The Oculus Rift pre-order bundle is selling for €699 in select EU countries, or just about $750—a hefty $150 more than the US price of $599. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey shot off a round of tweets this morning defending the inflated price.

In a response to a tweet asking for clarification on the larger price tag for international customers, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey cites foreign taxes and customs fees for the international fluctuation in price.

With VAT topping out at 25 percent in some European countries, the price hike may be entirely justified, but is hard on Eurozone and non-Eurozone wallets just the same. According to the Oculus store front, the quoted price tag does not include include tax and shipping, which may be the source of ambiguity on the final price.

Oculus has yet to provide a full breakdown of VAT and other applied import fees.

Luckey defends the global price fluctuation:

See Also: Oculus Rift Pre-orders Available Now

The Rift is officially being sold in the following European countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Oculus says they’ll “continue to add more countries over time and will update the community when additional countries can purchase the Oculus Rift.”

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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.
  • Mario Baldi

    I live in Europe and to be honest I was expecting a higher price. It’s totally normal as we add 20-25% VAT on top of the base price.
    Said that, I do think that the US price is exaggerate. I knew it was going to be more expensive than 350-400$, so I was expecting 500$.
    This price instead looks to be aimed mainly to enthusiasts, and I wonder if that will help convincing people to try and adopt VR.
    Also, this pre-order thing is quite strange to me… so we basically don’t have a release date? Pre-orders are currently set for May as shipping date… when will this product hit the stores, where everyone will be able to try it first-hand?
    All things considered, I think that the price is too high considering that this is a first-gen product, and a second-gen will probably be available early next year.

    • Michael Lech

      What do you mean may ? It say Shipping March 28th…

      • Mario Baldi

        That is the date when they will start shipping the product.
        If you try ordering now, shipping dates have been slipped to May.

        • That’s only because there’s a limited number for the March ship date and those have all gone, the longer you leave the preorder the further back you get in the list. So May.

          • Mario Baldi

            You didn’t get my point. Is this thing ever hitting the stores?
            As it looks right now, if this will ever happen, it will be quite late.
            I wasn’t expecting a “We will sell it as soon as the devices are manufactured” approach, like DK1 and DK2… it doesn’t usually work like that in the consumer market.

          • Yes it says on the site. Launches 28th March and will be available in select stores at the same time. They are feeding it out to places.

          • Mario Baldi

            Oh I see! Thank you for the info :)

          • It’s coming for sure so don’t worry :) I’ve been waiting for years and it’s almost here! Preordered right on the clock counting down so should get mine in the first batch with any luck.

          • Foreign Devil

            So that means I might be able to get if faster and without shipping costs by NOT pre-ordering. .because if I pre-order now it won’t get here until May at least. Waiting for more info on where it iwll retail.

          • Entirely depends on stock and how popular it is. It’ll be like a console launch so it could sell out pretty quickly, if you miss this spot could be ages before you get chance for another at least until they start pushing more out to places.

        • Michael Lech

          On my order it say shipping in March… on my firends in april… My order was finalized 8.02 PST so i guess i was one of the firsts to get order trough…

          • Tim Suetens

            I ordered the SECOND pre-orders started… stupid website wouldn’t let me until a few hours ago. Now I got June. Screw their shitty website!

        • Michael Lech

          I know, but you get in queue, so mine said MArch, because i was fast ;)

    • Tsunvsmoon

      I think its a shame Oculus decided to include a xbox one controller and two free? games with the Rift. It could have been $100 cheaper if they had just sold the headset separately. I already have a controller and I am not interested in the games and if I were I would of just bought them whenever. Microsoft and the dev companies that made the games will get a nice slice of the pie.

    • JoeD

      You think first gen things should be priced lower? That goes against just about every technological advancement over the past 100 years.

      • Mario Baldi

        :D
        It’s just my opinion, not the absolute truth.
        I think that a lot of people was expecting the rift to be 500$ max (me included) and probably Oculus didn’t make a good job at communicating what would be the expected range.
        Said that, this is a premium device, and I can understand the cost. Simply, from a customer point of view, I don’t think it’s wise to buy a gadget on the very first iteration if it is that expensive, because a second and hopefully better version will probably available next year.
        But everyone is different, and it’s up to you to make that decision.

    • P. Pzwski

      So ‘enthusiast’ is a moron who buy something twice overpriced, instead of wait couple months? So… I’m no enthusiast even if I’m very passionate about VR. Interesting…

      • Mario Baldi

        Hahahaha! To be honest I’m a huge VR believer myself since I got my DK2, and the price of CV1 really surprised me…

  • Kraufthauser

    VR is DEAD!

    • Cuerex

      something can’t be dead if it didn’t even lived. vr has yet to arrive

      • Kraufthauser

        True. Make that: “will be born dead”. I don’t know, it was kind of an emotional reaction. All the people I know that were gonna pre-order the Rift didn’t because it’s too expensive.

        • Cuerex

          i preorderd it. now you have 1.

          700€ is cheap considering how much stuff you get. for example

          name me 1 oled 1440p 90hz low persistence monitor

          • Kraufthauser

            As did I. Point is: the Rift will still be enthousiasts only, which is a too small market for developers to create content for I am afraid.

          • Cuerex

            i think marketing analytics of facebook are not dumb. it will somehow find adoption.

          • Kraufthauser

            I hope so!

          • Jass Sunrunner

            they are dumb if they think it will be adopted at that price point without touch controllers, Vive stands a better chance as it’s shipping with vr controllers.

          • Cuerex

            we will see. the above 700$ price tag of the vive could induce much more people puke than the rift ever did

          • Jass Sunrunner

            But how much are facebook going to gouge you for the touch controllers when they’re out
            !!

          • Cuerex

            i’ll probably pass on them if they are beyond 150€

          • My opinion

            Lol, “too small market”? They already have millions of preorders. There website crashed because of the volume of people trying to order. Goofball!

          • Kraufthauser

            Lol back: “millions of preorders” ??? Dream on, or show me prove.

          • Scott Con Sonego

            my point exactly for the wearable monitor alone it carries its weight in gold…..look at electronic value, this will replace home theatres, if you have ever watched a high quality movie on an expensive 70+ inch tv you will get my point. We pay for more than a concept by bringing it into the 1440p at 90hz technology range. You are using the newer technology which has the added perk of being the ultimate gaming monitor(people pay thousands for 3 display setups costing $1000-$1500). If you can’t or won’t pay that price it’s because this product wasn’t designed with you in mind(Kraufthauser)

        • JoeD

          By your stupid logic the television and the automobile should never have been.

          • Kraufthauser

            An automobile doens’t need content, and making content for tv is relatively easy and cheap. Most people have no idea what VR is and why they would want to have it. OculusVR is selling their product to the people they already sold their DK1 and DK2’s to. 6 People at work (excluding me) we’re about to buy a rift. NONE of them did however, nor will they. Go figure.

    • Steve B

      Oh, give me a break.

    • P. Pzwski

      VR is not dead. But people believing that Palmer is their friend, and VR people have some kind of ‘mission’ are so… dumb.

      Oculus (Facebook actually) is like Apple or NVIDIA. They dont give … about customer or product. All we hear are commercials, how wonderful their product is – without any tech specs or comparison.

      It’s all about money – to get as much money as possible. And until there will be no competition on this field, this entertainment toys will be insanely overpriced (like it was with smartphones).

    • Basic

      It’s died a number of times already. Keeps coming back though. Problem is, the technology has never been able to deliver on the promise.

      It might die again, I don’t know but we’re getting closer every time.

  • Foreign Devil

    anyone know what the price will be in Canada after taxes and duty? (and our horrible exchange rate)? I’m reluctant to pre-order. . when I ordered the DK2 I got killed by shipping fees and duties. . probably will just wait and pick it up at Best Buy or whatever retail carries it. . . save big on shipping costs. That probably won’t be until June though.

    • Alkapwn

      $914 total for Canada. Hopefully no duty to pay though.

      • Foreign Devil

        Ouch! I”ll wait for the retail release then. . probably will be available at Bestbuy with touch controls for a better price in June.

        • Alkapwn

          It won’t be cheaper in June. Especially not with Touch included. For example Eve Valkyrie, which is bundled with the pre-order will sell for $59.99 in Oculus Store.

          • Foreign Devil

            I don’t expect it to be cheaper with touch included. . however the base unit will definitely be cheaper in Canada compared to a pre-order where you have to pay shipping and possible duties. I’ll get EVE on the July steam sale.

  • Mohamed Ouedarbi

    599 dollar is equal to 555 euro if you add 21% vat it is 679 euro add tax import it is 699 euro but without shipping cost i think ?

  • Lucio Lima

    I am out! I refuse to pay so dearly for a test product!

    The truth is that we would be paying for something that never tested! And that can be very disappointing!

    • Maria da Cunha

      You’re right. The Rift is just an illusion. And Facebook just want our money!

      • Jonz

        But it’s such good illusion! That’s the whole point of VR

    • Steve B

      What do you mean “test product?” There has been 2 versions of developer kits over the past 4 years.

      • Maria da Cunha

        Have you tried? And you are willing to pay for testing? A vr can be wonderful but it’s just an illusion! Can you imagine a world like Matrix? It may seem to you wonderful but, believe me, there’ll be hell! And that’s what you want? Kill Reality and exchange it for a lie?

        • Lucio Lima

          A RV can be the worst drug in the world. And it promises to be so alienating that will be the beginning of the end!

          • user

            rvs arent the drug. its where the drugs are produced :D

      • RockstarRepublic

        According to Oculus, the consumer version is still a glorified work in progress version. Palmer said something along the lines of the high cost being associated with the early adopters status, as well as the current build of the rift. That changes will be coming to improve upon the display.

        So technically, it is going to be tested by “early adopters”, they just rename the devkit to a commercial product but not much has changed other than the look of the device. Its more beneficial to the consumer to wait for the next version which will obviously be changed/enhanced based on the early adopter feedback.

        • Lucio Lima

          Exactly! They did the same with the new Gear vr!

          • Maria da Cunha

            The last Gear vr is little more than a new glimpse into the future! An illusion within another illusion!

          • Da Mo (JFlash)

            Seems your getting all the VR your needing with recreational drugs,

        • JoeD

          New tech is ALWAYS a work in progress. Or do you think that every product that comes out is a matured, perfect product except for the Oculus? I get so tired of seeing people like you who live in some fantasy land of “the perfect product” being released before anyone buys it. Do you think that’s how the automobile came about, or the radio, or the tv. Jesus Christ.

          • RockstarRepublic

            Oh look everyone, a wild fanboy appears and has so far only managed to call people “stupid”. Lets give him a round of applause, its not every day you see such unsubstantiated ego in a person. And look, he is religious too!

            Its kind of adorable how you read into people’s comments only to follow up with a confirmation bias and a lack of reading comprehension. =)

    • eternalcold

      Let’s be real for a second. This is impressive tech. The DK2 was impressive. the Crescent Bay was even more impressive, and the retail version is an improvement on that. It’s $600. That’s the price of THIS virtual reality headset. And truthfully, it isn’t outrageous.

      There are other options. cheaper options, probably some more expensive also. but remember that you get what you pay for. This is an incredible advancement in tech, and if you’re unhappy about the price, dont buy it. There will be plenty who do.

      • Maria da Cunha

        One more step towards total alienation! The vr is only best for those who have no better!

        Do you think vr will give you everything you never had?
        An incredible sex life?
        Friends incredible?
        Etc.
        Stop lying to yourself!

        • eternalcold

          First of all, What are you going on about? and what is an RV? like a Recreational Vehicle? or do you mean VR?

          either way, you are obviously purposely avoiding the fact that this is an INCREDIBLE educational tool. I think you should review what this technology makes available beyond gaming. If you still choose to have the same argument, then dont get one.

          • Maria da Cunha

            You are blind and only see what you want to see! That’s your problem! Of course vr has a good side but his bad side is much higher. Because it’s like a drug to replace real life!

          • Maria da Cunha

            Some predictions for the future:
            The number of weddings will begin to drop dramatically.
            People will have fewer children and are more selfish and lonely.
            Most people would rather stay home living their experiences vr.
            Etc.
            What kind of world is this?

          • eternalcold

            The troll is strong with this one, but you are not a jedi yet.

          • Scott Con Sonego

            ha….you can say that again. She’s hoping to get a message from Palmer Luckey to bring some sort of purpose to her trolling. Just because he replies to one troll doesn’t mean he will to all. Now I pre-ordered this device because of Zuckerburgs dedication to creating a core group(company buyouts) to make VR mainstream with top level experiences. Consoles did the same with all the add on peripherals, Oculus will too. Prices will drop when they hit the mass market and major R&D is paid for. It’s just economics. If you can’t afford it then stick to your tube tv and watch your 480i….or buy a google cardboard, just don’t expect any better then mobile phone performance. This offers 2k resolution with 90hz refresh, while a “good” 2k monitor costs about the same as an Oculus and it only has 60hz

          • Lucio Lima

            It seems the argument of a horror movie! But that’s Matrix!

          • user

            oh please. the future of social wont be vr but mobile ar. vr wont change people.

          • JoeD

            You sound just like the idiots that complained about everything that has come down the pike. Go home, you’re drunk… or stupid.

          • Basic

            Yes. People said the industrial revolution would be the end of society. Then it was the electronic revolution.

            No idea of VR will finally take off, but I’ve yet to see a single rational or coherent reason from you as to why it will cause any problems whatsoever.

            Do you have any?

          • JoeD

            Go back to church. You can say the same thing for EVERYTHING!!! Fucking TV, video games… hell, even books!

          • Maria da Cunha

            Be happy in your Matrix! I prefer the real life!

          • Lucio Lima

            Awaken! Matrix is a nightmare! http://matrix.wikia.com/wiki/Nightmare_Matrix

          • Volthir

            What a bloody hypocrite:
            “Maria da Cunha 5 days ago
            They canceled my pre-order without explanation. I hate Oculus!”

          • Maria da Cunha

            The People change and I changed :-)

          • Maria da Cunha

            And I managed to solve the problem and my order is not already canceled!

          • Maria da Cunha

            I love vr!

        • JoeD

          Stop being stupid.

          • Maria da Cunha

            You can not stand the reality?

        • jorma

          When i get money to buy this i will sit home 24/7 watching porn with motorized vagina milking my dick.

        • Basic

          Wow, you’re really sour about this aren’t you?

          We got a DK1 at work and it blew us all away. Very immersive, great for gaming, even better for interactive visualisations of big data.

          By all accounts, since then it’s improved massively.

          Can’t wait for mine to arrive.

          If you don’t want one, I completely understand that, but what I don’t understand is why you feel the need to respond to every post on here, insulting early adopters?

        • Destiny Awaits

          What the actual fuck is wrong with you?

      • Lucio Lima

        You bought your ticket to happiness … I feel sorry for you!

        • eternalcold

          I havent bought this. I want to wait and purchase the HTC Vive Pre. I am aware of my other options, but I still don’t think this is an outrageous price tag.

        • My thoughts

          Your just a loser who lives with your parents and ur mad cuz you can’t afford it like all the other young crybabies on this forum. Funny how everyone here thinks FB owes them a cheap price. Your talking about one of the first and best VR experiences available in you home. Major technology that by the way cost someone 2 billion to get going and you want cheap? Lol. Don’t worry when you move out of mommy and Daddy’s house you will understand.

          • P. Pzwski

            Nice man, very nice. Spend you money on whatever you want, but don’t insult people.

            This is NOT cosmic tech (much much less advanced than smartphone for ex.) – this is just a new idea. And Oculus sell an idea, dream (that’s why they don’t say anything about tech specs, they just talking about wonders who waits for buyers), and they act like Apple, Microsoft or NVIDIA – ‘we are the man, pay whatever we want or get lost’.

  • Lucio Lima

    The Rift is just another drug for the rich! And fortunately Reality is still free!

    • Bob

      Reality is not so good if you’re stuck in Mexico ;)

      • Lucio Lima

        The vr is just another prison … gold!

    • JoeD

      Just like cars, radios, cell phones, computers, tv’s and those god damned books! Not much for perspective, are you?

    • Destiny Awaits

      Just like the camera you used to take that exact photo of yourself :)

  • Frank Taylor

    Price including US shipping and local taxes for me was $672.

  • Walextheone

    Basically everyone feels a bit cheated on, probably because of earlier statments “… the consumer version should come in similar to what DK2 costs now. ‘We want to stay in that $200-$400 price range,’ he states.”

    • Maria da Cunha

      Palmer just sold his soul to the devil!

  • Bob

    Well what have they got to lose? The average joe isn’t going to be able to use this anyway because of the barrier to entry which is to own a fairly powerful PC most of which do not own one and instead have a laptop for general and work use. They could sell it for much lower but then you are risking a wider adoption by idiots who would probably end purchasing the thing and end up complaining because they had no idea a capable PC was required to operate it which in turn would create bad publicity and put VR in a negative spot once again. The price they are selling for is at cost (according to them) and I’m willing to bet most of that is on the UX research side of things and custom manufacturing as opposed to off the shelf parts. Whether or not they are selling this at cost is not genuinely known at this point but if they aren’t then the price is relatively high because they are making a statement that this is a serious product and you shouldn’t purchase this product unless you know what you’re getting into and if you’re that enthusiastic about VR then it’s assumed you have access to a powerful PC which is then assumed that you obviously wouldn’t have any trouble finding the money necessary to make the purchase either now or further down the road.

    • Lucio Lima

      The Rift is manufactured in China. Certainly at a very low price!

      • Maria da Cunha

        Palmer needs a lot of money to feed his life of luxury and vanities!

        • whatthewhaty?

          The man wears flip flops and jeans. Yes, he has a lot of money. But he is not living a luxurious lifestyle. He also claimed that he would be playing the VR games through this generation with the minimum recomended pc specifications to see what everyone else is experiencing.

          • Maria da Cunha

            You’re being a little naive, dear!

          • whatthewhaty?

            Please show me some proof then.

      • JoeD

        You mean lower. Just because something is manufactured in China doesn’t mean the price is “low.” It’s relative. The iPad is manufactured in China too… at a “low price”???

        • Purist

          Yes it is low Joe. Because you need to have wider perspective. The workers who work are paid 10$ a day. I am over exaggerating with 10 $ to be fair as well. I think it would be much less than that and its enough for the working population.
          Where here it would be at-least 10$ an hour in western countries. And the Chinese are not the ones who uses good metal or good quality of materials to make a product but they convert a raw metal into high quality products. So, you need to make your perspective wide and stop being narrow minded.

          • Anthony

            If production cost would be merely based on wages I would produce in congo. Chinese production is not cheap because its workers earn lower wages, but because of infrastructure and volumes. Chinese can also use higher quality raw materials.

  • michel

    Too bad… €500 was my upper limit. We’ll see how high Vive goes (but they will probably in the same price category…). Let’s hope there will still be some nice releases for the Gear VR this comng year.

  • Zerofool

    As someone living in eastern Europe, I’m really disappointed by this price. I was prepared for ~750-800 Euro WITH the Touch controllers, but this… this is insane. And this comes from an old-time fan (the mtbs3d days, before Carmack’s infamous E3 demo).
    600$? I think the people at Oculus consider themselves the “Apple of VR” now – no matter what they roll out, no matter at what price, fans will buy it. Also look at all their talks and panels in the last year – just sales reps convincing you how good it is. And less and less tech talks by the engineers behind it. I lost interest in ever watching another stream of theirs after the last Oculus Connect. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the Rift is a great piece of tech, but the way they promote it, and the price tag are not to my taste. I honestly expected 400-500$ tops, +VAT.
    At this point VR is still a niche and at that price it will remain as such. HTC/Valve will probably follow with even more insane price, as HTC is in financial troubles (as we all know) and won’t be able to afford to sell at a loss (or “at a subsidized price”, as Palmer put it), and will actually seek profit. We’ll know for sure next month.
    By the looks of it, the only entity that will benefit hugely from the VR hype (in terms of gaming in the classical sense) is Sony. They can afford to sell at lower prices (I presume in the 350-450$ range), and that way they’ll gain quite a big VR install-base, the biggest of them all when serious gaming is concerned. PSVR will be the only successful gaming VR platform initially, it seems, and this will drive more developers to it, and away from the niche PC VR market. Even now, just look at how many titles are made for PSVR compared to Rift/Vive. Once again, we (PC gamers) are… let’s just say “unfortunate”, and everything we’ll get in the future will be as an afterthought, just like the current gaming situation (poor console ports, locked framerates, texture resolutions optimized for the limited console memory, etc). Well, I guess it won’t be as bad, because most VR games will be made in cross-platform engines, but still, they’ll target 960×1080@60 per eye, with sub-4GB memory footprint, which will seem like a joke to the upcoming GPUs with 16GB HBM2 memory and double the performance/Watt of the current-gen most efficient GPUs, and they are just a few months away. The good side – we’ll be able to crank up AA/oversampling.
    Oh and another thing – it seems they’ll be releasing additional accessories… great, more money to shell out :/
    Anyway, I still want to get one but I’ll wait and hope for a discounted Rift+Touch bundle later this year (and yes, I initially planned to buy both Rift and Vive, now I’m not so sure).

    And some funny comments I stumbled upon at various news sites:

    dfunked:
    I love the quote from the article earlier today – there’s no chance of Rift pre-orders ‘selling out’
    Too bloody right if you’re charging that much for them!

    Rao Dao Zao says:
    Seems like this price announcement has caused… a bit of a rift.

    Windows98 says:
    I’d say the amount of money they’re asking is ridoculus.

    https://twitter.com/KazHiraiCEO/status/684769410511466496

  • daniel

    It will be crazy expensive in South america :(

  • P. Pzwski

    Simple. I WILL NOT BUY oculus right now. I will wait – probably to summer. Same thing with GPU – NVIDIa remains silent about Pascal, because they want to get money from 980ti.
    This was, is and will be all about money – your money. So, stay calm people! Don’t buy this toys yet.

  • Foreign Devil

    Your paying a premium to be the 1st to use a new innovation. Remember how much 4K TV’s cost when they first came out?? The very high US dollar is working against non-US based purchasers. But hey if you don’t like the price you can always use Google cardboard.

  • Muckylittleme

    Palmer can suck my dick.
    £500 plus shipping and most will need to upgrade PC with a £350 GPU and maybe a CPU as well.
    I’m not paying a grand tot his greedy bastard.
    I will wait till they half the price which will only take about a year.

  • Gerrit

    I was astonished about the price tag as well. For me in Germany, the Rift will be 741,00 Euros 42 Euros for shipping included. I assume I will have to pay German import VAT and customs on top. But this is only a calculation: without this gear I won’t be part of a technology, which inevitably will come to the masses or at least to certain circles. And it is great for design and learning applications.
    However apart from that, as CG artist, 3d designer and panorama photographer (I am not at all a gamer) I need a device to develop ideas and test my own designs, 3D constructions and so forth. I feel bad about the price, yes, but I have no choice to keep the ball rolling. I assume that’s what Oculus is aware of, as well. I don’t blame them for it.

  • Onalulu

    Well, nice to see Switzerland with 8% VAT paying the same price as EU countries with around 20% VAT.
    Nice to see companies ripping off when they can

  • No, I blame you Luckey. total BS. lots of other companies sell products internationally. they don’t hike the price $200 more. and funny thing shipping not included. You’ll be lucky if anyone buy this BS. they even added $200 also to the price to Japan. how is that possible? different taxes and customs. how is it same hike?

  • iEatPixels

    I would rather buy a whole new average PC or upgrade my current PC with that money.
    Redicolous pricing. But is from the US, so why not i guess. -.-

  • booger.king

    Rift is just a f@cking monitor with lens slapped in your face and all processing is done by a dedicated computer. It probably cost $70 to manufacture and they sell it x10 of that…