The Price for the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset: $599
The cost of virtual reality: expensive.
Facebook-owned Oculus opened preorders for its new virtual reality headset, Oculus Rift, on Wednesday morning after years of pumping air into the product. Oculus showed off Rift and most of the features back at a press event in June. The few remaining unknowns were the cost and the actual shipping date.
Well not anymore! Buying an Oculus Rift headset will cost you a cool $599, according to the preorder website, and the devices are set to ship in March of this year. The total cost includes two games, an Oculus remote and an Xbox One Controller (for gaming), but it’s a pricey option for the general consumer still trying to decide if VR is worth his time. For comparison, the Samsung Gear VR headset, a lower-end headset that requires a Samsung smartphone to operate, is selling for a modest $99 retail.
The Oculus Rift price is not a surprise, though. Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe said the package would cost around $1500 when he spoke at Re/code‘s annual Code Conference back in May, but that included the PC needed to operate it. (The $599 price tag does not.) So while the Rift won’t be kind to your wallet, you had fair warning.