $1400 also is applicable to traditional PC gaming, so to have both only costs $900? more than just having traditional PC gaming. It's a lot of money but considering the change in experience it creates, it is really not out of line for an early adopter experience. For instance, look at the early adopter premium for another technology that didn't create such a large difference in user experience as the Rift creates. DVD players cost $1000+ when first released. VCR players at the time cost less than $200, as far as I can tell (a quick search didn't give me much information). That is an $800 difference in 1997 money, which is almost $1,200 today. The Oculus Rift vs traditional gaming certainly provides a much bigger change in user experience than DVD vs VHS. Admittedly there was probably a larger library of media available for consumption on the DVD at launch as compared to the Rift, but the DVD would have been useful without that availability, whereas one can still participate in traditional gaming without any or much more investment once one has an Oculus Rift setup.The big issue is whether people truly see value in the VR HMD experience or not moreso than the cost premium. I think they were right in trying to make sure that people would be happy with the experience at the expense of extra cost, rather than make something that costs less but doesn't really satisfy people.
Yojimbo - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Sorry the one sentence should read: Admittedly there was probably a larger library of media available for consumption on the DVD at launch as compared to the Rift, but the DVD would have been USELESS without that availability, whereas one can still participate in traditional gaming without any or much more investment once one has an Oculus Rift setup.pedjache - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
"What can substitute for the Oculus Rift? "Ummm...Vive, Gear, maybe the PS4 thingie?
Yojimbo - Friday, January 8, 2016 - link
They aren't out and don't have a price.Thick8 - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link
I spent $500 on my flight HOTAS setup, $400 on my pedals, and $1200 on 3 40" TVs for a flight simulator. Not to mention an 8 core 5Ghz machine pushing 2 highly overclocked 290 GPUs. Did I mention it's all water-cooled with a geothermal system? Just tell me who to give my $600 to...Thick8 - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link
Anyone want to buy 3 LG 1080p TVs? WOOHOO!!!!bug77 - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Let me know when you gather your family to watch a movie on a single Oculus VR.I think the complaining is that it's an expensive first generation device (which means it will be obsolete as soon as 2017). If this doesn't gain widespread adoption soon, it has a good chance to fail: users won't buy it because it's expensive, developers won't develop for it because there's no installed user base. Not many can afford to blow $600 on a device that has a good chance to fail.
Btw, remember PhysX?
jimbo2779 - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Anyone who thought this would be something that the average joe could afford to have was being very optimistic.It is true that for the first few generations at least this will be something for people that can splash the cash and for the entertainment industry where putting together a 10 seater VR machine for less than 10k is a dream come true.
Believe it or not, this thing for $650 is a great deal, it may not be affordable but it was never going to be, despite what some people had hoped.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
"Anyone who thought this would be something that the average joe could afford to have was being very optimistic."That would include the people behind the development of the Oculus itself as their estimated price was in the $300 range and their intent was to make it affordable. Whether or not someone considers something a "great deal" at a certain price point is really up to the individual in question. It's hard to apply blanket coverage to everyone by saying a certain price is or isn't a great deal.
jimbo2779 - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Yes I include them, the value was $350 if I remember right and that was before they were bought out by facebook.A lot has changed since they started their kickstarter campaign and now.
bug77 - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
That's how new products come to market.However, in this case, not having a large enough user base, makes developing for the platform a tough proposition. Just look at how hard it is for Microsoft to lure developers to Windows Phone, despite Windows Phone being regarded as a good mobile OS.
Launching around the $300 mark would have made the way forward clearer. At $600, uncertainty lingers.
nagi603 - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
It is most definitely NOT "the same role as a TV". You can use a standard display for 99.99% of all games, and for work as well. The OR is not nearly that compatible.Plus, you saw that "use 2 GPUs for better experience" slide? There is a problem there: a great number of 2015 AAA games simply do not support AFR. See http://www.anandtech.com/show/9874/amd-dual-fiji-g... (and/or have a hard 60fps cap...) So while there are games that you would like to be able to play with VR, you will get into problems with a lot of the "best".
Wolfpup - Tuesday, January 19, 2016 - link
Yep, great point. This seems cheap for what it is, and had it been a ton less I'd really wonder about it.There's always Google Cardboard ;)
aithos - Friday, January 29, 2016 - link
Of course there is a lot of complaining, they indicated only a few months ago the headset would cost in the ballpark of $350. I don't know where you're from, but $599 is nearly double that and the argument of "bundled games/accessories" doesn't make up that kind of difference.Also, let's not compare a personal viewing device to a TV because they are nothing alike. You'd need to buy 3-4 of these to get a "family" experience and even then the resolution on these is nowhere *near* what a modern 4k TV is that you can easily buy for $800. Gaming monitors are also nowhere near $599 unless you're buying the absolute top of the line, they typically sit at the $300 price point. Oh, and you can get a $250 GPU to easily run this so you've inflated pretty much every single cost you're comparing.
To add insult to injury, this isn't even virtual reality. It's a fancy screen with head tracking, you're still just sitting on your couch using an xbox controller. Virtual reality requires an intuitive control scheme and MOVEMENT in order to be considered anything groundbreaking. This isn't much different than the 3D TV fad from 5-6 years ago, a lot of hype followed by ridiculous prices and bitter disappointment.
Even worse are what those over-ear headphones look like...hey, I've got a great idea! Let's spend $600 on a fancy screen and then slap on $20 headphones that will sound like a walkman from the early 90s! I sincerely hope those are detachable in favor of REAL audio, otherwise even if they lower the price and the platform adapts (control/movement) I still won't be buying one. I have an audiophile quality setup for my gaming PC, I'm NOT playing a game with crappy sound. In case people don't realize: sound has as much (or more) of an impact on immersion than video.
What a let-down. I hope Sony's is better than this.
aithos - Friday, January 29, 2016 - link
Edit: I was curious so I went and Googled it and apparently the headphones ARE removable. Not sure how I missed that in the other articles/press releases I've seen but that's at least one positive. My very expensive audio setup won't have to go to waste if I eventually pick one of these up.cpy - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Nope, that is way too much to become popular. Popular PC HW price is around 300-350EUR so yeah, they can keep it.SeannyB - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Of course it was always going to be a low-volume, enthusiast peripheral for the first few generations; the price bump doesn't change that, due to the horsepower you already need to have a quality VR experience.More interesting (and potentially disastrous) of a phenomenon will be the Playstation VR; a mainstream play unlike the Rift, running on hardware far, far below Oculus' recommendations. If the Rift represents the high end, the PSVR will test the viability of the low end.
Trackster - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
If I recall correctly, the Playstation VR was said to require an external VR 'brick' to run the VR headset. I believe this was thought to entail some form of external GPU to help drive the graphics. I'm curious how expensive all of this will be.HollyDOL - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
This is one of things I'd have to try myself first before coming with any judgement. Like achieved field of vision, compatibility with seeing glasses, feeling it gives, how it feels after two+ hours on your face, how hot it gets (esp. in summer), quality of colour representation etc.Some can be objectively measured, some is subjective for everyone and shoud be verified before buying.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Also, whether or not it will cause problems for people with epilepsy. It's interesting to look at early arcade games and see how much rapid flashing of the entire screen was used as a special effect. I wonder if, at some point, games will start to have an epilepsy mode that gets rid of the rapid flash effects. It wouldn't be difficult to add to a game engine.VirtualBoy, as I recall, gave people without epilepsy headaches pretty quickly.
HollyDOL - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Ye well, that's though more a problem of represented data than device itself... For example if 3D engine developer makes field of vision stretch or compression for some reason, pple might get nausea after a while but the device itself is not to blame.As for rapid flash I wouldn't mind this being possible to disable in games in near future, while not having epilepsy or anything like that, it's not comfortable for me to watch it, after a while my eyes start to hurt. I can imagine flashing Oculus would be much worse than flashing screen.
prisonerX - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Epilepsy? Why worry about that when this device will give the majority of people nausea and headaches after limited use.Murloc - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
do you really need to use glasses with this, it being in your face and everything?It may come down to the lenses that they use.
HollyDOL - Friday, January 8, 2016 - link
Generic lens can only compensate "flat issues", if you have some cylinders in one of your eyes for example, you need specific glasses (or contact lens) - most likely customized to align the correction properly against your eye and glass frame.sotti - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
The fact that Palmer set the expectation of in the ballpark of $350 many who were closely following the product expected something north of that, but a ballpark could possibly described as maybe +-30%.While the price of $600 isn't really that bad, it's >70% increase from the $350 ballpark. That kind of shock for people who were perparing to plunk down in the $400-450 range is sticker shock. Just go talk to nvidia about the ratio of GTX 970s to 980s.
Kepe - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
So, they'll be giving these for free for those who backed their kickstarter and everyone else will get to pay for those free units. Nope. Keep your goggles, Oculus. If HTC can undercut Oculus' price by 150-200 dollars with their Vive, Oculus is dead. I'm going to spend ~700 dollars on a new GPU this year, I am not going to spend another 600 dollars on VR goggles. 400 USD/EUR would've been an acceptable price. 600 is just a rip-off.Murloc - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
both oculus and HTC still have to deliver on performance and game support regardless of price so talking about price differences is useless at this point.I thought spending 600$ on a phone was stupid 10 years ago and I still do, yet in the meanwhile the iphone has 44% marketshare in the US.
Cheaper doesn't always win.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, January 8, 2016 - link
I don't think it's entirely fair to compare phones to the Oculus. Phones are firstly subsidized by the carrier and the subscriber usually (unless in the case of a no contract phone) absorbs that cost slowly over the duration of their contract. Secondly, mobile phones were already very commonplace 10 years ago and they were even then considered almost a necessity for most people (now much moreso than then, but still, a lot of people thought of their mobile as a vital piece of technology for everyday life). Lastly...why not, three is the magic number :)...a phone makes many other devices redundant, filling in many common gaps in a person's life for communications services, navigation, photography and so forth. The Oculus isn't subsidized or viewed as a necessity by the general public. It certainly doesn't replace any existing devices or merge the functionality of several preexisting technologies in an elegant manner. In fact, the public at large remains mostly unaware of or apathetic toward the idea of a 3D headset.While a luxury phone priced above comparable models still fills all those same phone functionality gaps and somewhat justifies its price in the mind of the buyer, the Oculus doesn't. That makes its position based on its price a lot more precarious than say the 1st generation iPhone which is why I'd argue that it's an incomparable situation.
qlum - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Still even with the hardware they needed I wished they at least shaved down the package a bit. I don't need a €50 xbox one controller when I have my own controller that works just fine, I don't want the headphone as I have a better headphone myself and over ear headpones start to hurt me quite bad after a while.LukaP - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
They could easily just sell the goggles without all the added crap and keep it around 400-450 and it wouldve been much better. I hope they realise that and add an SKU like thatBlueScreenJunky - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
In the Reddit Iama, Palmer Luckey said :"The Xbox controller costs us almost nothing to bundle, and people can easily resell it for profit. A lot of people wish we would sell a bundle without “useless extras” like high-end audio, a carrying case, the bundled games, etc, but those just don’t significantly impact the cost. The core technology in the Rift is the main driver - two built-for-VR OLED displays with very high refresh rate and pixel density, a very precise tracking system, mechanical adjustment systems that must be lightweight, durable, and precise, and cutting-edge optics that are more complex to manufacture than many high end DSLR lenses."
Murloc - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
still, the inclusion of the xbox controller is a sign that for many games the Rift will just be a head-mounted 3D display and not virtual reality.Dribble - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Everyone was proclaiming 2016 as the year of VR, you only need a $600 set of glasses and a $600 graphics card to go with it. That entry cost means a tiny market, a tiny market means no one is going to write VR games as it's just not worth it. No games and it has no chance.Quite aside from the fact that VR has a whole host of other problems:
-it will make a lot of people feel sick, they will hate it. There are ideas to improve this but it'll be 2018 at the earliest before any headset incorporate them.
-it's completely isolating, you can't see anything else. Even 3D gaming allows you to glance at a second monitor and look around. You can't see your keyboard, or mouse, or even xbox controller: how many pc gamers even know all the controller buttons off by heart?
-the headsets are still too big and too heavy.
-the control scheme still hasn't been worked out. An xbox 1 controller is hardly great. Anything else that involves you waving your arms around will tire most people out after 10 mins so don't work either.
Not to say VR doesn't have a future but you know at the end of 2016 it'll be VR that people talk about as the big thing that didn't happen.
bug77 - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
About your last bullet point: waving your arms around blindfolded is a big no-no in virtually every room even without considering the effort.Murloc - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
there are VR treadmills that keep you in place while walking and waving your arms so that problem can be fixed.Murloc - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
1. 3D did too, 3D cinema didn't die because of it, although home 3D did so it will be interesting to see2. real VR games will use gestures and special controllers or actual virtual reality harnesses, while for games that use the Rift just as an enveloping 3D display, it won't be a problem if they don't need too many keys to be played. Console games have various ways to work without all the keys, like selector wheels to select weapons and stuff. This can easily be ported to the PC so that people don't need to use e.g. the number keys.
3. true
4. what's the point of virtual reality if you don't want to move?
Besides regarding both 4 and 2: you can always put a virtual controller cheatsheet in-game so that you can see the controller and the location of the keys.
At the end of 2016 VR won't have happened, it's still a bit too futuristic, but progress often just looks like this. It's not a problem if you don't fall for the hype.
Dribble - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
1. That's partly because the 3D cinema's provide is much more advanced then the 3D home TV's provide so the 3D effect is better and sickness effects are significantly lessened due to various techniques they use. VR headsets are like home TV's, not like the massively expensive cinema set-up right now. There are ways to make them better but they take time and development like everything else.2. But those controllers don't really exist yet, and how the gestures will work doesn't really exist either. Not saying it can't be done but it hasn't been done yet. Using an xbox controller is flawed as most people like to look at it from time to time to see which button to press, it's also not a very immersive method of control. Also isolation just means you can't be doing anything else at the same time or talking to a real person in the same room. Personally I think just using your hands would be best and having some smart depth sensing camera tracking them would work well.
4. Well we are playing in our bedrooms or lounges, where can you move without banging into something? Also look at how gamers play, there is minimal movement even wrists are supported. That's because it does get tiring fast if your game is the equivalent of an aerobic workout - you're not going to do that for hours on end.
I don't disagree VR has potential but it's going to take a lot of work to get there and the hype train will die long before it's matured.
TristanSDX - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Not expensive at all. Good gaming monitor cost more.TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
That is entirely subjective. My 1200p monitor, which has a georgeous screen with accurate colors and black levels, only cost $250. The 1080p variant was $189. Good hardware doesn't have to cost a fortune.eldakka - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Not to mention that you can use your monitor for:1) standard Computer work - spreadsheets, photoshop, web browsing etc.
2) playing 100% of all PC games out there.
3) having a SHARED viewing experience - having a few people watching the youtube video or whatever is playing on the monitor.
Comparing the OR to most currently required peripherals is not valid. The issue is the OR doesn't REPLACE any current peripheral, it is in addition to all current peripherals.
Not to mention - how much will the controllers be? another $50? $100? $200?
I acknowledge that the OR is aimed at enthusiast's, not your standard gaming audience. However many enthusiasts already have $2k-$3k gaming rigs, adding another $600 on top as a single purchase is a big ask for many of those, as often those rigs could have been built-up over years, or were major targets there were specifically saved for over a long period of time.
Based on the technology involved, I'm not saying the OR is overpriced, or too expensive for what you get. But maybe they aimed too high? Maybe they could have had a 'lite' version, lower-specced and/or upgradeable. Sure, doing so may have increased the price of this OR by another $50 or $100, however if they could offer a version for $350, you'd get a bigger uptake of VR, with the people who'd spend $600 on VR still buying the $600 OR, and those who can't afford/wouldn't spend that much can dip their toes in with a cheaper, less capable unit.
I will give the benefit of the doubt to them in that maybe they just didn't think any hardware with lower specs would give a satisfactory experience.
I suspect that there are 2 competing issues here:
1) offer a cheaper VR headset, but it's just not good enough (like the VR fad in the late 90's/early 2000's where they were crap...) and that destroys the market for another 10 years. Why would anyone spend even $250 if the experience is crap?
2) offer a great VR experience but that is too expensive, thus no-one buys and therefore no-one develops for therefore destroying the market for another 10 years.
Rock, meet hard place.
It's a difficult balancing-act I think.
Venya - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
They should present separate bare headset only version for $399 or something along with "optional" accessories pack with sensor, controller and games for $199. This would stop whinnying about too expensive headset, and make much better news coverageKutark - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
So, should we start calling it the Hindenburg or the Titanic? What's your guys opinion?Impulses - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Atari JaguarKutark - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Nice, I like it ;-).T1beriu - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Nope.BrokenCrayons - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
There's a very small market for high end computer hardware and an even smaller subset market of people that would be interested in purchasing any VR regardless of the price. Selling a $600 headset to that small market is going to eliminate a lot of that niche. Add in sales landed by competitors and people who will suffer nausea regardless of the efforts to mitigate that problem and you're looking at virtually (no pun intended) no market for the Oculus.Many people balk at paying more than $300 for an entire laptop (I'm one of them) and the fact that you need to currently spend around $1K US or more just to own sufficient hardware so you can spend a further $600 on a headset that doesn't in any way replace a PC's standard monitor isn't something that an average or even not-so-average consumer is willing to do. Atop that, any sane wife is going to beat the ever-loving crap out of her zombie Oculus wearing spouse when he's lost for hours in a virtual world instead of helping her keep the household (I know I'd be sharpening a frying pan of an Oculus showed up at my home.) With few headset sales, developers have little incentive to invest money in supporting VR since it won't increase product sales significantly enough to offset costs. Limited software support will put this in a chicken and egg situation similar to the one Microsoft's fighting with right now with Windows Phone and its lack of app support.
It might be possible to wait for technology to catch up since newer, more powerful GPUs are on the horizon on FinFET that will probably bring down the price of entry somewhat. If I'm not mistaken, Facebook owns the company that makes the Oculus and they can probably afford to absorb losses for a while, but unless the price of the headset falls and hardware that can drive it becomes far less expensive (honestly, dual GPUs are a probably a dead horse in the DX12 world where software developers shoulder the financial burden of supporting them so the Oculus NEEDS to be fed by a single graphics adapter to have a chance) we're looking at a niche in a niche with lots of caveats.
Yojimbo - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
"There's a very small market for high end computer hardware and an even smaller subset market of people that would be interested in purchasing any VR regardless of the price."Except there isn't. I think NVIDIA alone had revenue in the $3.5 billion dollar plus range for consumer GPUs last year. Then take into account revenue from AMD, larger power supplies, input devices, monitors, etc. It's not a small market.
"Atop that, any sane wife is going to beat the ever-loving crap out of her zombie Oculus wearing spouse when he's lost for hours in a virtual world instead of helping her keep the household (I know I'd be sharpening a frying pan of an Oculus showed up at my home.)"
You're certainly not making these wives sound very sane. I think you're overestimating wives' reach here, just like you're underestimating the gaming market.
You balk at paying $300 for a laptop and not only are you not part of the market for this device, you are oblivious to its existence. But it exists.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Well, everyone has their bias. Sales numbers will ultimately speak for themselves (or they won't be proudly announced by the company if they're too terrible) and we can reach better conclusions at that point. I expect Facebook to run this and perhaps one more generation before pulling the plug on the project. VR failed before and despite the advancement of technology, the Oculus is riding a revitalized 1990's era fad that started with those terrible Lawnmower Man movies and ended with the VFX1 helmet being an obscure product no one remembers. You're staring round two of that fad in the face right now and I can't see any future for it aside from a tired wheeze at the end that is akin to the unearthing of 3D video that was all the rage eight years ago.Aside from that, the price I currently spend on a laptop has nothing to do with my history with computing. Lately, I've just gotten quite a bit more sensible about what I want to do with my computer and how much it costs to accomplish those things. Sitting around playing computer games was always a good way to pass the time, but as you get older you'll realize that other aspects of life (family, maintaining a healthy weight and figure, accomplishing something substantial and enduring, and so forth) take priority over the time thrown into clicking a mouse button and yelling at someone you've never met through teamspeak.
shadarlo - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Anyone who says this isn't expensive as hell is living in a weird bubble where they can't perceive reality.Even at $300 I think it would have a tough time taking off, at double that this thing will be niche only.
SaolDan - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Yes the oculus is expensive yet i would gladly buy one if my wife wasn't so set on vacationing in Italy this year. Btw my wife is a casual gamer and i showed her videos of dreadhalls with the oculus and she wants her own pc and headset. Does that make me fortunate or screwed?ZeDestructor - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Fortunate and foreverpoor :PFiebre - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Would I be able to drive this with a surface book?madwolfa - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
This is bleeding edge, people. Look at Tesla Model S. Is it cheap? No. But Model 3 is going to be much cheaper.Retired Budget Gamer - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
I built a PC with the recommended spec for $500, $225 for an R9 390, $115 for a 4590, $60 for 4X4GB etc. I don't think a $900 PC is what is required to run this, maybe from 2013.Retired Budget Gamer - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
That said I am definitely not paying $599 for a single user screen. I was expecting to pay $250 3-6 months after the launch price of $299, $350 in countries with a VAT.Yojimbo - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Woah, you expected the price of this to fall 17 percent within 6 months of launch? What is going to cause such pricing pressure? I think that would only happen if someone else is able to create a similar experience for cheaper or if demand for the product is rather low, meaning people overall don't like it. That was either pretty optimistic of you or pretty pessimistic of you, depending on which of those two events you expected to happen. Besides, the quotes from the founder of Oculus seem to suggest one should have expected a price North of $350.A "budget gamer" was never who this device was going to be geared towards.
And you didn't build the PC for $500. You still needed a power supply, keyboard, mouse, case, motherboard, hard drive. You may have already had these components, but if I buy new tires for my car that doesn't mean I built a new car for the cost of the tires.
fanofanand - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
While I'm sure this pricing is relatively fair and reasonable (actually I doubt that because of Facebook's involvement) this will absolutely prevent rapid widespread adoption. Way to limit your audience and piss of a lot of people with your overpromising and (very late) under-delivering. Maybe Lucky's luck has run out.....andrewaggb - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
It's tough. I think they hoped you could get a good experience with lesser hardware and decided you couldn't. But higher resolution, higher framerate, etc drove up the pc requirements and drove up the price of the vr equipment. It's no longer a mid range gpu and $350 headest, it's a high end gpu (or 2) and a $600 headest. Maybe those are truly the minimum requirements for a good experience, but it's unfortunate all the same.boeush - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
I've actually been keeping an eye on headsets for some time, as a potential alternative to a hi-res monitor for regular work. For instance, I'd jump on a headset that could deliver 4k at 40 FPS to both eyes (no need for stereo) at a virtual (optical) size equivalent to a 75 inch monitor from 6 feet away. I could hook that up to my laptop, and work away while lounging on a sofa, a recliner, or even in bed :)Of course, for such a potential use case, Oculus is simultaneously under- and over-spec'ed: needless stereo/3D, needless high refresh rates, but not nearly enough resolution for a virtual desktop.
Oh well, maybe in a few more years...
Jamor - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
So the market for $300 GPU's is 3 million per year.Not all high end gamers update every year, so let's assume a target population of 5 million.
Sooo... 500 thousand sales in the first year?
IS that a success or a failure?
doggface - Friday, January 8, 2016 - link
When Star Citizen finally launches. I will buy an Oculus. And laugh all the way to the ends of the universe. $600 or not.By that time we should be able to buy a $300 GFX card that will have no trouble powering it too.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, January 8, 2016 - link
I thought Star Citizens was out already. I vaguely remember their Kickstarter in 2012 mentioning a 2014 release date. Did that get changed?zodiacfml - Friday, January 8, 2016 - link
Pricey considering you need an expensive system to attach this. I believe the price was intentional to control the amount of demand and they are confident for the future of VR. Prices will be dropped till below costs until content and service becomes profitable. Smartphone manufacturers will have to expand to VR for growth.Personally, this has more promise and will become a bigger industry than the 4k video industry.
khaydin - Friday, January 8, 2016 - link
I wish they would have given you the option to include or not include the xbox one controller. I'd bet that many people buying this will already have one - either because they have an Xbox One or they like to play certain games on the PC with a controller. That option could have knocked the price down a bit for most people.edzieba - Saturday, January 9, 2016 - link
In the world of VR headsets, this is incredibly cheap, even compared to headsets with poorer performance (e.g. Sensics' X-sight line). The pricing anomalies were the DK1 and DK2, rather than the CV1.Good VR HMDs are expensive, because these are complex devices. In addition to high-end displays, you also have precision optics, and a complex housing (anything that needs to conform to the human head is a product design nightmare to make comfortable for a wide range of people). There's a small chance Sony will subsidise the PSVR because they have a fairly captive revenue stream for it (PS4 games), but HTC do not have that luxury. Not only are they a hardware company who need to make a profit on the hardware (and a struggling hardware company at that) their recent move to develop their own HTC0branded Vive store indicates they wilkl be receiving little-to-no revenue sharing from Valve for Steam salves of Vive-compatible games.
For the first generation, expect early-adapter pricing to continue.
Wonder Games - Wednesday, April 11, 2018 - link
I wish I'd bought it