Following their highly successful Summer of Rift Sale, Oculus have announced a permanent price cut of the Rift headset and Touch controller package to $399. The new price was revealed by Hugo Barra, Oculus’ Vice President of Virtual Reality at the opening keynote to Oculus Connect 4.

Detailed on the official Oculus Blog, the $399 package still includes the same hardware bundle of headset, two sensors, two Touch controllers, and “six free apps” – although there are actually several more free apps available on the Store.

This aggressive pricing strategy means that the Rift and Touch remains considerably cheaper than the HTC Vive – the main competing high-end PC VR solution – which also received a permanent price cut to $599. Oculus is keen to bring the costs of VR entry down, also announcing Oculus Go – their first standalone VR headset launching early next year for $199.

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Dominic Brennan
The trial version of Microsoft’s Monster Truck Madness probably had something to do with it. And certainly the original Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. A car nut from an early age, Dominic was always drawn to racing games above all other genres. Now a seasoned driving simulation enthusiast, and former editor of Sim Racer magazine, Dominic has followed virtual reality developments with keen interest, as cockpit-based simulation is a perfect match for the technology. Conditions could hardly be more ideal, a scientist once said. Writing about simulators lead him to Road to VR, whose broad coverage of the industry revealed the bigger picture and limitless potential of the medium. Passionate about technology and a lifelong PC gamer, Dominic suffers from the ‘tweak for days’ PC gaming condition, where he plays the same section over and over at every possible combination of visual settings to find the right balance between fidelity and performance. Based within The Fens of Lincolnshire (it’s very flat), Dominic can sometimes be found marvelling at the real world’s ‘draw distance’, wishing virtual technologies would catch up.
  • Mei Ling

    The next iteration should be released by the end of 2018 so unless you have almost half a grand lying around; save those pennies!

    • Bryan Ischo

      If you bought it now and used it only for the next year, it would only cost $33/month. This is not a large amount of money, and if you want to enjoy VR, don’t hesitate to buy now and have fun for the next year while you wait for the next gen systems to come out.

    • GigaSora

      End of 2019 would be a better guess. Abrash said they need at least 3 years to get any sort of research they’ve done finished and in product. Although I wish it were 2018.

      • MosBen

        Well, they released the Rift at the end of March 2016, so if they released a followup around November 2018 that would be nearly three years. I guess it depends on how important the holiday sales are to them. I tend to think that the ability to release a hot tech product around the holidays drives a lot of decisions, and it certainly seems to on the game console side. But maybe they won’t care about that as much as I think, announce the new HMD at CES 2019 and release a couple months later around the Rift’s 3-year anniversary.

        • GigaSora

          I’m guessing November 2019. Holiday sales and enough time for innovation. I’d be pumped if they could hit 2018 though.

          • MosBen

            You may be right. Zuck’s statement about when Dev kits would go out has made me less sure. If they go out in January in a basically finished state we could see them hit for holidays 2018, but if they don’t go out until later next year then you’ll probably be right.

          • GigaSora

            Which dev kits? Santa Cruz?

          • MosBen

            Yep. Zuck said they would be going out in the next year, but that’s a pretty broad tartget.

          • GigaSora

            Oh. Yeah the standalone will most definitely release next year. I thought we were talking about high end.

    • GreasyMullet

      I just cannot imagine that they would wait that long. At the very least get out a 1.5 update that takes advantage of the new Volta GFX cards coming in the spring.

      • MosBen

        The current Rift will benefit from more powerful hardware, but it seems to me like Oculus is very conscious of the price point that they want to hit with their HMDs. While getting a consumer level HMD to market as fast as possible was important, now that it’s out there I think that they’re going to focus a lot more on keeping the cost of entry reasonable. I very much doubt that we’re going to see new HMDs which require $1,000+ PCs to run ever again from the big players.

    • NooYawker

      At this point, this late in the game I would probably wait as well. While for some $400 isn’t that much, especially for those with powerful computers. But for most I’d wait because while Oculus might release something by the end of 2018, many other companies will be releasing their products much sooner. And they may be priced very competitively.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      End of 2018, that’s still more than a year from now, and don’t count those on being $300 or something on release. So by buying now you have at least a year, maybe 2 years of fun with the headset. If you go by your thinking, then don’t buy the next iteration as the next of that one will be around within a year or two.

    • Walextheone

      Much better to buy now and have a good time. Something new WILL ALWAYS BE AROUND THE CORNER. You can also sell your stuff when the next generation come.

      • johngrimoldy

        Just like any other tech product: buy it when you want/need it. Knowing that the price will come down and the features will improve, pay for the enjoyment now.

  • GigaSora

    Suck it Vive.

  • Firestorm185

    Cannot wait to get my hands on Go! For someone with an Android phone other than Samsung having the possibility to play those Gear VR games without switching phones rocks! (although yes I know it’s another 200$ out the window, still)

    • dk

      the porn industry will explode

  • Foreign Devil

    I’ll be waiting for reviews. . but when you consider the Daydream is $100 for an empty headset. .this is looking pretty good. I’ll buy if there is dramatic improvement in visuals over Rift.

    • VirtualJedi

      This is the Rift. There will not be dramatic improvement in visuals over Rift. Its the same thing.

      • Suitch

        lol

  • MosBen

    This is pretty interesting. It looks to me like Oculus is staking out $100 as the price for phone VR, $200 as non-phone mobile VR, and $400 as the high end VR price point. That seems like a pretty good spread to me, especially if they target lower end PC hardware for the second generation.

    • dk

      I wonder where will santa cruz fall …..if it’s out in the end of 2018 it might be 400 and the new desktop rift might be 500-550
      the dream is ….standalone santa cruz + inputs from a pc + eye tracking…..for no more than 450

      • MosBen

        That sounds about right to me. Oculus Go at $200 with mid range mobile hardware. Santa Cruz for $300-$400 and high end mobile hardware. Rift 2 for $400-$500 and targeting mid ranged PCs in late 2018 or 2019 (GTX 1070)

  • beestee

    They wanted the Rift to launch at $300 to $400.

    I could see it dropping to $300 well before Santa Cruz CV is available, maybe shortly after Santa Cruz DK is shipping?

  • Andrew Jakobs

    Ouch, I wouldn’t want to be the guy to have bought one between the summersale and when the deal goes live (as of writing the price is still the higher after summersale price, not the lowered summersale price, at least for Europe).

  • Jean-Sebastien Perron

    So it’s official : Vive is dead and Microsoft’s Gender Fluid Reality is dead on arrival. I have a Rift and will buy the Oculus Go just because I can.

    • Armando Tavares

      While I was reading about the Santa Cruz project I scrolled down the comment section looking for your comment there. Knowing how you feel about Microsoft devices for having inside out tracking I got curious about what you’d say now that Oculus is threading in the same direction.

      Remember this? «Inside-out tracking is stupid when you still need a fixed computer»

  • DiGiCT Ltd

    It is funny to see how people here still think that in this world you buy cheap things that are good.

    Besides that seems nobody remember the story about kickstarter and the need to say that the price increase was related to cost and selling the rift with no profit at all at that time.

    The truth is rather simple :

    Rift is an “ok” HMD but for sure not the best one on the market.
    Their sensor tech is outdated and not as good as the lighthouses.
    Their next gen HMD with inside out camera tracking is already surpassed with all those windows mixed reality devices launch this month.
    Their mobile GearVR with samsung is also down already as samsung now let you also use daydream on the same phone model making it not exclusive anymore.

    Occulus is losing ground compared on their market share, they try to get it back by lowering the price as their HMD compared to other is hard to sell, especially now with those MR from MS, although they are not as good as rift in some points at least they are comparable.

    HTC vive is still the best consumer product in the market atm and the only valve HMD, however this going to change soon too as the cheaper ones will be coming from PIMAX 5k and 8k with much lower price and higher specs.

    The reason to make the standalone vr hmd is still to have you locked to the occolus home, as thats where their real money is, exclusive platform.

    All the other hmd follow the open platform, eventually that is what occulus will be forced to do, open the platform.

    The rift made us having VR and it has its pros, but it also comes with its cons, there are already better product on the market by specs, price wise or comfort wise.

    The $400 price tag is more what it should be sold for and i think its also a good price for the rift.
    It is a logical move, however the sad thing is that they lied again to all those people about the price and sales without profit.

    There is one big thing you need to keep in mind before buying a rift is that if you wear glasses you better don’t buy it, unless you are willing to swap to contact as its not friendly for glasses wearers compared to other devices.

    • Jad

      “HTC vive is still the best consumer product in the market ”

      “That’s where you are wrong, Kiddo”

      “The reason to make the standalone vr hmd is still to have you locked to the occolus home”

      It’s compatible to the Gear VR.

      ” if you wear glasses you better don’t buy it”

      Blatant lie. Source: friends experience.

      • DiGiCT Ltd

        Own expierence rift is crap on glas wearers es damage lenses.
        There is no adjustment possible on rift on vice you can.

        Rift is simply not the best product on the market, you like the rift fine, but for sure its not the best one int he market.

        Gear VR is still a occulus shop, do some research how devlopers use a online store and how much money devs need to pay back to the platform then you might uinderstand what i am talking about.

    • PJ

      So why is the HTC Bive the best conumer product in the market?

      From where I’m sitting, the Rift is £200 cheaper has the same specs, it’s lighter has much better controllers and in order to get 360 room tracking all I need to do is put the two camera at either end of the play space on a diagonal line, or buy another camera that costs £59, even if you buy two extra Oculus cameras for a 4 camera setup for perfect tracking it’s still cheaper than the Vive.

      I’m not knocking the Vive it’s great, but at this point I can’t see any logic in choosing a Vive over the cheaper Rift

      Also there’s not a chance in hell im buying another ‘cheap’ Chinese pimax, awful build quality and that software is a disgrace, also it worked out much more expensive than the £260 I paid for the headset because of customs charges…terrible, I still have it and I do use it for racing games, the screen is lovely, I do admit that. But I would never NEVER buy one over the Rift or Vive.

      • DiGiCT Ltd

        Cheaper yes, better no.
        $ cameras to get “perfect” tracking, maybe but still less distnace as a vice and were a vive only need 2 lighthouses without any usb wires.

        Im also not knocking down the rift but as i said $400 is the price its more fit to for what you get buying a rift.
        For the final looking rift looks better but going more deeply on tach base the vive exceeds the rift in may other aspects like.eg. frontface camera in roomscale to get tron mode, ability to adjust the distance from your eyes to the screen, better and more accurate tracking system.
        For ergonimics it takes some extra cost to gewt the new headstrip for vive.
        My statement was that rift is good for $400 what it offers and a vive just exceeds it on technical levels, and others coming already exceeds both of them in other technical ways.

        I know the part from pimax software, but as you see the new ones work simply on steamVR, they learned from their mistake, just watch the latest reviews on internet and youtube.
        Rift and vive will be outdated specs very soon.
        I think the real question is what you want to play in VR as for seated most can do, although if you go for roonscale the vive is just the best to use.

        • PJ

          Respectively disagree, there’s no difference between the Vive’s two sensor and rifts 3 sensor setup for tracking for room scale, not in my experience, and by adding a 4th Rift camera it was even better, I have perfect tracking in my play area, with the vive I had ‘blind spots’

          Agree with usb part though, pain in the ar$€ to setup on the Rift and with all the wires it isn’t exactly wife friendly.

          I don’t wear glasses but I have a friend that bought extra padding for the rift to extend the distance slightly away to allow him to use the the rift with his glasses, so it is doable, though let’s face it, that should be included in the box

  • CoffeeBuzz

    I think it is great that they are keeping prices low. I do not think (as stated below) that it knocks vive out. Vive is still cheap enough,and other hardware devs like Pimax are using the Hardware SDK to make new HMDs that are compatible with Vive lighthouse and controllers. The more ppl that get a VR headset the better! It is time for better games

  • BillyBumbler

    I’m wondering if this package will drop below $400 during the holidays.

    • Evgeni Zharsky

      doubt it, you might get like a 50$ gift card at most.

  • Armando Tavares

    Now it’s well positioned. Major kudos for the decision.

  • PJ

    Great news! Unlike what’s been said below, I don’t see the point in waiting for a new version at all, I bought mine in the ‘Summer of Rift’ sale, I love it that much I wish I bought one on release. Without a shadow of doubt it’s the most amazing thing I have ever owned, the experience is incredible, and with more and more developers and publishers climbing on board the VR train it’s going to get better and better! I would love the exclusive BS to stop from both Oculus and Valve AMD I hope to god that VR hardware doesn’t become like consoles, with exclusive games and hardware cycles that arnt compatible with older titles, after all, were gaming on PC’s using what is essentially a PC peripheral.

    • Armando Tavares

      «…I hope to god that VR hardware doesn’t become like consoles…»

      It wont. Microsoft devices are just around the corner and stuff from Oculus and VIVE will be made available to those sooner or later. When that happens, blocking content will stop.