Oculus slashed the original price tag in half to $400 on the Rift +Touch bundle last week, but the company’s ‘Summer of Rift’ sale only lasts for six weeks, leaving the question on the table as to exactly how much the VR headset + motion controller bundle would return to once the sale is up. Oculus says: $500
At the start of 2017, the Oculus Rift + Touch controllers cost the same as the HTC Vive—$800. To attract more potential interest, Oculus then dropped the bundle to $600, while HTC concurrently offered an interest-free finance plan for its still $800 room-scale VR system.
Now Oculus has issued its new ‘permanent’ Rift + Touch bundle price, a clear $300 lower than the HTC Vive is currently.
Former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, now head of PC VR at Oculus’ parent company Facebook, says the original Rift + Touch bundle is already sold out. Iribe says the company has accelerated a new all-in-one box—likely intended for the post-sale period—that critically excludes both the previously bundled Xbox One controller and Oculus Remote. Iribe tweeted yesterday that the removal of the controllers is primarily a cost-cutting measure, one that he says saves $100 per purchase.
Like 3D platformer and launch title Lucky’s Tale (2016), all of the games shipped pre-Touch were originally designed for the Xbox One controller, the company’s first bundled controller before Touch launched in December of last year.
While there are many games that have included retroactive Touch support, there are still some games on the Oculus Store that currently list ‘gamepad only’ as an input method. With the entrance of a gamepad-free bundle, there will likely be a push for every game on the store to offer Touch support moving forward.
The send-off of the Oculus Remote is much less dramatic, although not entirely insignificant. The device was designed to make media consumption an easier task, with its tactile volume buttons and touchpad that let you easily navigate non-gaming apps.
The new all-in-one bundles will be available wherever Rift is sold, online or at brick-and-mortar partner stores like Best Buy and Microsoft Store. New all-in-one bundles include:
- Rift Headset + Cables
- Touch controllers + two sensors
- Six free titles when you activate Touch
- Lucky’s Tale (2016)
- Oculus Medium (2017)
- Toybox (2017)
- Oculus Quill (2017)
- Dead and Buried (2017)
- Robo Recall (2017)
The amount of free content far exceeds the six games that come with the bundle however. We’ve rounded up 17 of the most important free VR games and experiences to download.