gear vrSamsung’s Developer Conference has certainly made its presence felt in the VR community today. At the keynote event earlier, Samsung announced that the ‘Innovator Edition’ of their Gear VR headset would be released in ‘early December’. In a blog post on their website, Oculus has announced that the headset collaboration with Samsung will retail for $249 with a bluetooth gamepad and $199 standalone.

No global pricing has yet been announced. The device will launch firs in the US with other regions to roll out later, but no hint as to when. Nevertheless, you can pre-register your interest in the device (as long as you also own the pre-requisite Samsung Galaxy Note 4 phone on which it relies) right here. Samsung claims that this first ‘Innovator Edition’, much like the Oculus Rift Development Kit, provides developers and enthusiasts everything they need to build and experiment with the platform before the hardware and software are ready for consumers”.

…this story is breaking, details will be added as they arrive.

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Paul James
Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • SuperDre

    I still think $199 is a hefty price for a headset where you still need a $600+ phone to make it work, and only 1 specific phone will work with it at the moment. And the “innovator edition” tag is getting lame for stuff like this.. If it’s sold in store, it’s not a development version anymore but a normal consumer “edition”..

    • EvolvedAnt

      People who already own the phone do not have to consider the phone price. People who upgrade every 2 years would have done so regardless, and therefor would have paid the phone price regardless.

      The only instance where your concern about the price makes sense, is someone that had no intention of ever replacing their phone, suddenly changing their mind because of GearVR. That’s a niche scenario.

      Pretty sure this isn’t being sold in stores. This edition will only be available for order online, stores will not carry this edition, however they will have demonstration stations. Don’t be confused by the presence of demo stations, that is just marketing to prepare for the consumer launch.

  • brandon9271

    What I wonder is.. will any VR content work on the Note 4 without the Gear VR? Say, with something like Google chardboard? I know the Gear VR has a touchscreen on the side but I wonder what other VR specific hardware is in the shell other than optics. I wouldn’t be suprized if hacker don’t end up jailbreaking/hacking a way of running Oculus/Gear VR content without the GearVR and perhaps on non-Samsung phones. I guess it all depends on the IMUs being used for positional data and whether they’re in the Note 4 or if they’re in the GearVR.

  • Don Gateley

    Rather than an invest $650 I think I’ll wait for the mythical consumer Rift.