Today is the day that Oculus finally went live with pre-orders for their highly anticipated VR gaming device known as the Rift. Speculation has been rampant as to what to expect for a price as the timer on the product's website counted down to zero this morning. When that timer finally ran out, we were left with.....a blank page. The shop link was broken for many, but we somehow managed to get through.
The final price? Well, it's higher than expected:
In case you can't load Oculus' website, the retail version of the Rift is $600. pic.twitter.com/9x2yDtRltc
— Sean Cahill (@seancahill24) January 6, 2016
Ouch.
Oculus came out some time ago and promised that the device was going to cost more than the DK2, which cost $350. The reason for it is mainly due to upgrades and software that wasn't available for the DK or DK2, but there's also some items coming with the headset. Looking at the pre-order bundle, the game comes with one Xbox One controller, EVE: Valkyrie, and Lucky's Tale. People might complain about being forced to order this in a bundle like consumers have done so in the past (looking at you, Kinect 2.0) with other systems.
This is mildly disappointing. The Gaming Nexus staff was taking guesses and our predictions ranged from $400-$500, for the most part. To see an initial price of $600 is definitely high and is probably going to curb sales initially. A product like this needs to get into the hands of as many gamers as possible. That price is going to kill that initial push.
