The Oculus Rift price has been confirmed, and it’s coming very soon – will you be able to run it, though?
When the countdown for the Oculus Rift pre-order opened two days ago, it seemed like the end of a very long road was nearly upon us. Then Facebook-owned Oculus announced that Kickstarter backers would be receiving their unit for free, and everybody got quite excited. It all seemed to good to be true.
It felt like there had to be a catch, and there were only two possible catches left: price, and release date.
Now the countdown timer has finished and we know the answer to those outstanding questions: the Oculus Rift price has been confirmed as $599 US (not including shipping or taxes, which will be considerable for international customers) and the units will ship in March 2016. Interestingly, the prospective ship date for customers going through the process – which was earlier showing as March 28 – has now slipped back to simply April 2016, an indication of how voraciously consumers have signed up for their shiny new VR hardware.
That might seem a little steep at first glance, but as mentioned in an earlier post the bundle also includes two free titles (EVE: Valkyrie and Lucky’s Tale) and all the other cables and gubbins you’ll need to get your VR experience working, so the Oculus Rift price of around $600 isn’t terrible when you consider it’s basically replacing a TV or high-end monitor in the equation.
That being said, you’re going to need a high-end gaming rig to support it, so the overall Oculus Rift price is likely to be much higher in the long-run. Check your PC for compatibility with Oculus Rift’s free tool (available from the product page) and find out if that $600 is really all you need to spend.
Being the first one to show your hand can have downsides, too: the Valve-affiliated HTC Vive could totally undercut the Oculus Rift price when it becomes available to order in the next few months.
PC under-spec? Need an Oculus Rift-compatible graphics card? Not wanting to spend too much? Try a GeForce GTX 970.
