Out of Pod Experience

Actually, you should probably just pretend you didn't write that.

Heck, why not? We can get an early start!

Thread moved to OOPE.

Yeah, I wasn't thinking when I posted in GD. Thanks for the move.

.... and from The WSJ.

The Oculus Rift Virtual-Reality Headset Costs $599

Set my alarm for 3am to preorder, had budgeted AU$900 = USD 640 for the Rift and slightly more for a new computer.

Saw the price, went back to bed.

USD 650 (including GST) in Australia for the headset was bad enough but the extortionate shipping costs - USD 132 - meant it is absolutely, positively not happening.

It's not just going to be a higher price for the hardware either - this is a realignment from Oculus to focus on getting enormous sums from the people with the most disposable income. Expect some developers to carry out the same realignment (and $100+ games) while others abandon the platform and/or go broke.

I'm sure it's been said before but no one was expecting the Rift to be more than $400. That low selling point of the oculus, other than Valkyrie, was the only cut it had over the HTC Vive and Steam VR. Though the Vive was suppose to be more expensive than the Rift, I doubt that this is still the case with the unexpected price hike. Even if the Vive ends up more expensive than the Rift, I'm sure the price difference will be negligible seeing as most people who can afford a 600 dollar piece of hardware operate under the philosophy of 'what's another hundred dollars?'

Doing the math here only one percent of all PCs currently in use are expected to even be able to handle Valkyrie. Of that one percent, let's assume only a sliver of that fraction will purchase a Rift at launch. So, if you think about it, only a few hundred people globally are likely to actively play Valkyrie from launch. That means those that do will be a part of a small, elite community that can freely look down on those below us and chuckle at the plebeians that only game in two dimensions.

Essentially, VR users are going to be like capsuleers in the gaming world. And I must report with a great degree of self-loathing that I find that fact alone might be worth the price point.

I don't really understand why people find the price so surprising. A lot of R&D went into this piece of hardware that, for now, is going to remain fairly niche. Of course it's going to be expensive.

I have a Gear VR, and the headset alone (which is literally just the optics, a touchpad, and some electronics to interface with the phone) is $100. And then the phone that provides the screen (in my case the Galaxy S6) has a retail price starting at about $575. Of course you use the phone for things other than the VR headset, but still.

So I sat down and did the math and found something that might surprise you.

For context on the current price of the rift, the Commodore 64 was considered a similar technological advancement for its time with a sticker price of 595 usd at launch in 1982. Today, that is equal to $1,486.31 for a 64-bit gaming and programming system compared to the $600 dollar price of the Oculus.

All things being equal, that makes the Rift kit less than half the cost of the Commodore 64. I'm not saying it's cheap, but it puts things in context.