Virtual reality enthusiasts can stop waiting now as the price tag for the Oculus Rift VR headset has been revealed and it costs $599, excluding shipping fee. Depending on your shipping location, you’d pay not less than $650.
What’s the Price Tag of Oculus Rift VR Headset?
In the UK, on the other hand, the pricing is £499. Initially, Oculus will ship to 20 countries. In April 2016, the headset will be available in limited locations at some retailers.
For the price, you will get the wired headset, the camera that you will place on your desk or wall to track your head movements. In order to navigate your VR apps and games, you will need the Xbox One of Microsoft. The price tag also includes the simple media remote known as the Oculus Remote.
Because the VR headset won’t run on any computer, you will have to own a PC to power Rift and finally enter the virtual reality playground. If you don’t have one, don’t worry as Oculus will be creating a PC that can power the Oculus Rift and its bundles. But you need to wait for about a month as the pre-order of its bundles will start in February and the price will be from $1,499.
According to Oculus, the company will have more than 100 VR titles to be released at the end of this year. These will include Rock Band, Minecraft, and The Climb.
The price was a bit more than what the VR enthusiasts had expected. Early developer kits were priced from $300 to $350. When Oculus was bought by Facebook for a whopping $2 billion, the company announced that the headset will be sold at a much lower price. Those who backed the headset on Kickstarter would receive it for free.
The recommended system specs to run Oculus Rift will include a processor of Intel i5 or greater; over 8GB memory; Nvidia GTX 970 or greater; HDMI 1.3 video output; 3 USB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0 port; and an operating system of Windows 7 64 bit or the latest version. If you wish to know whether or not your computer is compatible with it, you may check it here.
Other VR Headset
But you won’t be limited to just one VR headset to choose from in 2016. The Vive is also coming to the VR market within the next few months. This device will let you actually walk around in VR without fear of bumping into walls. Unfortunately, there’s no pricing yet released by HTC, which created The Vive in partnership with Valve.
In addition to the The Vive by HTC, Sony will also release its own VR headset. This one won’t require a gaming PC but you will need a PlayStation 4, which is relatively inexpensive. The price tag for it is also not known yet but the company has already sold more than 30 million PS4 consoles.
If you don’t want to spend more than $1,000 just to experience VR, you can go for the cheaper VR headsets offered by Google and Samsung. But don’t expect them to render the same VR experience as Rift, Vive and Playstation VR.
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