Well folks, it’s official. Today at 08:00 PST, Oculus opened up preordering for the consumer version of The Rift. The price is set at a whopping $599, and the expected ship date will be March 2016.
Update: Scratch that. Apparently day one shipping has sold out in 14 minutes, so any new preorders are now expected to ship in April 2016.
Preordering is available in following countries where Oculus Rift is shipping: United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Taiwan.
All pre orders will ship in a carrying case bundled with Lucky’s Tale by Playful, CCP’s EVE: Valkyrie as well as an Xbox One Controller and an Oculus Remote. Customers who sign up for the Rift preorder will also be added to the preorder list for the Oculus Touch Controller, which will be launching in the second half of 2016.
As was hinted at by CEO Palmer Luckey, the price was going to be higher than people had anticipated, but admittedly, this is pretty pricey. Not that we don’t expect them to sell like crazy, but still, surprising. In a recent talk on Techcrunch, Co Founder and VP of Product Nate Mitchell revealed that the company was still taking a hit on the hardware price, and so the retail price is actually an “at cost” valuation.
Regardless, this is a historic moment for VR and the beginning of an exciting future for commercial virtual reality industry. Congratulations to Oculus on the launch of The Rift & let the games begin!
To get in on the Rift preorder, click here to go to the Oculus website.
Sean Earley is the Executive Editor of AR/VR Magazine & co-founder of RobotSpaceship Podcast Network. He is the Director of New Biz Development and Publishing at KEMWEB, a musician, producer & consultant. He loves guitars, VR and coffee.
