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Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order

• bowmessage 11y ago
  Going to have to pass on $599. More than I was expecting.
  • interdrift 11y ago
    I can't access the page, is this the official price? Was expecting something around the 400$-450$ range. This costs as much as a full blown PC.
    • strictnein 11y ago
      Yep. And that's a subsidized price too, according to Palmer. https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/684511706677030912 https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/684511706677030912
    • Lan 11y ago
      $599.00 is the official price before tax and shipping.
    • tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
      a 599 PC is not going to have a GPU strong enough to give you any decent VR, 599 is about the starting point for the GPU only, I would honestly not go with anything less than a 980ti for a minimum of future-proofing, and unless you already have one I would wait for a Pascal card, which in any case will cost at least that much. in VR dropping frames / latency directly maps to motion sickness, so it's not a case of "eh, I can deal with the framerate not being super solid" like it can be on normal gaming. This costs less than some flagship cellphones, 599 is definitely not that much all things considered.
      • schwap 11y ago
        > in VR dropping frames / latency directly maps to motion sickness, so it's not a case of "eh, I can deal with the framerate not being super solid" like it can be on normal gaming. Do you have any articles/papers about this? I'm not doubting you, just curious!
        • tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
          don't have any papers specifically about the correlation between framerate / judder and sickness but this older article has some information http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hole-fixing-judder/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hol... as somebody who has major issues with their inner ear I can guarantee that you really do NOT want to get vertigo if you can at all help it
    • AndrewKemendo 11y ago
      This costs as much as a full blown PC. Except you'll also need a killer desktop PC that can run it [1]: - NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater - Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater - 8GB+ RAM - Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output - 2x USB 3.0 ports - Windows 7 SP1 or newer The Oculus Touch is stated to need 4 USB ports [2], not just two, so better plan for that as well So in total you are probably looking at close to $2,000 [3] to use the Rift not including whatever games or applications cost - of which there are not yet a lot of titles (I'm sure that will change in short order though). [1]http://www.pcgamer.com/oculus-rift-pc-requirements-revealed/ http://www.pcgamer.com/oculus-rift-pc-requirements-revealed/ [2]http://www.techtimes.com/articles/118068/20151219/excited-for-oculus-rift-youll-need-at-least-four-usb-ports.htm http://www.techtimes.com/articles/118068/20151219/excited-fo... [3]https://www.oculus.com/en-us/oculus-ready-pcs/ https://www.oculus.com/en-us/oculus-ready-pcs/
      • pc86 11y ago
        My (older) home PC pretty much hits the minimum (GTX 970 and the 4590 processor, but 16GB RAM). Honestly I couldn't tell you how many USB ports it has, I only use two. Looks like I'll be holding off consideration until I upgrade :)
        • AndrewKemendo 11y ago
          I think you're in a minority, even among PC builders.
      • strictnein 11y ago
        Kind of like saying to buy a car you need a $300k house with a garage, when in fact many of the people buying a car already have a house with a garage. That's also not a "killer" desktop. The 290 is a a 2.5 year old card. The GTX 970 is equivalent to a 680 or 780. The 680 came out almost four years ago. If you had no computer at all, you could build that system for ~$700 - $750 ($200 CPU, $100 Mobo, $200 Used GPU, $50 RAM, $75 SSD, $100 Tower+PSU). But that's immaterial, as most early buyers of the Rift have hardware that meets the requirements above. And four USB ports? A $10-$20 powered USB hub solves that. Wouldn't surprise me if it came with one.
    • deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  • StavrosK 11y ago
    Plus $400 for the recommended graphics card :/
  • errnoh 11y ago
    Seems to be €699 in Europe ($750) (edit: This price does not include shipping.)
    • Strom 11y ago
      That price includes VAT. According to google 599 USD is 557 EUR. Add VAT to that, e.g. Finnish 24%, and you get 691 EUR. Not that far from the 699 EUR listed price.
      • MagnumOpus 11y ago
        You don't add Finnish 24% VAT but the VAT of the country where the EU branch of the company is based - most likely Luxembourg with its 15% VAT rate. (All Amazon deliveries to the Eurozone come from Amazon EU SARL in Luxembourg, for instance). Which means the fair price would be EUR 640, almost 10% lower.
        • Strom 11y ago
          VAT is based on the buyer's country for digital goods/services [1], and in other cases (such as this) if the sales exceed 100 000 EUR per year. [2][3] In some countries, like Finland, the limit is even lower at 35 000 EUR per year. [4] So if Oculus expects to sell more than 50 copies of the Rift to Finland, it will have to pay the Finnish VAT. Also, Luxembourg's VAT is 17% nowadays. [5] [1] https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A30464Q6OVH578 https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A30464Q6OVH578 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax#Distance_sales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax... [3] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-what-to-do-if-youre-an-overseas-business-selling-goods-in-the-uk https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-what-to-do-if-youre-an-overs... [4] http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/taxation/vat/traders/vat_community/vat_in_ec_annexi.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/tax... [5] http://www.vatlive.com/european-news/luxembourg-vat-rise-17-2015/ http://www.vatlive.com/european-news/luxembourg-vat-rise-17-...
        • TulliusCicero 11y ago
          Have to also account for labor costs being higher in Europe, I'd bet.
  • thenomad 11y ago
    UK cost is £530 including shipping and VAT (I presume).
    • ionised 11y ago
      Yeah it is. I was going to preorder one but that's £100-£150 too much for me to justify spending on it for now to be honest. Perhaps after the first reviews and supported games start to arrive I'll reconsider.
  • andrewstuart2 11y ago
    I thought I had heard in the $200-$300 range expected for the final product. I'd jump at the lower end of that range, but there's no way I'm paying $600.
  • reitanqild 11y ago
    Web site says USD 59900 on Firefox mobile. Edit: and on Chrome mobile
  • superfx 11y ago
    I actually tried ordering but their website is not really working right now. Both credit cards and paypal seem not to work.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    • alexcp_ 11y ago
      High-end gaming monitors can go for about half the price see this benq monitor for example http://gaming.benq.com/gaming-monitor/xl2411z http://gaming.benq.com/gaming-monitor/xl2411z.
      • swang 11y ago
        Eh, 24 inches, no *-sync, 144hz refresh, 1080p, 1ms "grey-to-grey", and it's TN not IPS. More on the high-end is Acer Predator X34: [0] 34" cinema 21:9, g-sync, 100hz refresh, 1440p, and IPS (also full 100% sRGB coverage). This thing retails for ~$1300 and is sold-out almost everywhere. [0] http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/predator-x34-series http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/predator-x34-series
        • lifeformed 11y ago
          120hz+ is super important for pro gaming, much more than the other stats. 100hz is pretty good already though.
          • swang 11y ago
            If we're talking pro-gamers, they probably don't want a 34 21:9 cinema display either. While I haven't tried it, I'm guessing g-sync @ 100hz makes having a insane refresh rate unnecessary. But at $300-400, I'm guessing most progamers will go with the minimum necessary to get their frame rate optimal.
          • gknoy 11y ago
            Why is 100+hz so important?
            • Strom 11y ago
              In reflex based games, given two otherwise equal setups with players having equal reflexes, the one who gets the stimulus first due to higher refresh rate will win. The standard 60 Hz means new data is sent every 17ms. With 144 Hz you cut it down to 7ms. With equal reflexes, the player who receives the stimulus 10ms earlier will execute the necessary actions 10ms earlier. In practice no two players are that equal, but it's still beneficial to accumulate every advantage you can.
  • akhilcacharya 11y ago
    I was in for a $350 price poiny, but $600 is pushing it, given I'd need to buy a new PSU and GPU to use it.
  • georgemcbay 11y ago
    Ditto. $600 is well outside of the impulse buy range for me that this would have had to be priced at ($350 would be an automatic buy, $400 I'd consider, $600 no), and I bought a DK1 (though through Oculus, not through Kickstarter) and have a pretty substantial amount of expendable spending money. It is interesting to me that the first impulse of so many people in this thread is to try to logically justify the price in the face of people saying they won't buy it -- I'm not saying those people are wrong when comparing the price to a high end monitor or graphics cards, it just isn't relevant to whether or not I'm willing to buy this at $600. My decision not to buy this doesn't mean I don't think the device is worth the money being asked for everyone, nor do I think Oculus/FB is wrong for pricing it thusly, it is just more than I am personally willing to pay for something that is a fairly niche novelty at this point. At the current asking price it is very easy for me to justify waiting until gen 2 or gen 3 when things are much cheaper and there's even more support out there.
• kross 11y ago
  http://shop.oculus.com http://shop.oculus.com - blank screen...awesome. It has been since the moment the pre-order link showed on oculus.com.
  • kross 11y ago
    app-bundle-3.15.14.js:50 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'hostname' of undefined Some great QA went into this release.
    • koja86 11y ago
      Shit happens.
    • kross 11y ago
      Site's up, now declining credit cards? I guess I'll have to paypal it...smooth!
      • jhspaybar 11y ago
        This happened to me, the issue was that I entered my expiration date as MM/YY rather than MM/YYYY. Give it a shot if that's happening to you.
        • cgriswald 11y ago
          The site seems to autocorrect it to MM/YYYY if you enter MM/YY. At least, when it works. Even when I entered the information in manually I got the same vague errors. I wonder what the purpose of collecting at as MM/YYYY even is given that everyone will have an expiration date of 20YY for a long time; and that when they don't, the ones collected now will be expired so not an issue. Even if they store it locally as 20YY to avoid some bug in 2100 (which would be rather long term thinking at this point), it still makes no sense to collect it that way and to autocorrect. Why not just append the digits on the back end?
      • kross 11y ago
        Paypal and credit cards are both declined with "Something went wrong", console shows "Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 (Internal Server Error)" Watching my ship date go from March to April and now probably May was a bit disheartening. Still no success.
• wehadfun 11y ago
  Besides gaming and AE is there any reason to get this?
  • Sven7 11y ago
    If you are a pro athlete it allows you to practice your swing or your serve.
    • ceejayoz 11y ago
      If you're a pro athlete you're going to use the real thing.
      • strictnein 11y ago
        No, you're going to do both. Football players already spend tons of time watching film. This is an extension of that.
      • deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      • erikpukinskis 11y ago
        VR is the real thing. You still throw the football. You just get to see exactly what you did, and how it compares with the throws before and after. And you can get things like realtime audio feedback while you move to give you information about where your body is relative to where you're trying to train to. The possibilities are infinite.
    • chrisdbaldwin 11y ago
      QB training is very compelling.
    • strictnein 11y ago
      Sounds silly, but I know the Minnesota Vikings (an NFL team) used a VR setup for some practice this year, to help increase situational awareness. http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/13328295/minnesota-vikings-begin-virtual-reality-system http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/13328295/minnesota-vikings...
• theklub 11y ago
  Cool, but I don't think I'll buy this first version. Might be worth keeping on in a box for 30 years though.
• lossolo 11y ago
  Stop with "Virtual Reality" hype. People feel dizzy after trying this out. You will see how this hype will decline after the product launch. We see hype because big companies bet on this product and now want to get their millions back...
  • Sephiroth87 11y ago
    "People"... Have you actually tried it?
  • PretzelPirate 11y ago
    I felt dizzy at first, but quickly got used to it. It was a very fun experience. I would happily play for hours wearing it. Its no Virtual Boy, but its the best substitute I can find. :)
  • tluyben2 11y ago
    I have the dev kit from the first Kickstarter (and will get this one apparently for free because of it); never felt dizzy at all nor anything else negative besides getting sweaty in my face after a while of playing. It might be a hype and it might decline but not because 'people feel dizzy' in general.
  • namuol 11y ago
    It took some experimenting to learn the sorts of things that cause users to feel dizzy/weird. We've come a long way since then. The $600 price point is not targeting average consumers -- this is a PC enthusiast product. Expect the next generation of VR -- one with a clearer set of best-practices -- to hit mainstream.
  • baby 11y ago
    haven't felt dizzy trying the htc vive.
  • ionised 11y ago
    I didn't feel anything like that when I used DK2 to play Elite: Dangerous and mess about with the Rift demos.
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• herbst 11y ago
  Subtotal: $59900 O_O
  • interdrift 11y ago
    There goes my apartment.
  • ceejayoz 11y ago
    Font issue? There's a dot in there - $599.00.
    • herbst 11y ago
      Most likely, but it was like this on both places. Oh well, maybe they forgot to look at it on retina.
    • esnard 11y ago
      document.getElementsByClassName("op-item-info__cost__price")[0].textContent; "$59900" Tested on both Firefox & Chromium, so it doesn't seem like a font issue.
  • esnard 11y ago
    Same reaction here. I'm not used to reading American prices, and the missing dot scared me as I didn't expect anything higher than $1000.
  • Raphmedia 11y ago
    This bug alone made me stop in my track and turn back from their website. I'll wait to see what the competition can offer.
  • pcmonk 11y ago
    This is a l10n problem. This happened to me when I was set to Spanish (Latin America) and Russian, but it's correct with English. Some xenophobe must have stripped out the commas...
• chrisdbaldwin 11y ago
  $675 after taxes.
  • pc86 11y ago
    That's going to be incredibly dependent upon your state and local taxes.
• DIVx0 11y ago
  ouch, I was all set to preorder but $599 is too much for me to buy this without seeing it in person first. I will have to wait for retail demo units or something.
  • zenir 11y ago
    They don't charge you until they ship, so basically you are just saving the spot and can cancel before they ship when reviews are available (hopefully?): https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/684540696951308288 https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/684540696951308288
• ulam2 11y ago
  Not available in India. :(
• yeukhon 11y ago
  Why is Xbox One Controller included? Not PS4 compatible? But hey you'd now think "why didn't I back Oculus on Kickstarter?"
  • namuol 11y ago
    It's a PC peripheral, and always has been. Sony (PS4) has their own VR tech. The Xbox controller ensures all Rift users have the same hardware, which is especially important with VR experiences.
    • yeukhon 11y ago
      It seems like you can't take that out of the bundle if you have one yourself, possibly a modified version? Otherwise that seems like a major disappointment for those already own an xbox controller, and force them to pay additional $$.
      • erikpukinskis 11y ago
        Palmer said that they get the controllers for next to nothing (remember the deal they made with Microsoft?). If you don't want it you can sell it and come out ahead of where you would be if they had never included it.
    • dikaiosune 11y ago
      It's probably also helpful that most PC games that were ported from console support DirectInput/XInput. Getting the PC users set up with controllers will make it easier to pitch developers on porting from console VR (Sony) -> PC VR.
    • cookiecaper 11y ago
      Does it include a wireless dongle for the PC? afaik wireless support doesn't exist yet for Linux. Wish they had included the Steam Controller instead.
      • erikpukinskis 11y ago
• kolbe 11y ago
  I thought Samsung has been doing a pretty decent job of integrating VR into their smartphones. Will there be a substantial improvement to the VR experiences using Oculus?
  • thenomad 11y ago
    The big difference so far is positional tracking. Being able to move your head in a 3D environment is huge, and results in a lot less VR sickness.
  • soylentcola 11y ago
    Just comparing my DK2 to stuff like GearVR (or Cardboard at the low end) it really does make a difference. Without the smoothest of framerates or positional tracking, it really limits the useful applications of VR. It's OK for watching a movie on a virtual giant screen or some more limited experiences but for a real sense of immersion, you really need some level of positional tracking. When I got the DK2 I spent way more time grinning that I could stand up and look around behind my flight chair and around my cockpit in Elite Dangerous than I'd like to admit. Just having a 3d "surround" image to look around is cool but positional tracking makes you feel like you're really "there".
• melling 11y ago
  "Too much money" ... "It's all hype". Can we take the whiny asshole shit to Reddit? It's ok if you're not interested. Check back in 5 years. Everyone doesn't need to be an early adopter.
• stoffie 11y ago
  linux support was dropped, thank god I have a good reason to not give them all my money
  • e28eta 11y ago
    And it looks like Mac hardware (even with bootcamp) is not supported either, so I do too.
    • rocky1138 11y ago
      Apple doesn't make any compatible laptops, and, AFAIK they are out of the desktop hardware business. Aren't they? Linux support is slightly sadder. Maybe one day!
    • jsheard 11y ago
      I can't really blame them for ignoring the Mac, even the absolutely maxed out 27" iMac is nowhere near their minimum GPU requirement. A Mac Pro is theoretically fast enough but only in games set up to leverage both GPUs - one of them alone doesn't meet the minimum spec either.
• mtgx 11y ago
  Aside from this pre-order thing, will you be able to purchase a Rift only from Oculus directly? What about Amazon or other stores?
• awurts 11y ago
  599... not to mention I have a very high end computer by today's standard but it still needs upgrades. I have one of the better AMD processors but it tells me I need an Intel, which means I will have to buy a new board and rebuild the entire thing, as well as replace the GPU... right.
  • mtgx 11y ago
    Not to mention that whole promise that Facebook is going to make it so much easier for them...and they can't even provider proper support for all mainstream chips.
  • jblow 11y ago
    Kids today. In the late 1990s-early 2000s a decent gaming PC would cost you between $2500 and $3500, and those numbers represented more money than they do today. A "very high end computer by today's standard", when it comes to games, would have a GPU that's substantially faster than what Oculus is requiring ... I find their requirement shockingly low and wonder if that is a tactical mistake.
    • rconti 11y ago
      I'm not a gamer, but I still get a kick out of people complaining about how expensive $45 or $50 games are. Get off my damn lawn, when I was a wee lad, I reserved my copy of Super Mario 3 and was HAPPY to find a store to hold a copy for me on release, of course full retail price of $65. That's $130 in today's dollars!
• serge2k 11y ago
  599 is more than I am willing to pay right now, maybe once both it and the vive are out. The part that really pisses me off is the 30 dollars for shipping. What a joke.
  • draugadrotten 11y ago
    44 euro shipping in Europe. I could literally get Ryanair flight tickets cheaper, to pick it up in person.
• mortenjorck 11y ago
  $599 may seem like a perilously steep price to debut at, but right now, Oculus faces a much bigger risk than low sales volume: Poor reception. If this was the MSRP required to ensure a comfortable, nausea-free experience, it's far better to have a killer product at a high price point than a "don't buy the first generation" product at the price point people were expecting. The former can lead to a cheaper gen 2, but the latter can lead to ruin.
  • soylentcola 11y ago
    My thoughts as well. Plus the price is roughly comparable to a higher end smartphone. Given the hardware and software involved, it's not terribly far off for a gen 1 device. I think of the Palm and WinMo phones I paid $500+ for during the early generations of smartphones and it starts to make more sense. And just as I'm sure those devices from Palm and HTC could've been a lot nicer even with the tech of the day, the price would've pushed into the $1000 range. Gen 1 is always gonna be fairly expensive and still not quite as good as you wish it was. With later revisions, price drops and capabilities go up. The only issue I see here is that rather than looking at relative openness and ability to run in-development software on something like the Vive or the Rift, many people are going to look only at price and wait for something like a $300 Playstation VR headset that's limited to whatever can be sold and approved for a game console. As I see it, it's still an early-adopter techie toy/luxury so whether it costs $399 or $599, I'd only really buy it if I had that sort of dough in my "fun stuff I don't need" budget. Even as someone who bought a Rift DK2 at launch, I'm both waiting on buying any consumer device and not too concerned with the price difference between a $400 device and a $600 device. If anything ends up striking me as really worth buying, I won't just buy a lesser device to save a couple hundred bucks. I'd rather wait until I see something I really want and will use and not buy anything at all until then.
    • lfowles 11y ago
      > Plus the price is roughly comparable to a higher end smartphone. Interesting comparison, but most people are able to finance phones through their carrier (although I haven't looked into that for a bleeding edge new phone model).
• rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  Good to see the Oculus Rift is on its way. Early tech will always have nosebleed prices and growing pains, but after a generation or two we'll be able to experience high-quality VR without getting a headache or our cars repossessed for nonpayment. And it means we will have decent competition to the Rift, for those who don't want Facebook monitoring our every glance and gesture.
  • CaptSpify 11y ago
    > And it means we will have decent competition to the Rift, for those who don't want Facebook monitoring our every glance and gesture. Howso? I was super interested in the Rift, until it was acquired. Now I have absolutely no interest in it.
    • rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
      All it has to do is prove a market exists at a particular price point and it won't be long until Rift is only one of many games in town.
• ageofwant 11y ago
  I regretted cancelling my devkit in righteous rage after the facebook sellout, but the somewhat tepid uptake of VR2.0 the last 18 months or so sadly makes it seem like the right decision, if maybe for the wrong reasons. I kinda hoped that the other vendors would have had something remarkable by now.
  • zardo 11y ago
    The whole HTC/Valve "roomscale" thing with the chaperone system is pretty remarkable.
• rwmj 11y ago
  Graphics card question: If I wanted to run my own software on this (ie. I don't care about AAA games), would any old graphics card do, as long as I'm only rendering very simple, low polygon scenes? Or is there something inherent in the high end graphics cards that makes them essential?
  • thenomad 11y ago
    I think you'd be OK, but I can't say for sure, as I haven't tried it. Nothing I know of that would prevent you doing that, though. You would probably need a card that supported DX11 or equivalent and possibly DX12 - not sure about the CV1 spec on that.
  • berberous 11y ago
    I'm not an expert -- but I have heard the number 3.5x thrown around, i.e., the basic point is that a VR-rendered scene is 3.5x as computationally expensive as a standard scene.
  • apsec112 11y ago
    From the hardware FAQ on /r/oculus: "Can I use a weaker PC for basic content? With weaker hardware, it may be possible to run very graphically simplistic content like virtual desktop, virtual cinema (for watching movies), and 360 videos, however you will be totally on your own without support if you choose to do this, and it is unlikely that there will be many (or any) games that support lower specs. If you do wish to take this non-recommended path, your PC must at least meet the absolute minimum requirements: Video Card: GTX 650 / AMD 7750 desktop GPU or better and newer USB Ports: 2x USB 3.0 ports Video Output: free HDMI 1.3 output OS: Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer Remember: The Rift will not run on your laptop, this rule does not change!" https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/wiki/requirements https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/wiki/requirements
    • matwood 11y ago
      > The Rift will not run on your laptop, this rule does not change! IMHO, this is the biggest issue. The computer landscape has shifted towards laptops/mobile and now this device requires a device whose marketshare is shrinking.
• Torkel 11y ago
  I for one is super excited that the Rift consumer version is finally released! I experIenced a lot of overload issues: "Something went wrong. Please try again." in red when I try to pay. I solved it by just keeping on trying. Issue was oveload, not my credit cards. See followup too.
  • Torkel 11y ago
    Ok, I finally got my order through. (If anybody had the same issue: Don't think I did anything differently than before though so it's probably just some part of Oculus' payment system that is under dimensioned...)
• apsec112 11y ago
  $600 is a bit more than people expected, but it doesn't seem "unreasonable" for a high-end consumer product. When Apple's first computer (the Apple II) came out, the launch price was ~$5,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars. The TRS-80 was the "cheap" computer, and it cost ~$2,300.
• scubasteve 11y ago
  This might be a better URL to link to: https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/oculus-rift-pre-orders-now-open-first-shipments-march-28/ https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/oculus-rift-pre-orders-now.... Shipping to 20 countries starting March 28 and in select retailers in April.
  • AlphaSite 11y ago
    That's awfully close to the Vive's ship date as well, this should be interesting...
• dandelany 11y ago
  Unlike a lot of people, I don't think $600 is an insane price to pay for a good piece of good VR kit... The insane part is the fact that they don't even list basic technical specs on the marketing site?! Am I missing something obvious? I'm supposed to drop $600 on a piece of hardware that relies on a high-resolution screen to work well, without knowing the screen's resolution? They know they're selling mostly to nerds at first, right?
  • moron4hire 11y ago
    They give you a validation tool and link to the documentation where they spell out the specs explicitly.
    • dandelany 11y ago
      As I said, I don't see a documentation link with specs anywhere, can you link us to it? Are you talking about this docs site: https://developer.oculus.com/documentation https://developer.oculus.com/documentation ? Because I don't see any hardware specs on there either. Are you saying I have to run the validation tool (.exe) to get it?
      • moron4hire 11y ago
        https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/pcsdk/latest/concepts/dg-sdk-setup-requirements/ https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/pcsdk/latest/conc...
        • coudron 11y ago
          He means the hardware specs of the VR Kit... not the requirements for the computer
        • Pfhreak 11y ago
          Parent is looking for the technical specs of the rift itself, not the pc specs required to power the rift. As far as I'm aware, those specs are not available.
• scubasteve 11y ago
  Interesting tweet from Palmer (https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/684772857625231360 https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/684772857625231360) on high load and fraud. Always interesting to see large launches not considering load/security on the web app. Out of curiosity, why is www.oculus.com not using a CDN (direct to AWS), and shop.oculus.com not using a CDN with rate control capabilities.
  • zeroxfe 11y ago
    The load is from transaction processing, which CDNs don't help with. CDNs are typically used for cacheable content like static assets.
    • scubasteve 11y ago
      I agree, however you can reduce fraud load by rate limiting IPs for a start. I'm not sure if shop.oculus.com uses the same infrastructure as www.oculus.com (I'm assuming not). But if it did, caching www would help as well.
  • justinholmes 11y ago
    IP maps to Facebook infrastructure.
  • cm2187 11y ago
    Hope they can tell the difference between "script kiddie fraud" and normal users trying to do the payment again and again using a different machine and a different browser because they site can't handle the load...
  • AYBABTME 11y ago
    I don't understand why product launches like that aren't done using Shopify or something alike. They're already solving the VR problem, why try to solve e-commerce at scale on top of it.
    • ethbro 11y ago
      Because "Occulus webpage crashes with pre-order demand!" isn't such a terrible news item to get out there?
• ambiate 11y ago
  If you're not an early adopter enthusiast: it may not be a great idea to purchase this right now. You will probably need a PC upgrade to match your new $675 toy. The new generation of Intel/Nvidia is right around the corner. Don't dig yourself into a hole where you buy current flagship and need to upgrade it 9 months down the road from now for Q4's toy.
  • Cyphus 11y ago
    They released minimum system requirements specifically so that you wouldn't have to upgrade 9 months down the road.
    • ambiate 11y ago
      2016 Q3/Q4's new fancy toy may not be a RiftV2 and may have a minimum requirement of a Pascal GPU or Skylake/Broadwell-e CPU. Its just a really horrible time to buy computer hardware right now.
      • soared 11y ago
        Release cycle for VR is not less than a year. I've read anywhere between 1 (mobile) and 10 (console) years.
        • kodr 11y ago
          more like 5 years for console.
  • ethbro 11y ago
    > The new generation of Intel/Nvidia is right around the corner. To be accurate, the next Intel process shrink (Cannonlake@10nm) is delayed to 2H 2017. Kaby Lake@14nm fills in for 2016, and mostly features chipset updates (e.g. native USB 3.1 and more PCIE lanes). Likely no socks to be blown off there. Nvidia with Pascal will be out ~2H 2016, and is probably worth waiting for. AMD will be out with Arctic Islands as well. Both are process shrinks from 28nm. If you're looking at buying the next generation, it'll be either existing Intel + new GPU 2H 2016, or Cannonlake w/ likely 2016 GPU in 2017. Given that CPU isn't a bottleneck in existing graphics applications, 2H 2016 is as good of a time to buy as any. Which also happens to mean missing the hype train and letting real-world reviews of HMDs come in before choosing.
• moron4hire 11y ago
  The deed is done. I guess I have about 2 months to figure out how to convincingly explain to my wife, just as our baby is born, that it's a business expense and I neeeeeed it.
  • rhokstar 11y ago
    Research and development!
    • keeran 11y ago
      That's how I justified the KickStarter.. boy has that paid off! :D
      • moron4hire 11y ago
        Might be a small amount of profit in someone finding DK1-backers who have gotten out of VR and don't want a CV1 and buying their free devices off of them.
• transfire 11y ago
  Will wait to see how all the major players compare Oculus, HTC/Steam, PS4's VR and let's not forget some interesting alternatives like http://castar.com/ http://castar.com/.
• SmokyBorbon 11y ago
  Facebook. No thank you.
• owenversteeg 11y ago
  Among the giant debate over cost and power, I'm just wondering what would've happened had they waited, say, two years to release. Suddenly, the cost (of both the device and of the desktop PC) go way down. With something like this, a poorly received first launch can torpedo not only the product but the entire VR industry, and when someone's spent over $2k to get it to work their expectations will be very high. I'm sure that there are very viable reasons to release now, but I still have a feeling that it was more of a "release as soon as it's acceptable" than a "release as soon as we can be sure the launch will go amazingly."
  • mkozlows 11y ago
    The Kickstarter was in 2012. They've been putting out developer kits for years and years. There's no sensible way they could just go for another few years without releasing something.
  • davej 11y ago
    Two years is a lifetime in tech. This isn't a mainline consumer product even though they may market it as such. A few hardcore gamers and VR enthusiasts will buy this, slightly more will get to experience this through a friend who has purchased it. It will churn away and people who can't quite justify shelling out the cash will still be excited by the experience. By the time v2 comes around, the price point will be much more acceptable. I would expect that by v3 it will be mainstream. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw yearly iterations of the Rift for the first few versions. Ultimately I think this tech has to be paired with a console rather than a PC for widespread adoption.
  • DINKDINK 11y ago
    > what would've happened had they waited, say, two years to release. Suddenly, the cost (of both the device and of the desktop PC) go way down. When is this not the case? Two years into the future, hardware will be vastly cheaper /in two more years/
  • bloaf 11y ago
    I think the only thing that could really torpedo the VR industry is if the Oculus experience isn't pleasant for the early adopters. If their system requirements are accurate, and they have built a decent piece of hardware, then I don't think initial pricing is a problem for the entire VR industry. That being said, there are currently not a lot of options between their recommended specs (gtx 970) and the current "top of the line" gfx cards (gtx 980 Ti) If their recommended specs are inadequate to get a good experience, people simply won't have many upgrade options until the next gen GFX cards start coming out (Q2 2016 at the earliest.)
• temp 11y ago
  That's $750 (€699) for those of us in Europe. So much for the "ballpark of $349". Edit: That's without shipping. With shipping its $800 (€745).
  • Raphmedia 11y ago
    As a Canadian, I feel your pain. 844.33 Canadian Dollar. Ouch.
• anonymousab 11y ago
  Ouch. That poor Canadian dollar.
• cheshire137 11y ago
  Excited about getting a free Rift because we backed them for the first development kit on Kickstarter. :)
• JamesBaxter 11y ago
  In the UK it's basically the cost of an Xbox One and PS4 together. I wonder if PC gamers would prefer one of those consoles for the exclusives.
  • Someone1234 11y ago
    Apples and oranges. Oculus is a different experience, not a different gaming platform. If PS4 or XBone could offer an Oculus-like experience then your point would absolutely make sense, but they cannot. The closest comparable console is the Virtual Boy from 1995.
    • robin_reala 11y ago
      Playstation VR launches some point this year. Costing obviously remains to be seen, but the tech is there.
      • Someone1234 11y ago
        Sony has hinted that it might cost around $400. And you also need a PS4 (which is around $300 now).
        • schwap 11y ago
          Given the specs required by Oculus I'm not very confident the PS4 will be able to deliver a meaningful VR experience.
    • JamesBaxter 11y ago
      I'm not comparing the technology. I'm comparing what a gamer can do with that money.
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• codeshaman 11y ago
  I see one of the requirements is a Windows computer... So for a Mac user like myself, that $599 would include a good $1k+ for a Windows PC ? Nevertheless I'm very excited about this tech, although I will not jump into it just yet.
  • nardi 11y ago
    If you've got a nice enough Mac, just install Windows on it via BootCamp (https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/ https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/).
    • e28eta 11y ago
      BootCamp is unsupported, from what I can see. https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=27138&p=302633#p302633 https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=27138&p=30263...
    • ptomato 11y ago
      No currently sold Mac meets Oculus minimum requirements, to the best of my knowledge.
      • jsheard 11y ago
        Correct, even the GPUs used in the top end Mac Pro fall short of the minimum requirement. Both GPUs rendering an eye each would be fast enough but that configuration isn't widely supported by games yet.
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• ericzawo 11y ago
  Hope that mall booths start popping up where you can use them.
• malka 11y ago
  I refuse to give money to Facebook. I'll wait for SteamVR.
• bdz 11y ago
  TIL 700 EUR is in the ballpark of 350 USD
• vocatus_gate 11y ago
  I think the biggest risk to adoption is real-world interest. I get that VR is a fun tech, and has some potentially cool possibilities. But to me and seemingly many other people, it's just not that interesting. I don't know why, maybe I'm not geek enough, but I just have zero interest. And frankly it feels kind of like a gimmick. I'm especially averse to the idea of strapping on a clumsy headset every time I want to use it. In fact, I wish Carmack and Newell would stop messing around with it and go back to producing quality games. Downvote away
  • ljk 11y ago
    Agreed. To look at a monitor, only the eyes have to move; with VR goggles, something needs to be attached to your head AND you'd have to move your whole head to see the environment. Also, is it good to have your eyes focusing on something that close to your face for a long period of time? (not a doctor)
    • CarVac 11y ago
      There are lenses; the image is around 1.5 meters away.
      • ljk 11y ago
        didn't realize that, thanks!
    • DINKDINK 11y ago
      >is it good to have your eyes focusing on something that close to your face for a long period of time? The converse thought about the differences between viewing a VR screen vs a 2D monitor. VR Screens you have the capability of your eyes needing to adjust to different depths. That is, the muscles that dictate the position of your eyes will need to be recalibrated slightly when you start viewing entities at different depths. With 2D monitors you're approximately at the same text tracking rate. There's ergonomic software that will periodically instruct you to look away from your computer screen to focus on points in the distance for the health of your eyes.
    • 11y ago
• mentos 11y ago
  Anyone know what the specs are for the screen?
• tallanvor 11y ago
  Has anyone with vision issues been able to try out the hardware? I suppose it's more of a software issue, but I'm blind in one eye, and if applications assume you have vision in both eyes, you could end up with usability issues when controls are only displayed on one screen or the other.
  • corysama 11y ago
    You won't have to worry about that. UI on only one eye would be a very bad idea for everyone. I can speculate about someone using it for an intentionally weird and distracting ghost effect or to approximate "impossible colors" like red-and-blue-not-purple. But, otherwise it won't be done. Also, people with monocular vision have reported that the 3D-ness and presence of VR headsets works just as well as real life. In fact, it's fairly common for people with stereo vision to have a hard time noticing when they are running VR software that intentionally/unintentionally displays in mono.
    • tallanvor 11y ago
      Interesting to know. I still won't buy one until I can actually try it out, but it sounds like it's better than 3D movies, which I cannot watch without getting a splitting headache (I think it's due to the decreased light levels that come through the glasses).
  • cgarrard 11y ago
    Totally blind or just legally blind? My left eye can count fingers up to a distance of 2' with peripheral vision and a complete lack of foveal vision. Playing around with the DK2 I still felt the "presence" VR tries to achieve.
    • tallanvor 11y ago
      I'm legally blind in my left eye due to Toxoplasmosis, most likely passed to me before I was born, and they didn't figure out what was wrong until I was 6. Your description of your vision sounds similar to mine, strangely enough 10 years ago it was even worse, but I still don't have the necessary sight to read with that eye.
• swang 11y ago
  Oh man, the people complaining in /r/oculus on Reddit. Insane.
• sebringj 11y ago
  $399 should be an all-in-one price anyway. Not going to be mainstream till 2017-18 even but we'll see some nice kiosks and promotional booths in businesses.
• RRRA 11y ago
  All I want for christmas is a Portal 3 and a VR headset for Linux (that actually is using a standrad like VGA was)... ;)
  • neuromute 11y ago
    I was surprised to discover that Oculus have dropped support for Linux and OSX, at least for the time being. I'm sure you can still run the headsets, but it seems like a somewhat risky purchase as long as there is no official support. I'd love to hear about other Linux users' experience with a consumer unit though. I'm really excited about VR and would love to pick up a headset at some point soon. I hope Oculus start to focus on Linux support again soon!
    • gtaylor 11y ago
      > I was surprised to discover that Oculus have dropped support for Linux and OSX, at least for the time being. The graphic driver situation is abysmal for both. With Linux, you might as well not even bother with modern AMD cards. They've done a terrible job the last few years, often eschewing such things as a change log that shows what this random update you're downloading does. NVIDIA is much better on Linux overall, but even they have got a lot of limitations and quirks. Performance is much better than AMD, as long as you don't use the open source drivers. On Mac, the drivers are crazy out of date and seem to be very tied to specific Mac OS releases. I don't know whether to be irate with Apple or NVIDIA/AMD. Linux benchmarks better on many games than Mac OS. Phoronix runs these periodically if you wanted to see some numbers.
      • neuromute 11y ago
        I've got a 980 GTX running on Ubuntu 14.04.3 and it's pretty good overall. I can play most games at a decent framerate in very high quality @ 2560x1440. It can run Portal at 4K, no problem. The rig I have is pretty new and cost just over £2000 though. I've had less impressive results with lower spec'd hardware. As with all things gaming/hardware related, YMMV.
• darkxanthos 11y ago
  In a world where hard core gamers will pay >$500 for a graphics card, this price will work fine for a 1st gen. It'll be a smaller audience at first but that will also help them out as they need to focus on their customer support for issues they find in the wild.
  • cloudwalking 11y ago
    I don't think $600 is unreasonable for a brand-new platform's low-production volume v1. The PS3 launched at $499-$599.
    • jpambrun 11y ago
      It is not a complete platform though; you still need a 1000+$ PC to connect it to. Furthermore, the PS3 was a known quantity because of its predecessors. You could reasonably assume that you could get hundreds of hours of entertainment for that initial purchase. VR is unproven and the asking price is just too steep for such a gamble (for me anyway).
  • Wohlf 11y ago
    Except a high quality graphics card will last for years, and has lots of games that will benefit from it.
    • carb 11y ago
      As will the Oculus Rift.
    • Swannie 11y ago
      I've seen this idea expressed multiple times in this thread, and wonder how it is that HN users' are so out of touch with the gaming crowd. Almost all serious PC gamers I've ever known upgrade their graphics cards every 9 - 18months. Very few serious gamers keep a gaming rig untouched for 2 years. Also the comments about a screen or a graphics card being used for more than gaming. Again, sorry, but most hardcore gamers have a gaming rig for gaming, and will use a phone/tablet/laptop for their more casual usage. They generally dislike cluttering up their primary machine with office productivity apps, etc. It's a false comparison. It's like someone owning a car for track racing, and saying: "yeah, the seats are expensive, but they will be useful when driving down to the shops to pick up some milk". Absurd. Sure, people might drive their road legal track car to a car show, or a garage, or a parts shop, or their friends, from time to time, but that's part of the hobby experience - not used as a justification for the parts/modification.
• aesoprock 11y ago
  Too expensive for me right now. I'll pass
• aesoprock 11y ago
  Too expensive for me right now. I'll pass
• intrasight 11y ago
  This is for sure too expensive for casual gamers. And probably too expensive for serious gamers - at least until there are some serious VR games. By the time that serious VR games arrive, the price of a quality VR headset - with built-in GPU - will probably be around $400. This will remain a small niche market until mainstream killer apps arrive - and those won't be games. The obvious killer apps are a) immersive major league sports, b) immersive animated movies, c) immersive porn. Then the tech gets cheap enough that useful killer apps will emerge (education, history, etc.)
• nilkn 11y ago
  My biggest fear for VR is that it's going to introduce a much more severe form of console exclusives. I really don't want to drop $600+ on an Oculus Rift only to find out that some other killer game from Valve is going to support VR, but only on the also very expensive Vive. It's frustrating enough having to own multiple redundant game consoles to play all AAA titles, but it'll be even worse (and basically unaffordable) having to own multiple VR headsets.
  • zardo 11y ago
    That's very likely. Valve is almost certainly going to release a game that takes advantage of the "roomscale" capabilities they helped develop for the Vive. If they make full use of it, the game may be impossible to port to a headset that doesn't allow you to walk around. It's not really that different from multiple consoles, what did an Xbox360 and a PS3 cost in today's dollars?
    • LesZedCB 11y ago
      Palmer Luckey tweeted that there is no reason why roomscale won't work on the Oculus. He set up two cameras in the corners and said it worked acceptably.
• deleted 11y ago
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• mesozoic 11y ago
  I'm very interested but will wait until the reviews are out and to see what their long term business model is. Video game consoles don't really make that much money but rather the software does so I want to know what their plans are.
• robbies 11y ago
  For all the complaints of $599, consider the prices of graphics cards, gaming monitors, phones, (4K) TVs, and so on. With this price, they are targeting the alpha consumer, who (hopefully) will have a great experience, tell their friends and the world, and prepare the markets for the eventual mass market version that will be in the $200-$400 range. AAA devs were never going to participate in this first gen anyway (there was no way they'd recoup their dev resources, so why would they). While I think the concern for content is a valid one, I think indies and non-gaming apps will come through with a few breakthrough experiences that will drive the first set of sales, paving the way for the AAAs.
• rubicon33 11y ago
  So many people talking about how its 'too expensive'. Obviously expense is subjective, but if you ask me, purchasing THE premium product of THE emerging market, means you can expect a high price. Oculus is the Apple of VR.
• mdevere 11y ago
  Amusing that they went for $599. The PS3 was launched at $599 during a much-ridiculed E3 keynote and the price tag was ultimately looked back on as a huge strategic error. The Oculus is a different kettle of fish, of course. But $599 seems almost like a deliberate reference.
• evo_9 11y ago
  Well I really wanted this to be a huge, consumer hit that turns VR on to the masses, but like many the price is simply not going to make that possible. I think it's unwise to target 'hardcore gaming pc users' who will drop 600 on a new video card enough to not bat an eye at this price. In that context it might be a hit, but that's hardly going to forward VR into the mass market as was the original hope of this device, at least for me. Like other have also touched on, Sony seems to be in a better position now. They are a consumer product company and have learned the hard way of the perils of a roughly 600 dollar gaming device and how that works out in actual sales (the original PS3 was 599 at launch at got pummeled by Xbox360). This would all be a moot point if there were that one true killer VR app that made us all want a Rift but it doesn't exist right now either from what I can tell. This again plays into Sony's hands as they can sit and wait for that one product to emerge and maybe have already grabbed it (they seem to be holding the reins now on No Man's Sky, which could very well be the VR killer app we are all waiting for). Time will tell but I'm disappointed. VR for the masses will have to wait a bit longer.
  • erikpukinskis 11y ago
    VR thethered to a Windows PC was never going to be for the masses. It's an awkward form factor. Mobile VR is the thing that will achieve wide adoption. Look for standalone VR devices under $500 in the five year timeframe. That's when we'll start to see hundreds of millions of users. Even iPhone only sold 6 million in the first gen.
• jfoutz 11y ago
  Gaming will be neat and all, but how is reading? I'd really like the infinite space for terminals and docs. Maybe turning my head to look over at stackoverflow would suck, but my glasses are thick, so even through the lens vision is blurry at the edges. I can imagine a goofy hackers style 3d world would be amusing for a while. Even a really pedestrian window manager would be nice. terminals could be very tall, so i could look up to see many commands back. heck, i could float docs where the keyboard is right now. Full visual field seems neat.
  • Lionleaf 11y ago
    At the moment the resolution simply isn't there for multiple virtual high resolution displays. I did some math a while back, and if I wanted the 1080 display I had at work at the same distance from my eyes in virtual space, I would need 5k by 5k pixels per eye. Add a high refresh rate and that's far higher datarate than we can handle right now. And you'd need display tech that's pretty insane. While it's not a replacement yet, if you're happy with some oldschool low res displays it's probably fine. Someone should do the math of the resolution you'd get in some examples.
    • jfoutz 11y ago
      Interesting. i use small fonts just so i can pack more stuff on the screen. doubling the font size seems like i'd need 4x the area, eyeballing my current monitor setup, seems like it'd be a wash. Might be worth trying out just for the novelty though.
  • bduerst 11y ago
    There's a demo of VR Monitors here, and reading seems possible: http://www.vrdesktop.net/ http://www.vrdesktop.net/ But you're right, ideally your desktop becomes this pseudo 2D space in 3D, where you manage multiple windows at once all around you.
• sytelus 11y ago
  Pricing and strategy of expensive desktop dependency now looks like a huge mistake. My guess here is that Apple or Google is going to come up with VR enhanced phones + cardboard like cheap device that has experience pretty close to Rift before the end of the year. If that happens, their VR devices would be under $200 which would be just accessories for the new phones. That would be far more acceptable to most people then dedicated beefy PCs that fewer and fewer people want in their houses. So the end result might be that Apple/Google VR product might become first mass produced and mass accepted which defines platform, apps and APIs while Rift might slide in to niche for hardcore gamers who want that extra ounce of oomph. There is Occulus Gear VR type devices that might be able to compete but here key thing is that they will really need to control end-to-end experience and this has to be the strategy from the start instead of future pivot or backup plan.
  • moistgorilla 11y ago
    Samsung Gear VR already exists and the difference between the experiences is night and day. As for Google Cardboard, the experience is just bad.
    • sytelus 11y ago
      Yes, but I think experience can be improved dramatically if industrial design teams gets on the mission and if phones can have targeted improvements. For example, iPhone 7 is rumored to have massive increase in resolution which could be boon for VR. Add on to this a dedicated chip for generating stereo graphics that stays offline except during VR session to save power. Phones can also get two cameras to support AR scenarios as well as 3D photo/video recording. The headset can be equipped with eye gaze and depth sensors with easy way to slide phones in and out.
• deleted 11y ago
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• staunch 11y ago
  This reminds me of the 3DFX Voodoo2 release and I think it will be as big a deal.
• wmil 11y ago
  What's really interesting is that studios may be able to make the first round of oculus games very cheaply. The resolution is lower than typical on PC games, framerate is important, and the experience is very different. So I bet they could get away with repurposing a lot of old content into new oculus games.
  • erikpukinskis 11y ago
    Yep. Third person games like Metal Gear and Grand Theft Auto just need a rewrite to he camera system and the UI and they should be good to go. Racing sims should be easy ports. FPS's are dead in the water.
• Animats 11y ago
  It's been available as a "development version" for almost two years.[1] The price was $1000, and anyone could buy it on Amazon. This is a 40% price cut, which is nice, but not a mainstream price. Is there a killer app for this yet? The roller coaster simulators are fun for about ten minutes. Second Life now works with the Oculus Rift [3] but few people care. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGIIQf3krMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGIIQf3krMM [2] http://www.amazon.com/Oculus-Rift-Developers-Kit-Dk2/dp/B00F5CWD0I http://www.amazon.com/Oculus-Rift-Developers-Kit-Dk2/dp/B00F... [3] http://secondlife.com/destinations/oculus http://secondlife.com/destinations/oculus
  • HCIdivision17 11y ago
    Euro Truck Simulator 2 is pretty damn good. I haven't seen it mentioned here yet, but people are more than happy to put scores of hours on that game. And the VR really improves it.
    • Animats 11y ago
      The only reason that game needs VR is so you can see your right side mirrors without changing viewpoint.[1] (Also, it really needs a steering wheel. Trying to drive a realistic vehicle with a game pad/joystick is awful.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56G2jSw4JHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56G2jSw4JHs
      • HCIdivision17 11y ago
        Well, I liked it at least. It enhances the game in the same way jumping from 16bit to 64bit makes a lot of stuff nicer. It doesn't fix fundamental deficiencies, but it makes the good stuff gooder. Being able to just look at the mirror instead of pressing a key feels way better and is far more natural. But you gotta give 'em points for mapping the FOV control to the 'seat position' (or something close).
  • Tepix 11y ago
    The price was $300 for DK1 (first devkit) and $350 for the DK2. The consumer version is more than twice as expensive.
• bryanlarsen 11y ago
  (my) reasons to wait: - touch controllers not available yet - Valve/HTC Vive may be considerably better -- wait for solid reviews of consumer units together with the games we're interested in - AMD & NVidia will have card refreshes in a similar time frame. These refreshes finally move to a new process, from 28nm to 14nm FinFET, so the performance increase should be quite massive. This means that a mid-range video card should be enough.
• davidbanham 11y ago
  Shipping to Australia is $132. _ouch_
• joshschreuder 11y ago
  The price and hefty GPU requirements make this a no go for me. I think PSVR, which is already rumoured to be cheaper will be far more successful, and the install base for the PS4 is already there. Sony are in a unique position to use the PSVR as a loss leader to sell VR software, which Oculus can't (currently) compete with - hence the high price.
• joeevans1000 11y ago
  I've tried both the Oculus and the HTC Vive in their latest dev kits, and the Vive is incredibly more awesome. My advice is to wait for the Vive. In addition to the way better technical experience I had, I think the HTC/Valve mashup is incredible (and it showed in the demo).
• tempestn 11y ago
  I assume an overclocked i5-2500k will also work, hopefully. Performance hasn't changed all that much from Sandy Bridge to Broadwell.
• PostThisTooFast 11y ago
  Tried one. It was lame.