Update July 14, 2017: Oculus have announced a permanent price cut for the Rift and Touch when their summer sale ends.
Oculus have been selling the Rift headset and Touch controllers for just $399 during the Summer of Rift sale, which they say has been “a huge success.” To keep the VR ball rolling, they’ve now announced that when the sale ends, the new, permanent price for the same bundle will be $499.
The hardware needs software, so check out our pick of the best VR games.
The Rift and Touch together used to cost $799, which is still how much you’ll have to shill out for their biggest rival, the HTC Vive. They then got $100 off in March and now this latest reduction, which Oculus attribute to falling hardware costs.
Five hundred bucks is still a great deal of money for most of us, but it’s obviously a massive improvement and makes the Oculus that much more tempting. HTC will surely have to respond soon.
As a reminder: the Rift and Touch summer sale price of $399 – the same as the technically inferior PlayStation VR –is still available. Oculus say it’s for “a limited time only,” but as far as I can see, they don’t specify the exact limitation. Get it while it’s going!
Original story July 10, 2017:Oculus’ push to drive down the cost of high-quality PC virtual reality continues apace with almost $200 being slashed off the price of the Rift headset when bundled with the mighty Touch controllers.
It was announced last night, on the Oculus blog, that the new $399 (£399) price for the headset and controller bundle would only be available for a limited time, but there is no actual indication of when that limitation will come into effect.
That could mean the new price sticks around for as long as people are actually buying the hardware; in this almost fallow VR year, the sales of both Rift and Vive headsets haven’t been too strong, so anything that can shift existing stock of the VR eyewear is going to be welcome.
Oculus have already cut the price of their hardware by around $200 this year, knocking the bundled price down from $800 to $598 back at the Games Developer Conference (GDC) in March. Back then,Oculus’ Jason Rubin told us that price was VR’s biggest barrier to getting people into the ecosystem.
“If we’re going to have developers be happy in the ecosystem they need more consumers,” Rubin told us. “And right now consumers aren’t saying ‘yeah, I’m waiting for wireless for VR’ what they’re saying is ‘I love it! Can you bring it down to a price that I can stomach?’ So for us that’s the most important thing for us to do.”
HTC Vive is busy working with partners to create new features and add-ons for the headset, like a new headband and wireless VR tracking, those are only going to boost the cost of ownership. Oculus are sticking with what they’ve got and dropping the cost, and on these first gen devices, I think that’s probably wise.
There’s also the fact that with super-fun Robo Recall, Star Trek: Bridge Crew, and Batman: Arkham VR already out, and the intriguing solo-romp, Lone Echo, releasing this month, there are genuinely good VR games around now. So, now the Rift+Touch is cheaper than the PlayStation VR, and the recommended spec for VR-capable PCs dropping, is this going to tempt you towards some virtual fun?