Oculus Rift Price Drop to $499, $599 for Touch Bundle

Published: March 4, 2017 9:47 PM /

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Oculus Rift Price Drop

The Oculus Rift has had a price drop to $499. Additionally, the Oculus Touch has had a price drop to $99, and the bundle of the Rift and Touch is now $598.

The price is now around $200 cheaper as compared to its most direct competition the HTC Vive which retails for $799. HTC has recently introduced financing programs where you can get your hands on their VR headset for $66 a month over 12 months. Even so, both headsets are more expensive than the PlayStation VR which sits at $399 and has sold over a million units since its release.

Oculus VP of Content Jason Rubin expressed some thoughts on a blog post on the official Oculus site regarding the pricing and competition. He feels confident that the Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch are set to break out of the "hockey stick" of adoption - that is, a sharp upswing of people purchasing the VR headset as the price gets lower. Mr. Rubin made a point of noting that the comparatively lower price of console VR experiences has likely had an impact on VR adoption in the PC environment. He nonetheless remains hopeful - in his own words, a VR-ready PC costs 30% less today than it did only a year ago.

We believe this lower entry price will attract consumers to PC VR at a faster pace. This is universally good for the entire community, but especially for developers.
As for forthcoming content, Mr. Rubin made a point of stating that developers have only had Oculus dev kits in hand for a couple of years - just enough time to make some decent mid-level games. Now that the first wave of Rift games is out, he hopes that we will start to see much bigger and better content in the near future. In any case, the competition in the world of VR just got a bit more intense.

What do you think of the price drop for the Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch? How low would it have to get before you would consider buying it? Do you think the amount of content out for the platform is enough to justify the price, or do you think it's more prudent to wait for the price to get even lower? Let us know in the comments below!

 

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