Oculus Rift

Kiith

Sony releasing a headset would only be good for the VR market. The more mainstream it gets, the better games we get. And the more options we will have.

One of which hopefully won't cost as much as an entire gaming pc.

Zillah

Sonics2k wrote: »

At this point I'm waiting for the Vive, I'm sure it will be pricey too, but I'm hoping Valve see the backlash from this price and lower it to something more reasonable.

They've been positioning themselves as the more expensive/superior alternative to Oculus for a long time now - I would be absolutely shocked if they went cheaper.

Skerries

Thargor wrote: »

PSVR will be some overpriced Kinect fad crap that nobody will use and you'll see piled up in CEX afterwards, you heard it here first

no good for sex so sell to CEX

Agricola

Sonics2k wrote: »

To me, €700 is a completely unjustifiable price.
That's not in the ballpark of €350, that's twice the damn price.

I could have been tempted by €500 during the year, but something about throwing out the extra €200 is dodgy as hell, especially considering we still don't have any final reviews for it.

A lot of us, me included, have a mental block about going over the €500 mark. Financial situation aside, it's just a number that is hard to justify for a peripheral, even one as tantalizing as this. I upgraded my pc last year to 90% Oculus Rift ready specs (coincidentally, not for the Rift specifically) and I managed to get away with less than €500.
Same as the mental block I have with gpu's, just won't go over €300 and €200 - €250 is usually where I like to be at for a good "punches above its weight" type card.
I havent been following it closely but it was highly likely I'd get onboard with this for €400 at the very most. Now I'm completely out.

Robert ninja

Kiith wrote: »

Sony releasing a headset would only be good for the VR market. The more mainstream it gets, the better games we get. And the more options we will have.

One of which hopefully won't cost as much as an entire gaming pc.

We just need Summer Lessons and Harada's other projects on PC. :cool:

Benzino

lmimmfn

Nice, looks like the Kickstarter ones will be in the first batch in March according to the AMA

smithy1981

TheCrimsonClown wrote: »

Did anyone else get an email after ordering saying their address couldn't be verified? Submitted a support ticket to try get it sorted.

I got the same one, waiting on support but they must be getting hammered. I presume its cos i put in my ericode as a postcode, but they wouldn't take anything else i tried

Maximus Alexander

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Was totally prepared to throw down a pre order. The price made me do a Patrick Stewart patented quadruple take.

I hope you did all five takes!

Palmer Luckey did an absolute clusterf*ck of a Q&A over on Reddit. (the mods seem to have messed up big time during it)

He does address many queries regarding the pricepoint.

Hijacking your post to respond to the earlier mega-post that was deleted, it included your question:
The price is what it is, I understand bleeding edge electronics is expensive.. My question is "why was the messaging about price so poor? $599 is not in the ballpark of $350 when your target audience is the mainstream".

I handled the messaging poorly. Earlier last year, we started officially messaging that the Rift+Recommended spec PC would cost roughly $1500. That was around the time we committed to the path of prioritizing quality over cost, trying to make the best VR headset possible with current technology. Many outlets picked the story up as “Rift will cost $1500!”, which was honestly a good thing - the vast majority of consumers (and even gamers!) don’t have a PC anywhere close to the rec. spec, and many people were confused enough to think the Rift was a standalone device. For that vast majority of people, $1500 is the all-in cost of owning Rift. The biggest portion of their cost is the PC, not the Rift itself.

For gamers that already have high end GPUs, the equation is obviously different. In a September interview, during the Oculus Connect developer conference, I made the infamous “roughly in that $350 ballpark, but it will cost more than that” quote. As an explanation, not an excuse: during that time, many outlets were repeating the “Rift is $1500!” line, and I was frustrated by how many people thought that was the price of the headset itself. My answer was ill-prepared, and mentally, I was contrasting $349 with $1500, not our internal estimate that hovered close to $599 - that is why I said it was in roughly the same ballpark. Later on, I tried to get across that the Rift would cost more than many expected, in the past two weeks particularly. There are a lot of reasons we did not do a better job of prepping people who already have high end GPUs, legal, financial, competitive, and otherwise, but to be perfectly honest, our biggest failing was assuming we had been clear enough about setting expectations. Another problem is that people looked at the much less advanced technology in DK2 for $350 and assumed the consumer Rift would cost a similar amount, an assumption that myself (and Oculus) did not do a good job of fixing. I apologize.

To be perfectly clear, we don’t make money on the Rift. The Xbox controller costs us almost nothing to bundle, and people can easily resell it for profit.

A lot of people wish we would sell a bundle without “useless extras” like high-end audio, a carrying case, the bundled games, etc, but those just don’t significantly impact the cost. The core technology in the Rift is the main driver - two built-for-VR OLED displays with very high refresh rate and pixel density, a very precise tracking system, mechanical adjustment systems that must be lightweight, durable, and precise, and cutting-edge optics that are more complex to manufacture than many high end DSLR lenses. It is expensive, but for the $599 you spend, you get a lot more than spending $599 on pretty much any other consumer electronics devices - phones that cost $599 cost a fraction of that to make, same with mid-range TVs that cost $599.

There are a lot of mainstream devices in that price-range, so as you have said, our failing was in communication, not just price.
In what 'ballpark' can we expect Touch's price to be?
No more ballparks for now. I have learned my lesson.

How many games can we expect to have available to us by years end?

At least 100 - Over 20 Oculus Studios titles, many more 3rd party titles.

John Carmack tweeted that he expects gaming to occupy less than 50% of the time we spend in the RIFT.. what kind of experiences is he eluding to. Oculus Medium? Toy box? How much is there to do in Toy Box?

Somewhat surprisingly, the majority of time spent right in Gear VR is video and experiences, not games. Over time, VR span beyond games, much like the evolution of computer and mobile platforms before it. Right now, gaming is going to be the primary driver of PC VR, but the content base will expand over time.

What kind of prices can we expect Movies/Experiences to have in the Oculus Store? Most experiences in the GearVR store have been free.
There will be the range of prices from free to higher priced AAA games. The pricing will be similar to what you see in console PC games.

Can we have some detailed information about the screens/displays? FOV/Resolution/pixelfill/pentile/etc... these are custom displays, we want to know everything

We will be sharing more soon. We have done a lot of work optimizing and building these displays, we definitely want people to see how awesome they are.

Post too long, about to post next bit...

super_furry

I think Sony could move from being also-rans to the dominant force in the VR market in a hurry. If they can keep the Playstation VR below €399 then they suddenly become one of the most attractive options. They've already got 36million PS4 units in people's homes - nearly three times the 13 million PCs that Nvidia estimate will be powerful enough to run the Oculus Rift.

If VR is to make the mass-market breakthrough, I'm not so sure it'll be on the back of Oculus - especially with the high barrier to entry of a powerful PC and a €700 VR set.

salamanca22

super_furry wrote: »

I think Sony could move from being also-rans to the dominant force in the VR market in a hurry. If they can keep the Playstation VR below €399 then they suddenly become one of the most attractive options. They've already got 36million PS4 units in people's homes - nearly three times the 13 million PCs that Nvidia estimate will be powerful enough to run the Oculus Rift.

If VR is to make the mass-market breakthrough, I'm not so sure it'll be on the back of Oculus - especially with the high barrier to entry of a powerful PC and a €700 VR set.

The ps vr will be running on a system not that powerful and will be built with that in mind, low res optics with low fps. I have the DK1 and the low resolution is a problem.

Unless they come out with a product that is not for the ps4 (which they might, just not at the start) then it will not do for PC VR in most cases.

Calibos

Was expecting about €550+Shipping. When I saw it was €699+Shipping I was disappointed but was still hammering away on the F5 key to get past the feckin' blank white screen. At 4:10pm I get into the shop and I keep getting 'error try again' for the next feckin' 30 minutes during which time my EST. Ship date slips from March to April. At 4:41pm my order finally goes through. A while later I get two simultaneous emails from Oculus. One is an order confirmation email with order number and address details etc. No indication in this email that there is anything wrong. The second email that arrived at exactly the same time was an Address Verification fail and order hold email telling me to either change the faulty address or if it was fine and I felt the email was in error that I should email support which I did. No response back from them as of 2pm today.

All I can say is that I was mildly peeved at the higher than expected price. Mildly peeved at the hassle and frustration of the 41 minute trial of ordering. Mildly peeved at my ship date slipping from March to April. (Hey it could just mean slipping from March 28th to April 5th for all I know) However if this address verification and hold thing has pulled me out of my reserved slot and I get reinserted into June, then I won't be mildly peeved.


I'll be FCUKING FURIOUS and my order will be cancelled and I'll wait for Vive comparisons and this is coming from someone who was behind Oculus 100% and was never swayed by the Vive.

ScumLord

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Again defo no upgrade needed, kick ass CPU. If in doubt OC it a bit.

Good to hear, looking around other sites it seems the hardware checker is just checking for new Intel and Nvidia products on a whitelist. They could get themselves into bother if people start spending money based on what's effectively a lie.

Oculus wrote:

Another problem is that people looked at the much less advanced technology in DK2 for $350 and assumed the consumer Rift would cost a similar amount, an assumption that myself (and Oculus) did not do a good job of fixing. I apologize.

This is the crux of the problem, they created a false expectation and then didn't do enough to correct that expectation. I guess they're kind of new at this. I was always shocked by the €350 price tag, I thought it was very low. But any interviews I saw on the likes of tested, while not outright confirming that low ball price, did nothing to make me believe the price would be this much higher. They kept promoting the idea they were making an affordable headset for the masses, they never outright said that low price is wrong, don't listen to it.

I think if they'd told me €750 last year, I wouldn't have been surprised. But holding back this information until the last possible second was just a terrible move.

In fairness, Luckey admitted in the above transcript that he absolutely positively f*cked up by saying "in the ballpark of $350". Doesn't justify it, but fair play to him for admitting blame.

ScumLord

Deleted User wrote: »

In fairness, Luckey admitted in the above transcript that he absolutely positively f*cked up by saying "in the ballpark of $350". Doesn't justify it, but fair play to him for admitting blame.

Looks like a case of naivety.

Calibos

Its not so much the cost. Most of us early adopters can afford it. Most of us can also understand the arguments about the amount of advanced tech we are getting for €700 and the price/tech comparisons to expensive smartphones and 4k GSync monitors etc.

The problem, is that all the talk about €350 ballparks etc was not framed around affordability for early adopters or comparisons to other tech. It was framed around selling below cost with Facebooks financial muscle in order to short circuit the chicken and egg catch 22 scenario that has killed myriad products and technologies in the past, where no one buys the product because of no software and no one will make software because no one bought the product. Ever since the Facebook buyout they've been saying this €350 ballpark was about breaking the catch 22 and establishing the VR market quickly and securely and getting it safely across the finish-line to mainstream as quickly as possible.

Maybe things changed when it became apparent that PSVR was really going to be a thing and not just a small research project in some sony R&D dungeon. Maybe Facebook/Oculus decided that they didn't need to be the lone VR standard bearer ushering in the VR future all by themselves. They didn't need to massively subsidise a below cost Rift and could now get away with an 'At Cost' Rift, because PSVR was going to help take VR mainstream and secure the industry into the future. It wasn't 'All On' Oculus anymore. The only downside being that it means that VR PC gaming would now be beholden to the same Lowest common denominator console-itus games development as the general PC gaming industry has been. ie. Most VR games designed around the hardware features and capabilities of the PS4 and Move with minor tweaks for PC and Touch/Lighthouse but not taking advantage of the Power and extra capabilities of PC and Rift/Vive.

Generic Dreadhead

What games or experiences are confirmed as being available at launch?

cherryghost

Cormac... wrote: »

What games or experiences are confirmed as being available at launch?

Wallet Emptying Simulator

Generic Dreadhead

cherryghost wrote: »

Wallet Emptying Simulator

I really tee'd you up for that one :pac:

Any idea the kinds of cost you'd be looking at per game?

Dyr

ScumLord wrote: »

Looks like a case of naivety.

Facebuke don't do naivety though. I think they just decided to leave biting the bullet about the price until pre orders went live.

Kinda makes you wonder what the vive is going to hit us with, are HTC demoing at CES today or tomorrow?

ScumLord

Bambi wrote: »

Facebuke don't do naivety though. I think they just decided to leave biting the bullet about the price until pre orders went live.

Not on Facebooks part, on the part of the oculus guys. The link below is where they made all the bold claims. Including...

"We’re not going to be charging $800 or something. We have to be affordable. If you’re not affordable, you may as well not exist for a huge segment of the market."

http://allthingsd.com/20130606/oculus-co-founders-luckey-and-mitchell-on-the-rifts-progress-price-and-limitations-qa-part-one/

Were the claims made before or after FB purchased Oculus?

ScumLord

Deleted User wrote: »

Were the claims made before or after FB purchased Oculus?

Looks like before. Real early days prediction.

Falthyron

Cormac... wrote: »

What games or experiences are confirmed as being available at launch?

Apparently there are 100 'games' in development and due to be released this year for the Oculus Rift. When I say 'games' I mean tech demos. If there were really 100 notable games being developed, names, titles, franchises, brands would have been mentioned... :rolleyes:

Undoubtedly, some existing games will be updated to support VR, but much like a post-film 3D version it won't be a genuine experience because it wasn't created with VR in mind.

A very high-price point which eliminates a lot of the general gaming audience, an absence of software with a big name attached, and the need for a high-end gaming PC makes the Oculus Rift look like a huge risk set up to fail. I hope Valve and HTC undercut them hugely and announce big titles at launch exclusive on Vive; this would be the point where Valve announce Half-Life 3.

Tar.Aldarion

Worth it

salamanca22

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Worth it

Hah, reminds me of ready player one.

I love that on the same day Oculus announced the pricepoint, it was also announced that the average person in America is $500 away from poverty and homelessness.

Generic Dreadhead

He has a lamp, the posh f**ker :mad: