Oculus has finally announced that the Rift will launch on March 28th for $599 USD. If you were an original backer on Kickstarter, then this kit will be given to you for free. DK2 purchasers do not receive this gift, but I guess the company was relatively established by that point. Pre-orders have now opened, although the kit will be available (albeit at “limited locations”) through typical retail channels in April. Finally, making good on their “$1500” announcement earlier this year, systems that meet the minimum requirements, and bundle the Oculus Rift, will be available for pre-order that start at $1499.
Okay, so let's unpack this.
The elephant in the room is the price. It's steep. If you are even moderately patient, you can pick up a GeForce 980 Ti for the same amount. (As I write this, I'm looking at a Gigabyte 980 Ti with a custom cooler for $599.99 on Amazon.) For that price, you get the headset (with its two 1080×1200 OLED screens, microphone, and headphones), an Xbox One controller, a sensor, and a newly-announced Oculus Remote. You cannot purchase the Oculus Rift without an Xbox One controller, which is unfortunate for current owners of Xbox One controllers.
Who has two thumbs and bought an Xbox One Elite controller? This guy.
The benefit of including a (regular) Xbox One controller is that Oculus Rift developers can rely on each customer having access to a solid PC gamepad. Without it, some percentage of users might (and when you deal with large sample spaces, probability increasingly becomes a distribution) have just a mouse and keyboard. I'd also expect that Microsoft would provide them a bit of a discount for at least the volume, with the ties between Microsoft and Facebook possibly coming into play, too.
Unlike the HTC Vive, the Oculus Rift will not ship with its motion controller (called the “Oculus Touch”). That will be delayed until later in the year, which also means that some fraction of the user base will never have it. This is a concern for cross-compatibility between the Rift and the Vive, but not nearly as bad as it would have been if Oculus didn't have any motion control option at all. Developers would be looking at a “release on both Wii and PS2” situation, only with a (likely) much smaller install base.
And a final point: What about the other uses of Oculus?
The Oculus Remote controls the interface and media.
This announcement is gaming-centric, to say the very least. Oculus has said that the Rift is “primarily a gaming device” and, apparently, Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus, strongly believes in gaming for the device. In my opinion though, it could be very useful, especially in professional applications. If the OLED screens have sufficient color and resolution, then desktop space becomes infinite. You don't need an additional monitor to map additional virtual space to your environment. While that's probably not something that Facebook could do alone, they could encourage the parties who influence these decisions with tech demos, peripherals, and so forth.
They still don't seem to be. This could be a concern since their primary competitors, Microsoft and even Valve/HTC, already have non-zero amounts of progress in that space. I'd be curious to hear whether they have any plans at all moving forward, even if those plans are to be reactionary.
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About the same price as a (n
About the same price as a (n unsubsidized) high end phone.. sounds about right..
yes but a unsubsidized phone
yes but a unsubsidized phone does A LOT more than this headset will actually do.
This is just the phone screen
This is just the phone screen in a plastic headset. It doesn’t have a high-end phone processor, DRAM, flash storage, or battery. It does include the headphones integrated into the headset, I think. I paid about $120 for some Sony studio headphones a while back. I don’t know how the integrated headphones on the Rift compare. For doing positional audio, they should have something better than just stereo headphones. It seems like it should probably be a little cheaper, but for the first generation (limited production run), you are not going to get bargain prices.
I don’t think I would buy the first generation hardware for this price, but I would tend to want to wait for second or third generation hardware anyway. Also, I am not really the target audience; I get motion sickness really easily, so I may not even be able to use it much. They need to get the headset smaller and come up with a good solution for being able to quickly see your surroundings. It would be good to have VR and AR capabilities in the same device.
A good chunk of the phones
A good chunk of the phones cost is the screen. 2160×1200 90hz in a small size makes this a very high end LCD for sure.
The rift still has a lot of sensors that phones don’t have. This is physically larger and more parts to tie together so a cost to build. The lenses also add some cost. And it does have some processing power onboard for sensor and positioning calculation purposes.
Engineering is not subsidized across millions of units yet.
The Wikipedia article says it
The Wikipedia article says it is an OLED display, not LCD. It also says that it does global refresh rather than line by line scanning. This might be expensive to implement. Scanning line by line allows for a small number of wires to drive the device. I am not sure how the global update would be implemented (if Wikipedia is correct). It doesn’t activate each pixel for the whole refresh cycle, it strobes them for a portion of the cycle to achieve low persistence. I guess it would need to write all of the values during the off phase before strobing them on. If anyone knows more info, I would be interested to know how it actually works.
According to Wikipedia, it also has 3D headphones of some type:
“Headphones are integrated, which provide real time 3D audio effect. This was developed from technology licensed from RealSpace 3D Audio, by Visisonics.”
These could be relatively expensive considering how much a pair of good quality headphones cost. I kind of doubt that the lenses are that expensive, although that depends on whether it is a single lens or a lens set. I believe it is a single lens. I assume it is a better lens than the $8 Google cardboard lenses sold on Amazon, but I don’t think the lenses are going to contribute that much to the total cost.
Have you guys tested one of
Have you guys tested one of these HMDs running dual cards? It seems like it would be natural to have a separate video card for each eye, but as far as I know, the rift is viewed as a single 2160×1200 screen by the video card. If you are running dual cards in split screen mode, rather than AFR, will it split the screen properly to render for each eye? Is this selectable, or does the implementation do it automatically? I don’t know how the software is set up, but it would seem strange that it would split it at 2160×800 rather than 1080×1200.
It is only 1200×1080 for each eye, so any video card that can handle 1080p gaming (1920×1080) should be able to handle rendering for one eye. I suppose that stuttering in one eye at a time would be bothersome though. It would be good if people playing with 1080p cards could just pick up a second cheaper card rather than needing to upgrade to a single much more expensive card.
The total resolution (2160 x
The total resolution (2160 x 1200) is about 1/3rd of the way between 1080p and 1440p.
For VR, you need to maintain
For VR, you need to maintain a steady high frame rate though. With a 1440p display, especially if it supports variable refresh rate, it is okay to drop down much lower. Dropping down to 30 or 40 fps occasionally on a VRR display is not a big issue. Doing this in a VR headset may be nausea inducing. I don’t know if dual cards will be usable since they often cause micro-stuttering which may be noticeable on an HMD. Your set-up needs to have a minimum frame rate at the refresh rate of the device, which is why the requirements are so high.
Microstuttering is caused by
Microstuttering is caused by AFR, which also introduces a frame lag on top of stutter. DirectX 12 and Vulkan will allow developers to choose their own GPU split. One of the more sensible algorithms is dedicating a GPU per eye, which only adds the overhead to copy the secondary framebuffer to the graphics card that's attached to the headset. You could also use GPUs for compute, etc.
Oculous should’ve also
Oculous should’ve also released the Oculous TITAN version at $1,000 to make $600 look cheap!
Think I’ll pass this round,
Think I’ll pass this round, Needs to be near perfect or the immersion is broken for me.
Wake me when it’s at least 2k resolution per eye or preferably 4k!
Also need to see which VR headset is going to be the winner in the long run, There is competition and I would hate to re live the VHS vs Betamax wars. I’d rather not have to buy all of them, Not only cost but lounge room or bedroom full of VR gear taking up space is a turn off.
Did you ever decide on
Did you ever decide on Android or iOS?
This isn’t a format like VHS
This isn’t a format like VHS vs. Betamax or HDDVD vs. blu-ray. It is a display with an HDMI input (I think), so you can still use it as long as you have anything that can produce an HDMI output. I would not buy one now though. The price is too high and I think the technology can get a lot better. The Lighthouse laser tracking system from Valve might allow for a much cheaper tracking system. As far as I know, the Rift system uses a camera and is more processing intensive. The Lighthouse system doesn’t need a camera and seems to take less processing power. Also, I don’t think they have really designed a display specifically for VR use yet. I believe it is still a modified smart phone display. I think they can do a lot better.
Not really. The connection to
Not really. The connection to the PC isn't the problem. The devices need software to be created with every supported SDK. If a game is compiled with Oculus, but without Vive, then it's Oculus-exclusive. There's also some button-map differences, etc.
Wow… As a Canadian I am not
Wow… As a Canadian I am not willing to pay the $915 plus shipping Oculus is asking for this. Thats a stupid number and it scares me because name one peripheral that has succeded at such an expensive price? How is this not going to turn out like the Sega CD, or novint falcon? Hell, the Kinect couldn’t suceed at $150. If this bombs and doesn’t sell, what are the chances that we are going to see a CV2 next year? So if the device doesn’t sell, then developers won’t make games, no games means that customes don’t have a reason to buy the Oculus Rift.
This is a display, not a
This is a display, not a mouse, keyboard, or controller. People seem willing to pay pretty high prices for displays. Consider how expensive the first g-sync displays were ($799, I think). The main problem with these is that people can’t easily get a sense of what the experience is like without trying them in person. The prices will come down in the next generation. I think these will sell enough that there will be a lot of interest in further development.
I have two G sync monitors
I have two G sync monitors and getting a freesync.
(Looking a older monitors just sucks after g sync and 144hz)
I will get more value from them that I will from the RIFT with only one game of just slight interest.
Also where is EA/ACTIVISION/UBISOFT on Rift?
Nowhere.
So its already dead.
I wished I could order 2 of
I wished I could order 2 of them, for me and my wife. Quit being so cheap, and get one. You know you want it,lol
Maybe the Oculus will come
Maybe the Oculus will come cheaper offered as part of a hardware package when buyers spend to get a Gaming PC from one of the big makers. A big maker of gaming PCs could probably get volume discount Oculus pricing and pass the savings along to its customers to sweeten the deal for their high end high cost VR gaming rigs. Oculus is going to have to recoup their engineering costs somehow, and it’s usually the first buyers of a new technology that help to get the R&D costs fully amortized before the costs to the single unit buying consumer market comes down.
I won’t buy one until I have
I won’t buy one until I have a chance to try one first. They need to partner with a retailer for in-store demo kiosks. BestBuy being the obvious candidate. As someone that suffered from epilepsy for several years I have concerns about what effect a device like this will have on me and I’m not willing to spend $600 to find out.
Anyone know if the headphones
Anyone know if the headphones can be removed? I like the rift but I do not want some cheap sound when I have some HD 800s to use.
Seen comments online that
Seen comments online that they can.
Unconfirmed though.
Forget the price, 1200×1080
Forget the price, 1200×1080 per eye is way too low for good VR. It would be better if they delay the release – otherwise they will kill VR the same 3D was killed.
Resolution is just a small
Resolution is just a small part of the puzzle.
Go see what Sony is doing!
Hint : Better build with a LOWER resolution.
I doubt that screen door
I doubt that screen door effect will have many fans all of the sudden. Also, i hope that optics is good as I hate chromatic aberrations to the same extent.
This makes the $350 I paid
This makes the $350 I paid for the DK2 seem like a bargain! They charged me $50 for shipping though, so does that make this $650?
I thought they said that the commercial version would be cheaper. I figured I would buy one and hand the old one off, but not at this price.
From reading articles on this
From reading articles on this site & other lame ones I’m not getting the feeling now is the right time to buy a videocard / upgrade system.
Wondering will pascal help alleviate performance worries vs current gen? Will these next gen offerings from either nvidia / amd run okay via pci express or will we have to invest in new systems along w oculus?
Or how about Intel and micron’s xpoint hds, will those help w performance in vr and are these technologies worth the wait?!!!
Exciting times regardless. I think I’ll finally try out Google cardboard today to celebrate….
OK Europe its 699+(50
OK Europe its 699+(50 shipping) + VAT 172 (23%)
Total 921 Euros
So what did they originally say 300 Dollars.
People thinking the Hive will
People thinking the Hive will be cheaper, are gonna be as shocked as they are about the Rift. I come to except the most people on forums about VR are clueless..