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Oculus VR News | March 19, 2024

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Oculus Rift Consumer Price Will Cost Over $350, says Luckey

Oculus Rift Consumer Price Will Likely Cost Over $350, says Luckey

Image courtesy of: Oculus

FRΛNK R.

As we get closer to the consumer launch of the Oculus Rift expected in the first quarter of 2016, the company is beginning to offer a bit more insight, as to the official price tag for the headset.

According to an interview with Road to VR during last week’s Oculus Connect 2 event, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey revealed that the consumer version of the Rift will be priced at somewhere above $350.

“You know, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. We’re roughly in that ballpark…but it’s going to cost more than that. And the reason for that is that we’ve added a lot of technology to this thing beyond what existed in the DK1 and DK2 days,” said Luckey.

Luckey went on to explain that the price is not based on making more money for the company, but is ultimately to bring to consumers the best possible virtual reality experience it can offer with the latest state-of-the-art custom technology. For many, the Rift will be the first high-end virtual reality experience they ever have, so there is a lot riding on this to exceed expectations.

“We need to put a stake in the ground and say: this is the best possible experience that we are able to make. No compromises were made in terms of quality. Get the cost down as much as you can on that experience, but make it so that the Rift is something that everybody wants to use,” he said.

“It would really suck if you put something out there and people were like ‘Ah man…the Rift is good, but it’s not quite there,’ you know? ‘If only it was a little better, if the lenses were a little better, if the resolution was a little better, if the screens had been a little bit better, then it would be great.’ Because you’d say ‘God, we could have just charged a little more and put a little bit more money into custom hardware and actually achieve that.’”

“…I can’t tell you that it’s going to be $350, and I would say I think people are going to be happy with what they get for the price because I really do think it’s going to be that best VR headset you can buy.”

The price tag to jump into VR may seem pretty hefty, especially for those that still need to upgrade their PCs to the recommended hardware specs to fully take advantage of the Rift. However, when it comes to achieving amazing, high-end quality in VR, there is clearly no room for shortcuts.