The first consumer model of the Oculus Rift will run $US599 ($840), the VR company announced today while opening up preorders for their fancy new headset. Oculus says the Rift is expected to ship in March. Update: Shipping has now been pushed back to May, and the pricing for Australian customers is $US649 ($920).
Update, 10:58 AM (AEDT): Oculus has confirmed that all Australian pre-orders of the Rift are in US dollars, not Australian.
@adambailey27 Confirmed with our teams here, the Australian orders are in USD.
— Oculus (@oculus) January 6, 2016
That brings the total price for the Rift including shipping to $1103.34 at today’s exchange rates (US$781), as can be seen below from the test order I went to process earlier this morning.
Ouch.
Update #2, 11:09 AM (AEDT): If you’re a Kiwi — your prices are in USD too, although the exchange rate is much more palatable ($1052.64 at the time of writing).
@threeDspider Australian and New Zealand orders are listed in USD.
— Oculus (@oculus) January 6, 2016
Comments
195 responses to “CONFIRMED: Oculus Rift Will Be Over $1100 [Updated]”
You left off the shipping, which is a whopping US131.
If you want to buy a rift in Australia, its US649 + US131 = US780, about AUD1100
edit, also, you will only get March shipping if you ordered in the first few mins after 3AM. Shipping is now up to Q2 2016.
Plus GST? It is over a thousand Aussie dollars, so does it attract GST?
If so then it comes in at over $1200, and that is without the ‘touch’ controllers, which many games are going to need to be really enjoyable.
I can’t see it doing well at that price, I think the expectation was sub USD500 with all the talk of the price being subsidised.
The hardcore guys will go for it, no question, but wider appeal, I can’t see it, especially if you want to have the touch controllers and great graphics, for many it will be a GPU uprade required as well.
Answering my own question, as soon as you tick ‘Australia’ then the price jumps to USD$649 + shipping, so the price, even without shipping is AUD920
Ouch.
Are we sure its USD, it looks like its 649 AUD to me. Because on the order page, if you change the country the currency changes to Euro and Yen respectively. For Australia it simply says $649, so I presume like other countries this would be local pricing. Which means its $649 AUD not USD.
I think you’re right actually. I just did a test and tried it through PayPal, but when on PayPal it didn’t tell me if it was USD or AUD like it normally does.
But I believe it is AUD, so a total of $781 AUD. But I don’t have that sort of money to risk it at the moment.
If anyone is really keen on this no matter the price, would you be able to go through with the payment fully and let me know how much you were charged on your bank statement?
Edit: I just read this cnet article http://www.cnet.com/au/products/oculus-rift/ – Looks like it is 649 AUD + Postage.
I just tried going through PayPal as well and it wouldn’t confirm whether it was in AUD or USD; it went back to the Oculus site where it just listed https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYEvOClUwAAifj_.png:large
Pinged Palmer Luckey for confirmation, trying to hit other avenues as well. So far, it’s in USD until we see an invoice that confirms otherwise.
Oculus has confirmed all Australian pre-orders are in USD.
🙁
YOU CAN EMBED TWEETS?
MOD ABUSE
HALP
WITCHCRAFT
Is there any indication of whether the extra $50 is them adding GST to the price? It is close to 10% of the US price if you were trying to round to the nearest $50 (minus one dollar just because).
Doesn’t really matter at this point. I think that price is highly unlikely to sell enough volume, to have a profitable install base as developers (PS3 had trouble at that price point, Rift is just an accessory). I think Vive will be more expensive than this. It is very unlikely they’ll be cheaper.
VR industry’s future hangs on PSVR’s price.
Thanks for letting me know. That’s a real shame.
Although now that I know this, I think a good option for Australians is to buy through the US one and use an American Mail Forwarder, I’m sure the cost would be at or less than what they’re asking for postage anyway, so you’d be able to buy it at $599 USD + Mail Forwarding instead.
Yeah I’m thinking the same, changing to UK and France changes the currency to pounds and euro, so no reason not to think it changes to AUD for us.
That doesn’t quite apply given that the same case applies to Taiwan — there’s no way the Oculus would only be $649 in New Taiwan dollars, for instance.
Oculus’s fault for not being upfront out of the gate.
I should of checked them all, my bad. Still don’t understand why it’s necessary to sting us an extra $50 though.
They say taxes, although the math doesn’t precisely add up (pretty close, though).
Alright all, here is your solution to getting the Oculus Rift a bit cheaper:
https://shopmate.auspost.com.au/our-rates/shipping-rates + http://i.imgur.com/8Ho9gjG.png
That’s an American address I’ve entered into it. Even if the weight is 3KG, you’re still getting the whole thing delivered for $944.81 AUD. That’s a saving of about $155.19
I still won’t be able to afford one even using this method unfortunately, but it should help out a few of you.
This sounds like damage control, but could be a blood-bath.
don’t forget the %10 GST import tax for being over $1000!
Actually, I don’t think it applies. You don’t count shipping towards the threshold. So, it’ll just be under the import tax.
https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/GST/In-detail/Rules-for-specific-transactions/International-transactions/GST-and-imported-goods/
Thanks for the info, but that’s what happens IF you need to pay import duty.
When the value of the goods (not including shipping) is below $1000, you don’t need to pay import duty. Hence that document does not apply.
Don’t forget you will need a powerful system for it to run. My guess, and I could be completely wrong, is a $2000-$4000 modern day machine. You won’t get a 5 year or even 2 year old system running this well I don’t think.
Good grief. Not cheap in the slightest. 🙁
In my experience with the DK2, a GTX970 on a modern PC *just* scrapes by, but if you want really nice graphics, then a 980 is really the entry level.
Nah not that much. I built my computer in early 2013 for about $1100, and the only thing I need to change for this to meet the recommended specs is the graphics card. IIRC the GTX 660 I got cost me around 400ish then, and the recommended 970 seems to currently cost a hundred or two more than that.
If you built from scratch you are looking at around 1800 dollarydoos for a high end system with a GTX 980 in it.
If you’re not buying a prebuilt and you’re going for absolute minimum specs (GTX970 and an i5) then it’s not *that* bad. Mobo + CPU + RAM + GPU would probably run you about $1200. I’m assuming you have the rest already. It’s not very often that I buy new PSUs, cases, HDDs, monitors, keyboards, mice, etc.
I have been using gaming laptops for a while. Not Alienware level specs or anything like that, I just previously needed to carry computers around for work purposes and did not want to have two computers at once.
Now I don’t need to be carrying PCs as much anymore, and besides that, I have a Surface, which has everything I need from a. business setting – and gaming too most of the time, if you keep your spec ambition low.
So I would need to buy from scratch to make PC VR work. I realise that a powerful gaming laptop really does cost an arm and a leg, especially if you want it to be trying to run the gaming specs they want for these things.
At least with the way computing is going, I can live now with the idea of carrying a Surface when I need to travel and conceptually having a dedicated not so portable gaming PC at home.
In short, I can’t use my old parts, and I do need a new rig. I just have to consider this technology and whether I want to be a part of it if I was to buy a new PC. There is cost as well of course, $1000 for as yet not fully proven or supported tech is a lot of money. But I really am looking at $2000-$4000 at the moment given the way things are going for a new headset and computer.
At least the PSVR still has appeal. I don’t know how many people realise it’s not just a PS4 running that system, there is a booster box between the headset and the PS4 which does some of the computing as well. Hopefully it will be a more cost accessible and usable system than the rift and perhaps the HTC effort as well. :-S
Fair enough. From scratch $2000 is a very reasonable estimate for an intermediate gaming rig that’s good enough to meet the minimum requirements of the Oculus Rift then.
Maybe Palmer should re-read his earlier interview re how the Facebook buyout would make the Rift affordable.
http://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-founder-palmer-luckey-facebook-buyout-reduce-price-oculus-rift/
That would just bring back bad memories of how Zuckerberg called up, after reading the interview, and laughed at Palmer for 20 minutes straight.
He did an interview with Polygon which answered this question/accusation.
http://www.polygon.com/2016/1/6/10724644/oculus-rift-price-palmer-luckey
Short version is, once they got the Facebook money they were able to play around with not just what they could afford to do, but what they could do when money isn’t an object.
As a result, they started trying to tackle the complaints that had come out of the previously-available cheaper headsets. Resolution went up, single screen became two, frame rate potential went up, etc, etc.
It’s way out of my price range, but it makes sense to release the best version you can.
I disagree. I think the price point dictates how large an install base you have. Normally companies would eat some R&D cost. I highly doubt the Bill Of Materials of this package comes anywhere close to it’s price tag.
They would focus on selling media through it, not selling itself. I hope the initial buyers will have enough money left to buy games. I may be wrong, but I think they are headed for very low sales figures.
If HTC under cuts them, it’s going to be pretty bad.
I disagree again, because I reckon their install base is bigger than we think. The reports on shipping dates are that within minutes it was blown out by a couple months. March, then May… and anyone ordering now is advising they’re not getting one til July.
That’s within hours.
Hours.
If within a couple days or months they somehow manage to source another couple of manufacturers who can pump out more units (think back to reports of any console launch shortage), how long before those are snapped up, too?
The interview noted that they had sold through. Their projections were well and truly exceeded. So there’s a market of enthusiast early adopters willing to spend, and frankly that’s probably the only market you want for version 1.0 of a brand new product which isn’t a mere iteration or refinement on a known, working model.
These guys are getting out in front with a tonne more units than they expected to move to the point that they’ll still be out of stock in six months. And who better to try out your untested product than (generally more forgiving) early-adopters than the broader mass market?
Looks like time can decide this for us. This is actually within my price range and I’m an enthusiast. But I now want to see the other guys announce their prices. I still think it’s way too expensive for what’s included. We are talking flagship smartphone price slot.
Couple of months, is just the next batch. First batch sold. They gave KickStarter guys some of it and reviewers and developers (I’m just guessing of course).
There is also the ebay vultures, that buy everything as soon as it comes out and sell it for a higher price.
It’s much more expensive than smartphone flagships, unfortunately :(. Aussie shipping costs passed to the consumer.
I’m sceptical. They’ve had many years to calculate and prepare for a pre-order blow-out and it still happens? I’d still rather believe they’re being overly conservative and that the install base is still going to be minuscule, just perhaps bigger enough to justify hype-marketing.
And even if I’m wrong, there’s been quite some times where products with massive sales still failed in the long run.
and the original goal of hitting the mainstream with an affordable product went out the window.
It was already possible to make a VR headset that cost big $$, the rift was all about making a really affordable headset, not a premiere product.
People will pay, I mean can you really put a price on VR porn
Yeah you can, about $30 for google cardboard or $99 for the Gear VR, plus the phone you already own.
You forgot the box of kleenex.
That only cost a few bucks and it added to the whole experience, so we thought it was a good idea to have that packaged in.
Pretty much a grand for the next big thing, huh?
Sounds like a 2017/2018 purchase to me.
Yeah, and that is the problem, for VR to take off, they need a big install base in this year, not two years out. I feel the price is the wrong play, mostly because they set the expectation themselves that it would be around UDS300, and then the talk of the Facebook acquisition allowing the hardware to be ‘much cheaper’ really set the market expectation to be sub $500.
The early adopters will snap it up, but I feel the population will balk, the install base won’t be there and the developers will lose interest. Such a shame.
Yep, they’ve priced it well out of the market I think. They’ll get a few hardcore people but it’s never going to be more than a passing fad at that price. Unless their competitors come in a lot cheaper, VR is going to be a flash in the pan.
Even worse for AU. Why the hell is it $650 US for Australian buyers? If shipping was included maybe I could see it, but that’s before shipping. FWIW, that’s only $50 USD shy of what it would cost you to buy both an Xbox One and a PS4 in the US. I wager you could buy both off amazon shipped to Australia for about what Oculus costs too, since the shipping is also exorbitant.
Yeah, I mean I would have called myself one of those core who would grab it day one. But almost a grand, plus hardware upgrades?
No, sorry.
And I am sorry cause I wanted it to take off but now it won’t.
I’m in exactly the same boat, I have a Titan in the PC, but will be passing on this 🙁
I guess they’ve invested enouh in the development scene for a good base going forward. In a year’s time there’ll probably be affordable headsets produced at the same quality
It’s definitely well out of the “I’ll risk the first generation purchase” territory.
I was always going to be a first day buy… but, I was thinking it would be around USD$350-$400MAX. I can’t justify coughing up a grand just to have one on day one. I’ll be interested to see the pricepoint of the PSVR now.
If the PlayStation VR costs more than the console itself it will be a complete flop. If they have any sense they will capitalise on the Oculus pricing and get theirs out at a sensible price.
It will be pricey. The ps4 isn’t powerful enough to drive decent vr, so is going to require an external processing box. All this is additional cost that occulus doesn’t require in its price.
True, but they won’t be putting in a controller or 2 games like Oculus have.
I’ll bet it comes with two games packed in, and that one of them is No Man’s Sky.
Yes but the extra processing box is going to cost a lot more to manufacture than a simple controller or a couple of extra free games. Sadly, Oculus may have just set the bar on pricing and I cant see how Sony’s would be any cheaper at all unless they cut out features/hardware.
It’ll be cheaper because the Sony solution doesn’t use as high a resolution as the Oculus and HTC/Vive. Also, using custom DSPs, bought in bulk, will cut down on the cost of the external processing unit.
Sony have indicated that the cost of the headset will be approximately the cost of a new console. That’ll make it around $450 AUS. Much cheaper than the Oculus!
and Sony is much more established in Australia than Oculus. PSVR probably going to be the most mainstream
DSPs are the among the cheapest things you can put in, IF you yourself hold the patents they cost cents.
There’s no way Sony will release it for anywhere near this price. Firstly, there’s the once bitten twice shy situation that came about from PS3’s ridiculous launch price.
Secondly, console is an entirely different market, with completely different consumer expectations (especially regarding price).
Sony have seen Kinect fail not once but twice even at reasonable prices (for a number of reasons of course), and have seen the goodwill they can generate by undercutting their competitors with the PS4’s price. That said, if this is the standard of pricing they have to compete with, all they need to do is release slightly cheaper than that and get away with it.
Sony could get a lot of good will if they set the price point way less than the OR. I believe the master stroke of the PS4 release was revealing the lower price point (than the XB1) straight after the MS presentation.
Exactly this. Sony could romp this in by releasing their VR headset for $299 (or less) and bundling it with an awesome game that highlights what VR is capable of (put No Mans Sky with it!).
The biggest thing Sony have working for them is that they have a ton of people who already own a PS4. There is no need for costly PC upgrades and configuration. You will be able to go to your local department store, buy the headset, plug it in to the console and start using it.
I HIGHLY doubt the PS VR will be under $500. They’ve already said it’ll be priced similar to a new console. To me that means about $600.
At that price, there will still be a lot of people who throw their money at it. Trust me, I’ve seen people spend hundreds of dollars on PoP Vinyls, people will definitely still buy this. Less people, sure, but assuming it’s around $600 it’s not the worst thing ever.
That will however, drive people like myself away, at least for a few years, assuming that Sony keeps up the support for the headset for that long…
Remember that the PS3’s at launch were over a grand here, with people having paid up to 2 grand (on ebay etc.) at the earliest of stages to get their hands on a PS3. Even if the PS VR is more expensive than that, it’ll still do okay-ish. Sony have sold 35million units, I’m fairly sure they can get decent sales providing they have strong marketing, and get demo units in stores.
I was talking US prices. The PS4 was $399 US at release, my gut feel tells me they need their VR to be under this price if they really want to ship units. $299 seems like the right price, whether they can achieve that (considering it will need a CPU/GPU in it as well) remains to be seen.
Yeah I see what you mean. If it was under the price of a console it’d be likely to sell very well. That being said, I don’t think it’s likely (maybe even possible), given what we saw with Oculus. I think the technology is just too expensive in itself.
I’m very confident that PSVR will be cheaper. This is Facebook’s first attempt at manufacturing and selling a Consumer Electronics Device.
Sony does this in it’s sleep.
It’s Oculus’ sixth product though, and second consumer device (after GearVR).
Gear VR is Samsung’s product based on Oculus technology. And the rest were development kits.
They can claim they released a consumer device when they can be directly liable for said product by consumers.
Do you call console dev kits, CEDs?
The big difference is supply chains, manufacturing, resource acquisition, distributors, after sales support, consistency, and of course delivering an affordable and reasonable price. All these aspects as well as the final design and toolchain help make a successful CED.
@manu Well I wasn’t calling the devkits CEDs was I 😛
But fair point, I wasn’t sure if it was Oculus or Samsung that made the GearVR shell itself, recalling them speak of it as their first consumer device/kind of a practise run for creating one. Still learnt plenty of lessons from it, as they did with all the other kits.
@mrtaco I didn’t say you did, did I? lols. 😉
The difference is between “indoor practice” and “the real thing”, if you catch my drift.
30 million sold at the end of November and it’s already 35.9 million just after the new year.
Hopefully they’ll follow the trend set by the PS4’s pricing, as opposed to some of their other pricing decisions (PS3 at launch, Vita memory cards, PS Now etc).
They invested 5 Billion with IBM on the CELL processor, to achieve that price. So, I think this will go favourably.
I’m out!
Me too, and I am a chronic purchaser of this kind of thing. Picked up the DK1 and DK2, but am not going to pull the trigger on this. 🙁
That’s really the big issue here isn’t it.
The price tag is high but people spend that much on a single graphics card sometimes.
The problem here is that I can’t see this new version being hundreds of dollars better than the DK2. Is it really 100%+ better?
And that’s before we even touch the bullshit of $130 dollar shipping. It’s not an anvil.
Enh, it might be 100% more than the dev kit and not be 100% better, but that’s diminishing returns for you. Happens in all sorts of fields. After a certain point, it simply costs more to get smaller gains.
But yeah, the shipping is bullshit. I wonder if it includes insurance.
Their shipping has always been crazy expensive. I picked up one of the latency testers back in 2013 or whenever it was, and it came in a small box, maybe 15x10x12cm to roughly guess/recall. Would’ve weighed maybe 200-300g, and cost about $60 in shipping alone. Though I think it got here pretty fast, so I guess they have super turbo express shipping as the only option.
Out of curiosity…. http://i.imgur.com/OEsNNkz.png
It’s probably a little smaller than you meant but still, only $76.90 to Australia 😛
The image was exactly what I hoped it would be.
I genuinely am still laughing as I am typing this.
Gold.
Yeah… I’ve seen Amazon anvils used to prove this kind of point a few times.
It’s absurd.
Honestly it’s not so much about the cost of shipping, as the cost of shipping vs product cost.
I hate paying for $20 shipping if the item I’m buying only costs $5.
I’m happy to pay 100% more for an anvil because I know it’s bloody heavy. And let’s be honest. I don’t know much about anvils but I bet $120AU for one is actually probably a good deal. I think 20pounds is a pretty small anvil but I imagine it’s a fairly expensive item to buy locally anyway.
So good! =D
Uh… I thought if you bought the DK1 and DK2 you get the retail version for free? Or was that just a dream I had? 🙁
Apparently the original kickstarter backers are getting free CV1s. Someone counted that roughly equates to $5million worth. Which is an interesting thought.
I have to admit to being skeptical to begin with, but I don’t think VR is a strong enough experience to justify that price point for the consumer market (considering the additional peripherals and equipment required). I can see this launching into a product death spiral where to few consumers initially purchase the device for AAA to develop proper content for it.
There are other markets though – maybe this price is a tacit admission that the business applications are more promising than gaming.
I’m going to wait for the htc Vive before I buy any vr headset over 100 hundred dollars to see which is better value. Till then I will just deal with my google cardboard which is pretty good.
According to their rift compatibility tool, I would have to buy a new motherboard and CPU. Apparently my AMD 9590 doesn’t cut it and my USB 3 ports aren’t compatible either. 🙁
I wonder, what is the minimum cost of entry from your stand point?
I can upgrade to the minimum spec for $381, using existing ram and being able to use all existing SATA devices, I have 6.
I know it’s not a big deal to spend money on PC parts, but all at once is going to be pretty hard on the consumer. That puts you around $1500.00 total cost of entry and you got off lucky IMO.
I’m after a new PC, I won’t go for it till Polaris comes out. Holding on till 14nm FinFET hits GPU. I’m expecting prices to be a little better. I’m picturing a nice compact, silent, good-looking mini-ATX.
I bought the DK1 for $450 and that was expensive, i was going to buy one if they where around $500 AU, but over 1000, nope not going to buy one for now, l will wait till the price drops in the next 5 years or so.
Will wait for the 3rd or 4th revision when they have it working really well and it is not a stupidly crazy price thank you very much.
Also waiting will give you a chance to see which VR company becomes the one with all the support. It would suck to buy an Oculus rift and then have it completely dropped in a year or two.
Very good point. And isn’t there 3 coming? This, the Sony one and another I thought. So far from what I have read the Sony one is sounding better personally.
The Valve/HTC Vive thingy is another one. It looks like the best of the bunch to me but I haven’t used any of them.
Wha??? Uh yeah, well at that price, VR definitely won’t be the next big thing. I thought these products were supposed to make VR affordable (to some extent) I can see paying $300-$400, but close to $1k? I’ve never had much interest in Oculus, but I’m hoping that this price doesn’t reflect what the PSVR will cost.
edit: Oh hang on, I just saw a previous headline saying that the Rift will come with the game ‘Lucky’s Tale’. The price is now justified, I’ll buy two!
As stated in other comments… the PS4 isn’t powerful enough for VR, and has to have an extra processing box attached to enhance it. There is no way the PSVR will be cheaper than oculus at this stage unless they take an absolute loss to sell it.
I expect they probably will take a loss, but not a big enough one to make the headset cheap. Sony sells the PS4 at a loss and makes their money off the games, PS Plus etc.
I would have been a customer at a 3-400 U.S. Price point. Quite frankly I’d rather spend a grand on going 4k.
The dev kit 1 cost me 300$, and that was a fair price. I understand that the devkit 2 has better resolution and more features, but that still doesnt justify the huge price hike.
Looks like I’ll just wait for htc vive…
Ouch.
…Probably still would’ve jumped on though >.>
…If you weren’t already getting a Kickstarter Backer version? You lucky bastard. 🙂
Yeah. I drank all the kool-aid, it was probably going to happen regardless 😛
I think this is the only smart way to own one atm.
Cheers! *chink*
It’s a decent chuck of coin, the masses won’t be flocking to it but it will pave the way for how people perceive the technology.
VR will be used in gaming, porn, advertising, chat rooms/social media, travel industry, commercial applications like Real Estate, buying cars/boats etc etc. I can just see SO many applications taking off with VR, it will just depend on how smart the implementation of it will be/how much it will cost for these services (ie something better/more intuitive than just slapping a virtual screen on something).
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could pay for a UFC/WWE/Boxing PPV and be watching the stream live in a premium seat through VR. I’m not a huge sports guy but watching sporting events, olympics, and an array of events through VR could be an amazing use in the entertainment industry.
I’m hoping this initial wave gets consumers and devs excited and we keep seeing waves and waves of updated technology and content. So at the moment, YES this is a huge chunk of change and the reality is only a small portion of enthusiasts will pick it up but I’m hoping people will leverage the technology and keep the ball rolling.
*Update*
For those who think Vive or PSVR will be much cheaper, I wouldn’t hold your breath 🙂
My predictions are that now Oculus prices are set, they’ll scramble to do anything to get beneath the pricepoint. I envisioned PSVR being cheaper, maybe about US$400ish but the limitations of it ONLY running on PS4 is a concern (limited content/uses). If that unit works on PC then I think people will flock to it cause it’s cheaper, doesn’t matter if its slightly inferior. I foresee a barebones Vive kit coming out for $400ish to appear cheaper, and a fully fledged kit being the same if not more than Oculus.
Also, part of me wants to buy a new video card/Oculus kit just to play rocket league…. the VR literally adds nothing to it but….. Rocket League baby.
Oh, I dunno. Should help with judging those aerial shots. Depth perception would be a distinct advantage.
You know you want to. 😉
PSVR has to have an optional processing box to handle the extra power for VR – the PS4 simply isn’t powerful enough to do it. So your predictions are a wee bit off.
Last hope really is the Vive which inherently will be around the same price as Oculus as HTC cant afford to take a hit.
Am I off with PSVR because you think it’ll be just as expensive? I knew about the external processing box but am not sure the ins and outs about it.
Yeah I can’t see the competition being much cheaper, if money was no object and I could choose any setup I’d still probably go with Oculus.
Here’s my rundown. I can’t see the future.
Sony isn’t going to announce PSVR price like these guys did. They are going to do it on a stage following a demonstration of everything you can get/do with PSVR.
It’s going to be an extravaganza. They are going to have a better lineup*. They are going to do that thing they perfected at E3 2013.
Sure it won’t be as high quality as the others. But it’s going to be enough. It’s going to launch in many more countries, you won’t have to pay and wait extra for shipping.
Following those favourable sales figures for PSVR every developer is going to start to target for PSVR and port it for the expensive niche. It’s going to be real hard for Oculus to get an exclusive worth having without paying out their a***. These guys (the niche) will crank up the extra settings and get an undoubtedly better output from those ports.
In the mean time Oculus and VIVE will learn a little lesson from those who’ve done this many times before, and introduce Rift2 at a reasonable price point with even better quality next year.
Of course after a while VR will be successful, and Oculus is going to say “It’s our hard work that made this industry successful, we introduced the first consumer VR device”, and I will laugh at them.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah…Over $1k AUD, plus hardware upgrades (another $500 to $1k AUD), plus it doesn’t come with the controllers (another $100 to $200 AUD), plus there’s not really an App base for it yet (some, but not large)….bugger this, I guess VR just lost the game before it even got out of the gate….I am so disappointed and angry at FB/Z for doing this. They should have just taken the loss on the first go through, simply to build up a customer base. Now as it stands, they are going to basically end up being the Dreamcast of the VR solution. Great on paper, but someone else is going to come along and provide a better solution for cheaper.
What they should have done is released the system, then marked up their apps/games. At least then they would have a customer base. ….BAH
Furious..asa;ldojfasl;jfal;skjdf so angrya;lskjdfal;jfd gah…..can’t even.
If they marked up the apps, people would be outraged. Either way they lose. I’d prefer a larger upfront cost with smaller ongoing costs for games etc, as opposed to the other way round.
I thought I was dedicated to upgrading my video card for this, saw the price tag and realised I’m not.
What a disappointment. I wonder what this means for Vive pricing?
I’m still wondering if Oculus are doing this to force the other vendors to announce their pricing, and then drop their price closer to the release date.
When I saw the price changes when I select australia I literally close the page and never going to support oculus anymore. Regional pricing for extra profit is what I condemn the most. Try changing to some European country and you will the price become 700 euro.
Yeah, I did a currency calculation this morning and was expecting that $600US would be $850AU.
Throw in the $30US shipping, double it for going out to the ass end of the world, and we’re up to just a bit under $900AU. Not sure what the extra $20 is for. Being dicks?
But the price is without shipping yet. It’s just ‘tax’ as they called it. Shipping is another 131 USD. Total price to pay is over $1000, which most likely you will get taxed again at customs.
actually it shouldnt, back in 07 i got an offical Frostmourne Sword from Blizzard, the Cost was 300-400USD and the shipping was a 600USD (because UPL and FexEx are greedy cunts) and i did nt have to pay GST despite that order all up was close to 1200 AUD after exchange.
Looks like, it’s time you put that sword to good use…
I think what people also fail to realise is why pay$1,000 for something that could quite literally make you sick and you’ll never get your monies worth
Was tempted to get one after ttying it at PAX, but definitely not at that price. That’s insane.
Man, the people who paid $300 for the kickstarter kit and now will get this one for free are laughing all the way to the bank right now.
Parity at the time made a lot of difference. I’m not sure I would’ve done it at today’s rate, would’ve been around $470 with shipping.
Wonder how people would’ve felt about this price if we were still at parity now.
I’d have pulled the trigger.
I was willing to go to $500, maybe $550 AUD, so even at parity I would have been agonizing over hitting the button or not.
$600 local was my limit.
But at this price I think I’d rather just upgrade to the next NVIDIA line when that drops (or maybe refresh my old BenQ 120hz 23″ with a nice 27″ IPS).
The nice thing is that you can pre-order and cancel it later if you change your mind (in late April, say).
In the terms and conditions, it says “Your Right to Cancel or Return Product(s). You may cancel your order or pre-order at any time prior to shipping and Order Acceptance. After shipping the Product(s) to you, you have the right, within 30 days from the date of your receipt of the Product(s), to cancel our contract with you and return the goods.”
It is significantly more expensive than I expected (it should have been around USD399), and delivery to Australia is huge (USD132), but I’ve taken the punt and placed my pre-order. Hopefully they will be able to cut the price before shipping, due to the volume of pre-orders and reduced manufacturing costs.
I also dislike that they are giving away free new ORs to original Kickstarter backers (around 7000 of them), as we are basically paying for their generosity. The Kickstarter backers have gotten what they originally ordered years ago (at a much lower price too), as well as use of the device for a long, long time…
The DK1 is incomparable to this, both in terms of cost and experience. And you’re not paying for that generosity at all.
I think he’s positing that because 7000 or so people are receiving ‘free’ ORs, the price of preordering an OR is higher to make up for that. Purely speculative, but I can kind of see where he’s coming from.
Yeah, been a bit of that going around. It was more the “they got what they paid for, it was cheaper and they’ve been using it for years” bit though. As if they don’t need these things, they’ve got one already, when it’s like if it were pushbikes that were bought originally, now they’re about to start selling their first motorbike and gave away a bunch for free. You could complain “what do those guys need one for, they have a bike already and didn’t need to pay anywhere near as much for it!” but the two are on such a completely different level that there’s no point in comparing.
Well, they’ve utterly destroyed any chance of my getting it. Firstly because of the absurd base price but then the fact that they’re fucking people over depending on where they live. I’ll wait to see how the HTC one ends up but I’m pretty much out of VR for the next generation or two. They SHOULD have made it a loss leader, they paid so fucking much for it and now they’re pricing the casual market out and that’s where their money will ultimately come from. Oh well, their loss I guess, fuck em.
Hi all,
I just pre-ordered a Rift this morning, and e-mailed Oculus for clarification on the price. The staff member confirmed that the price was $649 AUD + Shipping, not $649 USD… SO GREAT NEWS!
Are you sure? Ive seen confirmation the other way too.
Mind posting a screenshot?
I can’t post a screenshot here (not sure how) but here’s a transcript from the e-mail they sent me.
[Oculus Support] Re: Regarding price for pre-order of Oculus Rift 613000028XXXXX
support@oculusvr.com
Add to contacts
3:57 AM
[Keep this message at the top of your inbox]
To: Michael P
support@oculusvr.com
##- Please type your reply above this line -##
Your request (#1173XX) has been solved. To reopen this request, reply to this email or click the link below:
https://support.oculus.com/hc/requests/1173XX
Maverick
Maverick (Oculus Support)
Jan 6, 9:57 AM
Hello Michael,
Thanks for contacting Oculus Support.
That is the correct price in AUD it will be $649 + shipping.
Have a great day,
Maverick
Oculus Support
Michael P
Michael P
Jan 6, 8:18 AM
Hi,
I have just been through the pre-order process, via paypal, to reserve a copy of the Rift for myself in April. The price was quoted as $649 + shipping. I assume that this price was in AUD, but it was not specified on the Oculus page, nor on the PayPal payment page. Obviously this price seems right, but if I convert it to AUD I’m looking at paying $1105, which seems a bit outrageous…
Thanks for your help,
Michael
This email is a service from Oculus Support. Delivered by Zendesk.
[J9Q6GD-XXX]
Oculus has confirmed after contacting their support teams that it’s in USD, not AUD.
Where did you get this information?
The official Oculus Twitter account has been announcing this over the last hour/two hours. I’ve embedded the tweets in the original post above.
Meh, I bit the bullet despite the high price. Got a project in the early stages of development. Have an ABN number so will claim it as business expense. Now hopefully the price of the 980 or 980ti starts to come down so I can build a PC that will run it before it gets here in May!
Seems to be the opposite of what they’ve said here –
https://twitter.com/oculus/status/684885244588105728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The really need to get their shit together (is it that hard to put the currency code on the order screen???)
This is horse shit… and New Zealanders are being asked to pay $699 USD? How could they possibly mark it up another $100 USD? And why are we paying another 10% on the USD price? I assume that’s for GST, but 10% GST on the USD price is alot more than 10%GST on AUD price… so they are profiting off the tax adjustment as well… I might well cancel my order.
Very disappointed, as I have been following Palmer since his days of posting in the Vuzix/MTBS3D Forums… also bought the DK1 for $330 AUD on Kickstarter, the first day he put it online.
I’m happy to pay $649AUD + shipping (even though $132 USD for shipping is ridiculous). But $1100 AUD all up? That’s pants on head retarded.
Rumour has it that original Kickstarter backers will be getting one for free. Have you heard anything about that?
I’m reading on the Oculus Forums that some people have received e-mails from Palmer or some sort of notification that original backers will get a CV1… I’m an original backer from Kickstarter, and I haven’t received anything of the sort…
You must have gotten your DK1 after the initial Kickstarter, straight from Oculus. Otherwise you should receive an email. I would call support, if I were you.
Have you been receiving update e-mails from Kickstarter over the last few years since backing the project? It came through as one of those, along with a notification about a survey that needed filling out.
That’s not GST. It’s not 10%, it’s about 8.3%, so it’s not GST. It’s just some bullshit markup they’ve thrown on there, because fuck you.
Law says they have to abide by this price for you.
I’d love to see a poll as to who is still in, and who is out at the $1100-$1200 price tag the rift is delivered here.
They have probably alienated a lot of people here by the absurdly high priced Rift. I wonder how long Oculus will last or do we wait for a Hoverboard like scenario where China is pumping out cheap versions of the same product that ultimately do the same thing?
The ones that have become such a fire hazard they are being banned from airlines internationally? Not sure I’m be looking forward to a fire on my head/face personally…
Although the batteries in a knock off rift would be less powerful than the knock off hoverboards.
I think I’ll have work buy one and “test” it on weekends. 😉
I still need a PC upgrade though. Poo.
$599? GIANT ENEMY CRABS.
I’m so pissed that I missed the Kickstarter now. I have a DK2 which I really enjoy using, but I just having been playing the games so its gathered some dust.
This price point is really disappointing. I was all set to buy one today, but being double what they suggested it would sell for, AND having the ship date blow out by 2 months in the first day is just ridiculous. It shows poor planning, and when I think back to the debacle that was the DK2 shipping I’m concerned they may not even make those dates.
Like other commenters have said, this needs a big user base fast. A subsidised price would have made this THE must have kit to buy this year. But now it’s more than a PS4 or Xbox and I think that is going to hurt it. In the short run at least.
Hopefully I’ll be able to keep getting some value out of my DK2 for development work, and maybe I’ll look at Valve’s offering when it is released.
The only real way I see this becoming a true consumer product is if they release a VR Box to go with it. A pre-built PC box that can handle most things including current gen games, movies, TV etc. Sure, that will jack up the price of course, but if they do it in the same way as 3D TVs, where you can get multiple headsets for a discounted price, it might… might take with the couch potato crowd. Otherwise, it’s going to be years before the inevitable price drop occurs due to saturation and as well people having PCs able to handle it.
It comes with a pre-built PC for USD$1500 total.
That’s not what the processing box is for, it’s for handling the output to the social screen (TV). It will have other functions, but not specific to giving PS4 extra power. PS4 is capable enough to run VR games as is, think of the difference between PC games and PS4 games without VR.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-playstation-vr-external-processor-revealed
Might need to double check those NZ numbers – I’ve seen that their price is higher (US$699) and their exchange rate is worse, so assuming identical shipping charge of US$130, it’d cost one of our kiwi brethren about ~NZ$1250 to get a headset.
I knew it was going to be expensive, but damn! And I mean DAMN!
Also, wouldn’t the price be higher than even the $1100 due to the total being over the $1000 threshold, or is shipping not counted into the duties equation?
In either case, this has pushed the Oculus from something I was going to order sooner to something I’m going to order later.
I was trying to figure out the GST question this morning, the ATO website was about as much help as you would expect… So, duties are payable on the entire purchase price, including shipping. But goods under $1,000 are exempt, as is non-Australian freight. It will all depend on what they declare the value to be on the customs declaration. It will likely just be the value of the goods, so $649USD, which would mean you wouldn’t get pinged for tax. BUT that’s not guaranteed. They COULD add the freight charges on to that, in which case you MAY get taxed….
Didn’t the government recently just pass a bill so that purchases under $1000 were no longer exempt from GST?
That doesn’t come into effect until 2017
Although the article says its been updated and that Australian pore-orders are in US dollars I have read differently elsewhere, so very odd.
…and that’s exactly why I’ll wait. 😛
I would need to see some amazing demos, exceptional reviews, and a huge uptake in gaming development support before splashing out that much….
The “Australia Tax” is just a gouge….being that Oculus bills via Ireland they won’t pay any tax here…if they were actually based here they might be able to be held to that price…order cancelled….
Just to be clear, they ARE based here.
They set up a local distribution outlet here in Australia and they ARE charging your GST accordingly.
That is basically why they are charging you 130 USD for postage. NOT for the postage (which any ebay user would recognise is absolutely out of control ridiculus), it is because you are subsidising their shambolic idea to set up a local outlet which will only benefit you if your oculus is faulty.
A shed with a phone in it then.
Whelp. If they have an office here that we’re paying for (and being taxed for) then they can sell us the damn thing here in AUS dollars with AUS postage prices and AUS consumer affairs compliance. Otherwise, no sale.
There are some unrealistic expectations on price here, An ultra-wide curved monitor is about $500 aud, A 144Hz decent sized monitor is about $350.
You’re expecting a high res, lightweight screen (or two) plus optics plus all the motion tracking stuff for the same money? That’s a little optimistic.
I wanna sit on my fat ass and fly a spaceship dammit, not wander around a room bumping into furniture. I’d pay the $1100 but only if it has:
decent optical correction adjustment for glasses wearers,
A pair of XYZ joysticks to sit on the desk with control panels attached which are part of the motion tracking.
Some motion tracker rings for a few fingers to push the buttons (maybe optical target stickers on your fingernails with a camera would be enough)
Just imagine the immersion of sitting in a cockpit with physical tactile controls positioned right where you see them and seeing your “hands” pushing the buttons – far better that waving invisible wiimotes around.
You can buy ultra high res small screens for only a few hundred dollars as well and they come with a ton of hardware attached!
They are called smartphones.
so if i buy it & have it shipped to my dads address in US? i’ll save money?
Absolutely by the looks of it! Even using Australia Post’s reshipping service you’d save.
Errrrrrr given new pre-orders won’t be shipped until Q2 I’m assuming that means they’ve completely sold all inventory for CV1 they had stocked.
That’s a good thing right?
I can’t maths very well but if it’s $1103.34 for Aussies and $1052.64 for NZers….
Pay an NZ friend A$991.66 (NZ$1052.64) and get them to buy it.
Now that I’ve written that, i realise it would be stuck in NZ………………
They really are in competition with Valve, They’ve copied their regional pricing model. Virtually shafted again. To be honest the US price is probably still too much for the vast majority.
DOA
I think the price is comparable to going out and buying a new Asus ROG monitor and TrackIR package. Even a decent projector and screen would set you back more. I am sure a cheaper version will follow. Just like phone manufactures release the flagship in to the hype, see how it fares then come out with the compact and cut down models to sweep up the rest.
Hopefully the Sony or Valve VR headset will be more affordable.
Oculus were looking to be a google phone at first. Good quality but cheap.
Its clear now they are going the Apple route. Extremely high quality all around.
Nothing wrong with that, there will be other headsets to fill in the other gaps in the market.
really? when i tried to use paypal it said the biller was Oculus Rift Ireland…which is the usual off-shore tax stunt.
So why is it $50 more expensive here than in America? Just cos or…?
They have said it is because of tax, customs and handling fees. When they selling the unit at cost they cant afford to wear these.
What tax and customs fees? There shouldn’t be any for that amount.
If they shipped a single unit to your address it wouldn’t attract any duty, but what they do is ship say 10000 units to a local distributor which they have to pay GST and any relevant import duties for. The distributor then packages and ships the units to local customers.
They don’t sell via the distributor because they would lose margins – the distributor just handles shipping and adds their service fee on top of that. Companies do this because they don’t want the hassle of managing distribution but it costs us as customers more.
And they can’t do that because why?
The initial price bump shown in the article was acceptable to me, I thought to myself “ah, that would be for shipping so that’s fair enough”. But then they added shipping.
Fuck you, OR, I’ll now wait for Sony’s offering instead.
If anyone is going to get this, I’d strongly recommend you buy 8 or so Track IR’s and share them with friends instead. Similar concept but you get to keep your monitors better resolution.
Sold out until June now so…… seems pretty popular
Pretty easy to get enough Americans with $600 than enough Aussies with $1200
I had a go at the developer kit version. Everything was blurry.
I’d want to see it for myself before I’d purchase it because of my unique vision requirements on the account of my eye injury.
Would be awesome if I could use it without problem but..
Lot of money for a gimmick that I bet most will turn away from in the longer term.
Will be interesting to see what the Steam and PS4 VR will go for but I expect the end result to be the same.
I just came back from CES and I tried the Gear and the Consumer Version of the Rift. You can’t even compare the two in the same sentence. It’s like a paper plane to a Boeing 747.
So much for $350. Nice work Oculus, you’re gonna price yourselves out of the competition.
So let me get this right? Oculus has a local company in Australia? This is the company that ships locally and thus charges gst. Ok, but why the hell are they charging local shipping at $130usd??? This will likely be sent via the same method as the dev kits – aus post surface parcel mail, definitely no worth almost $200 aud.
Why are they charging gst in usd? I thought gst has to be in aud or converted to the current currency value?
More unethical price gouging.
Amateur hour.
“Why are they charging gst in usd? I thought gst has to be in aud or converted to the current currency value?”
10 percent is the same amount in any currency.
Current exchange rate is 1.4 AUD to 1 USD.
So …
$600 USD * 1.4 = $840 AUD
Now if we add GST to $600 USD
$600 USD + 10 percent = $660 USD
And then add GST to $840 AUD
$840 AUD + 10 percent = $924 AUD
Then we can see if we add GST to USD and then convert it to AUD it is the same price.
$660 USD * 1.4 = $924 AUD