14 DAY TRIAL // Today the team working on the Oculus Rift announced that the virtual reality platform would be priced at 599 dollars or 699 Euro for the foreseeable future and that gamers can start placing pre-orders for it right now to get access to one at some point during March of this year.
Many gamers reacted negatively to the high cost of the device and made their opinions known on Twitter, with some of them directly mentioning the main driving force behind the new VR concept, company leader Palmer Luckey.
Now the executive has delivered some statements about the Oculus Rift, explaining on his official feed that he believes the device is obscenely cheap given the experiences that it can offer and the way the entire field can evolve in the coming years.
According to Palmer Luckey, his company is not making any money even at the 599 dollars or 699 Euro price point because the technology required to manufacture the device is still high-end and expensive.
Initial shipments for the Oculus Rift have sold out in minutes, and at the moment gamers can place a pre-order if they want to get access to one during May, with the company making it clear that they will only be billed when their device actually ships.
Luckey also says that there are chances to get access to a VR headset sooner and explains, "Some people may see their ship date move forward as fraudulent orders in the queue are weeded out. We are experiencing insanely high load. Credit card processing is trying to stay live under load from mass script kiddie fraud attempts."
The core Oculus Rift package comes complete with the headset, a remote, the required cables, an Xbox One controller, a sensor and an adapter, with gamers also getting access to two titles, Lucky's Tale and EVE Valkyrie.
Other VR solutions will be launched in 2016, but their prices are not confirmed
The Oculus Rift is the first platform associated with the coming virtual reality revolution to get an official price and a launch date and a special Touch controller associated with it will be offered later in the year.
Sony is also working on its solution, called PlayStation VR, which will only work with the PlayStation 4, and might deliver more details about its plans in the coming weeks, with some suggesting that a lower price might be a possibility because the company is willing to take an initial loss.
HTC and Valve are working together to create the Vive, and they recently announced that they were delaying the planned launch because of a technology breakthrough, which seems to be a new frontally mounted camera.
Microsoft is not working on VR and plans to introduce in 2016 an augmented reality platform called the HoloLens, which might be better suited for commercial applications than for gaming, even if its initial demo involved Minecraft.
Virtual reality can enhance the video gaming space, but companies working on solutions need to make their devices more affordable to ensure high adoption rates and developers should create more titles that support the new tech.
To reiterate, we are not making money on Rift hardware. High end VR is expensive, but Rift is obscenely cheap for what it is.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) January 6, 2016