Facebook drops the price of its Oculus VR hardware yet again
The Oculus Rift and Touch controller bundle is $399 for the summer, months before Oculus' big fall event.
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The price of VR keeps dropping.
Facebook 's Oculus Rift VR headset already got one price drop back in March. Now it's getting another.
As part of the "Summer of Rift" sales promotion Oculus is having, the VR headset and a pair of Touch controllers are down to a combined $399, a $200 drop. (In the UK, it's down to £399. You can ship it to Australia from the US store; it converts to AU$525.) That undercuts the HTC Vive, and matches the entry-level price of the controller-less PlayStation VR headset. That price drop is temporary for the next six weeks, according to Oculus.
Along with the $200 drop of the bundle in March, this makes for a combined $400 price slash in 2017 for Oculus' 2016 hardware.
The Rift and Touch have a fantastic collection of software, but you'll need a compatible PC, and maybe a third sensor for optimal room-scale VR. And with Oculus' next big conference approaching in the fall, it's a little unclear whether new hardware is on the horizon. Still, it's a great price for what remains a four-star VR platform.
Oculus VP of Content Jason Rubin told me he sees the new bundle price as a "magical price point," but wouldn't comment on whether there could be other price drops in the future. The Oculus Rift's sales in 2017, based on reports, show it at the bottom of the VR hardware race. Meanwhile, PlayStation VR has been at the top of the non-mobile VR sales with a million sold.
Rubin says that Oculus is still happy with its situation. "We knew launching VR into mass market would take time. It's a question of price and content... we knew there was a chicken and egg problem. We applied into a 250 million investment into content. We've got the chicken, now we can push towards the egg."
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