Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage today at F8, the company’s annual dev conference, to announce that both the standalone headset Oculus Quest and the next Rift headset, Rift S, are now available for pre-order. Additionally, he surprised the audience by announcing that everyone at F8 would be receiving a free Oculus Quest.

F8 attendees will receive their Quest on the same shipping date as everyone else who buys it, May 21st. Zuckerberg didn’t specify which version of Quest attendees would receive, be it the $400 64GB entry-level version, or the more expensive $500 128GB version.

Zuckerberg pulled a similar move at last year’s F8, where he announced that everyone would be getting an Oculus Go for free, the $200 3DOF standalone mobile VR headset.

Photo by Road to VR

In case you just started following along, Oculus Quest is the company’s first standalone VR headset with 6DOF tracking, meaning you don’t need external sensors or a PC to jump into many of the games that made the Rift what it is today.

SEE ALSO
Oculus Quest Review – The First Great Standalone VR Headset

Four embedded optical sensors track your head and controller movements in 3D space using Oculus’ Insight tracking system—the very same used on the company’s new PC VR headset, Rift S.

Games on Quest have to be specifically made for/ported to Quest by developers, so while you can’t play every Rift game out there, many of the fan favorites will be present in the 50+ title launch lineup. Some notables include: Superhot VR, Beat Saber, Robo Recall, Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs, Creed: Rise to Glory, Dead and Buried 2​, I Expect You To Die, Job Simulator, Tilt Brush, Orbus VR, and many more.

To learn more about Oculus Quest, check out our full deep dive review on everything that makes the headset tick.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Jerald Doerr

    Crap! Oculus pulls an Oprah!

    • Marci

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  • johnny

    Well, not “free”, a ticket to F8 cost 595$

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Yeah, does it matter? you already paid for the ticket and didn’t know you would be getting something, so I would be very VERY happy if I would receive a free Quest, most professional conventions are pretty expensive and you don’t get anything.

      • Actually it does matter. As a VAMR developer, I have had no need to go to F8. It would have been a much better deal for those who attended Oculus Connect to get one free when released. Even better, to have the ability to purchase one or two a months ago, which I am assuming I am not the only one who requested one as developer six months ago and it fell on deaf ears.

        I would also disagree that you don’t get anything at other conferences. I have received countless alphas, betas and licensed software over the years attending these events worth hundreds if not thousands for free or heavily discounted.

        • Sekai Yukki

          but Oculus Connect tickets are only $199

        • Andrew Jakobs

          If you didn’t go to the F8 and had no need, than it still doesn’t matter they got one for free (as in once they ship, they didn’t get one to take with them immediatly).
          And you’re right at other conventions you do get alpha’s beta’s en licensed software, but for me that’s not the same as getting a device for free.

          And I guess your request six months ago fell on deaf ears because they might not have taken your project serious or thought it was what they wanted when they released the Quest.

          • Sadly, my office doesn’t see hardware and software differently so any “free” helps the bottom line.

            As far as projects are concerned, this is the major problem with a single company making these decisions. As history has played out, many of the Oculus favored projects have not done well. Also, in the early days if you wanted to pay for developer kit, you received a developer kit. The fact this does not occur speaks volumes on more how Facebook operates than Oculus, considering that are willing to give everyone at F8 a free Quest, many who will never develop for VR while serious developers who don’t speak the Facebook pledge are left waiting till the product is released to the public. For some of us who actually have to have working prototypes to show our financial backers, are left in the cold. Again, I am not asking for a free development kit and was willing to buy one. Before you state that everyone is on equal ground, I know for a fact this was not the case. As far as developing on Rift as Oculus has recommended to prepare for the Quest. I know from porting to Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Go that there is clearly a number of things that need to be considered and tested that take more than a day or two, of even if a concept will work at all.

            Finally, I agree fully. Common courtesy would at least allow for some kind of response.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            The people at F8 receive their free Quest also on the day the rest of the public receives it. Yes it might take a few days for you to get up to speed, but that really shouldn’t be a problem, if it is, then you’ve got a much bigger problem not related to the headset itself. I think only a handpicked couple of developers where able to get a prototype.
            Just preorder your quest now and you’ll receive it the same period as the people from F8.

          • Andrew you seem to talking as though you have a Quest. Is this the case? I also read that you were part of the team that created the Forte VFX-1, is this correct? Pretty cool but we had hoped a version would have come out for the Amiga, but sadly we all know what happened to it. :(

            Anyway… Yes, creating a simple development concept would take a few days, but there are a ton of other unknowns that have not been addressed by Oculus that would have been needed to be addressed before we can sell an idea to financial backer. Most important is the ability to create a reliable external monitoring system and leaderboard that isn’t tied to the Facebook ecosystem. It is frustrating to find out a particular feature doesn’t quite work the way it should and having to rely on Oculus or for that matter any company to clarify or update a feature to fall more inline with a promoted feature at it first public viewing, but sadly this happens more times than not.

            Finally, going back to the original thread. It doesn’t matter much to me if anyone offers something for free as pleasant surprise. I would hope those who pay to go, are there because of advantage of speaking with Facebook directly and not because they hope to get something for free. Sadly, these events also have their share of journalist, bloggers and vloggers find these offerings, their reward for going.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            Don’t know where you would have read that I would have been part of the team that created the Forte VFX-1, I’m not in the slightest (but oohh I whish I were, no, I just have one laying around).. Vuzix was created by part of that team.
            But I wouldn’t know why you wouldn’t be able to create a leaderboard that isn’t tied to the facebook ecosystem, yes, you’ll propably need to publish your thing in the OculusStore, but that doesn’t mean you need to tie it to facebook any further..
            Personally I would just have started the prototype based on CV1 and maybe Go as that would get you as close to what you need/want anyway (and I’m sure you’ve already did that), and then port it to the Quest. It uses the same ecosystem as CV1/Go so you’re already familiar with what’s possible and what’s not.

          • Our thread is getting pretty long so I will make this short. Yes, many of things I have mentioned have been tested and I agree about leaderboards. However, the external streaming option we need was not implemented with the Oculus Go, but I did see that they will provide chromecast and NVIDIA Shield TV support, which will work for our needs.

    • Jonathan Winters III

      Incredible that Facebook, a massively rich company, has the balls to charge people nearly $600 simply to attend their annual company presentation.

  • Lucidfeuer

    Tells you about how cheap it is to produce. Now I wouldn’t say it’s a bad pricing for their target.

    • care package

      really doesn’t ‘tell’ you that at all.

      • Lucidfeuer

        Yes, it does…

        • care package

          No, it doesn’t….

          • Lucidfeuer

            Yes it does, that is if you ever conceived, produced and sold any product with a sampling quantity you could give out. You’d understand that after giving out a Gear VR and Oculus Go, the reason why they give out Quest in such quantities is because it’s cheap enough to produce

          • care package

            Now that’s some solid proof right there. You obviously know what you’re talking about. Now tell us what “cheap to produce” means, and what is it costing FB.

          • Lucidfeuer

            As a company they won’t give out a single headset unless the cost of the headsets given out can be compensated by the marginal cost return of another segment, let’s say the tickets for F8. F8 is an event which costs from several hundreds of K to a 2/3 millions. There were about 5000 attendees which means the maximum gross sales of tickets puts the turnover around 2.9 millions, minus various taxes for net profit, then minus budget and various liabilities…how much do you think remains to pay for those Oculus Quest unit?

            OR, you could again just have worked for any product or device, and would know that overall cost for such devices is around $40/50 at most. Oh and by the way, the CV1 which was sold at $600 already had a brut components cost of $200, which means you can divide it’s mass production cost by 2 or 3 which put the price of a unit at $70-100…

            You’re welcome.

          • care package

            You can do simple math with numbers you pulled out of your own ass. Impressive. Are we still pretending you can just ‘guess’ what each device cost, because they gave them away? lol.

          • Lucidfeuer

            Sure continue your hypocrisy, good thing you never work and probably never will on an actual product or project.

          • care package

            Hypocrisy? lol. Might want to look that up and then double check where it applies to any of my replies. I know your type. Just another dude who thinks he’s a f’ expert by association only. I’d wager you’re more impressed with yourself than anyone else is of you.

          • Anthony Lazarus

            In fact no, the $200 cost you are quoting was calculated with mass production in mind. We can test this by researching the cost of the of just one of the primary micro-controller components. The STM32F072VB chip, from common US based component resellers is about $4.44. The price from ST directly, as quoted on their website for 10,000+ is the $1.87 that the article quotes. Aside from that, In product development in general, companies typically look to price things 3 to 4 times the COGS (Cost of Goods Sold). Which just so happens to be exactly what they launched at. Most importantly and maybe the most important quote of the Road2VR article you referred too but did not link..

            “All of this of course fails completely to include the years of R&D that went into producing a the Rift, not to mention hugely complex and software development to support the headset, a lot of which simply didn’t exist prior to the recent VR renaissance. Not to mention this report is almost entirely focused on material electronic costs, there’s no mention of the custom Fresnel lenses manufacturing costs, for which you also have to factor in the complex specialist R&D for those too. Finally, this report is based on estimates of individual costs without any knowledge of commercial arrangements based on bulk – we’ve no real way of knowing how much Oculus paid or are paying long term for these parts.”

          • impurekind

            All it means is that they’re already charging I think $580 for people to attend and they think the cost of giving each person a $400 headset–so they’re still making around $180 on each ticket sold–is worth it for all the extra publicity and press it will get. And even if they were simply giving all of them away it would still only be a few million, which companies spend on publicity all the time. It’s a simple business move and little else, and they’ve very much factored in the cost and decided it’s more than worth it. It says nothing at all about how cheap the headset is to produce.

  • sfmike

    Considering the price of tickets they should give one to you.

  • impurekind

    You lucky buggers.

  • Firestorm185

    I need to start going to more of these things… xD

  • As I replied elsewhere. Wouldn’t it have been more advantageous to offer this to those who attend Oculus Connect when it became available, or at least a discount or access to one before they are released? I did not attend last year and as an Oculus developer, reached out in November to see about obtaining an early developer version (as they have done in the past) for a project we needed to field test for. Sadly it fell on deaf ears, even after a second attempt. I did not try it a third time.

    Sadly, this seems to be the trend with all major VR companies except one — Microsoft. Of course you can say that Microsoft is a distant third (or forth if you count PSVR) and they need all the developers they can get, but frankly not even providing a brief reply speaks volumes in the changes in the industry from its early days.

  • oompah

    I bet, it cant play TES

  • Graham J ⭐️

    I’d be interested in the Quest if it was made by anyone – ANYONE – other than Facebook. Here’s hoping for a second standalone 6DOF option.

    • Lulu Vi Britannia

      Good thing it’s not made by Facebook then. Oculus VR is an independent company, it’s been bought by Facebook but it still operates on its own. You’re free to boycott, but if you’re interested in the Quest and still don’t buy it only because of a name, that’s freaking stupid.

      • Graham J ⭐️

        It’s not the name I have a problem with. You’re free to believe that your Quest money and personal data won’t make its way to Facebook but if so I don’t think you’re in a position to be calling anyone stupid.

        • Lulu Vi Britannia

          I didn’t say it would not profit to Facebook, I’m just saying you have a retarded way of thinking.
          Just because it belongs to Facebook doesn’t make it evil or whatever. Oculus VR is a team of independent, talented engineers, and reducing their work to “Facebook’s property” is beyond stupid.

          • Graham J ⭐️

            There is nothing retarded or stupid about deciding not to support a company (or its owner) that I feel is not worthy of my support.

            You’re trying to find a problem with my worldview because it conflicts with yours. I assure you this is a fruitless endeavour.

  • wooties

    Is it true that the quest only allows one save slot per game? If so, that is a dealbreaker.

  • mfx

    What is it to lose a few hundred of thousands dollars for MegaBillion Facebook if it means that many influencers will be grateful and happily defending their new product ?
    That is a very good strategy on the long term.