Oculus Announces Six Week Sale of $399 Rift + Touch Bundle
by Nate Oh on July 10, 2017 8:45 PM EST- Posted in
- VR
- Oculus Rift
- Oculus
Update: On 7/14/17, Oculus permanently reduced the cost of the Rift + Touch bundle to $499. Meanwhile, the bundle is still available for $399 for the next six weeks.
In the spirit of summer sales and their own “Summer of Rift,” Facebook subsidiary Oculus VR has announced that the Rift + Touch bundle is now on sale for $399. The bundle includes the headset, a pair of Touch controllers, two sensors, an Xbox One wireless controller, a remote, and cables, including connectors for Rock Band VR guitar controllers.
Oculus also offers seven free games for the Rift: Lucky's Tale, Medium, Toybox, Quill, Dead and Buried, Dragon Front, and Robo Recall. For those lacking Rift-compatible titles, these selections provide a simple way to game on the Rift immediately.
The sale will take place for six weeks and follows the permanent price adjustments in March that cut the Rift + Touch bundle from $798 to $598. This competitively positions the Rift + Touch bundle against the $799 HTC Vive headset/controllers bundle and the $499 Sony PlayStation VR headset/controllers bundle. As it stands, Rift’s shipments, cumulatively as well as for 2017 Q1, lag behind the Vive’s according to SuperData, while both are behind the PSVR; at the top of the heap is the more affordable Oculus-powered Samsung Gear VR.
According to Fortune, Oculus vice president of content Jason Rubin stated that “This is a good time to test a mass-market price,” where Oculus is considering whether to permanently drop the price. If so, the Rift would finally arrive at the “$350 ballpark” that was originally targeted. As PC-based high-end VR devices, both the Rift and Vive require VR-capable computers, which carry a hefty price of their own.
As a reminder, Oculus offers the following recommended and minimum PC specifications to power Rift:
| Oculus Rift PC Specifications | |||
| Recommended | Minimum | ||
| CPU | Intel i5-4590 / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X | Intel i3-6100 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200, FX4350 | |
| GPU (AMD) | Radeon RX 480 / R9 290 | Radeon RX 470 / R9 290 | |
| GPU (NVIDIA) | GeForce GTX 1060 / 970 | GeForce GTX 1050Ti / 960 | |
| Memory | 8GB+ RAM | ||
| Video Output | HDMI 1.3 | ||
| USB Ports | 3 x USB 3.0 1 x USB 2.0 |
1 x USB 3.0 2 x USB 2.0 |
|
| OS | Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer | Windows 8.1 or newer | |
On the HTC side of matters, a new Google Daydream supported Vive was announced only a few months ago, aimed at a 2017 release. Pricing was not revealed at that time.
Time will tell how much the Rift's bundle sale will help bring high-end VR to the masses.
Related Reading
- Oculus Rift Launch Day News: New AMD & NVIDIA Drivers; Async Timewarp & Platform Restrictions Added To SDK
- Hands On With the Retail Oculus Rift: Countdown to Launch
- Oculus Touch Controllers Shipping In December for $199
- HTC & Intel Partner on WiGig Wireless for Vive VR Headset
- GDC 2017 Roundup: VR for All - Pico Neo CV, Tobii, & HTC
- Basemark Releases VRScore, a VR & VR Headset Benchmark Suite for Windows
Source: Oculus (via Fortune)
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Strom- - Thursday, July 13, 2017 - link
US list prices don't include tax. $399 + UK VAT 20% = $479. While £399 is $516. So it's definitely more expensive, but by $37, not $117 as it may seem at first.It was cheap enough that I ordered the bundle for myself.
Manch - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 - link
I ordered one when I saw this and many other articles announcing the price drop. I'll hold off on getting a third sensor. I don't think my office will need it. 3x3 meters. Add in office equipment, etc reducing floor space, the 2 should be fine. I went back and forth on the Vive or Rift. I've tried them all. Was pretty undecided until the price drop. While I do think the rift is more comfortable bc of the built in headphones means one less thing to add, the Vive does fit my glasses better. I wear contacts too so that's not much of an issue. Visually, I've tried games in both. Artifacts are a bit different in each. Neither are better or worse than the other, just different. The rift looks slightly smoother at the expense of slightly softer image. Depending on the game, pixel crawl in the Vive is either very noticeable or not. The screen door effect is apparent in both if looking at bright, still objects or anything without a lot of motion. It's not bad though and once you're immersed into the game, you don't notice it. I would have been happy with either and I've been hemming and hawing about which one to get. I was leaning towards the vive bc of room scale, ease of setup. Then I was leaning towards the Rift bc of the touch controllers, HMD adjustablility(GF got a tiny head), rumors of scorpio compatibility. Ultimately though the price made me get off the pot. At half the price, I can't see spending the extra $400 for the Vive features. If they had dropped their prices too, then I'd still be undecided. Vive announced they were not dropping prices so I pulled the trigger.