This makes sense to me. It's a premium headset that will run heavy PC games. I won't be getting one as I would also need to do some heavy PC upgrades and $600 is pricey but it's the initial launch so it will be priced as a premium. I'm jealous of those that are getting them! Can't wait to see what these things can do!

Sorry Austin, but it does irk me when you think $850 Canadian dollars is bad when £500 equates to 1030.65 CAD and 700 Euros equates to 1062 CAD. Infact looking at the exchange rates 849 CAD almost directly equates to 600 bucks.

Our minimum wages aren't that good you know.

I feel like I should do the responsible thing and wait to see how the whole Vive vs. Oculus thing shakes out before I put anything into VR, but... it certainly is tempting, even at that price point.

VAT is included in the price in Europe, not in US. And is pretty hefty (like 20-30% in most countries for items like this?) as I understand it. And the Euro is historically weak against the dollar right now.

Google says $849 Canadian dollars = $602 American dollars. Am I missing something?

Cheaper than I thought it would be. About as much as I spend on a phone every three years.

The killer app for this thing is Elite Dangerous for me, but £500 plus shipping? I think I'll hold off for a price drop. They'll never hit any kind of mainstream market at that price. What is facebook thinking? Perhaps they are launching at a stupid price to get max. revenue from early adoption and to let their factories build up a stock of components and then reduce the price to gain market-share. Maybe by the time that happens Star Citizen will be good? Hmm, big maybe...

I'm also calling it... I'd expect Sony to ship theirs at about $100 less now that they've seen a price and claim it's #forthegamers... because, well, they are good at that. But if it's any less than $500 then it will be cheap garbage. It's all a bit silly paying more for a peripheral than the console but, the PS4 is really not powerful enough for VR based on the PC specs required so they will need to cram a lot more into it.

Hoo, buddy! That is definitely a wait-and-see price for me. I've been waiting for VR with baited breath ever since people started raving about the DK1. Looks like I'll be waiting a little bit longer.

System shock 3 might be pretty cool on this.

@belowstupid: Yep, and It'd get you $71 today :/ As one of the Canadians under the $850 gun, I can say that this is purely exchange rate. (850*.71=603.5). Knowing the math doesn't make it any BETTER, but, it is what it is. Also, the ~$1000 on top of the fact that I'm typing this on a laptop pretty much guarantees I'm not going to own an Oculus in the near future, so whatever.

Looks like I'll never know the joy of a plucky (pluckey?) fox that may or may not be an allegory for the device's inventor. Oh well.

Jeff was right about that magazine cover. There's no way this gets mass market appeal now.

Yeah, I'm not robbing a bank any time soon...

@qawsed: The fact our dollar is worth jack. It's not like our minimum wage has gone up. People are making less money and things cost more.

In Canada (at least in Ontario) our minimum wage in $11.25 CAD. A few years ago our dollar was roughly in line with the US dollar. Goods were the same price and we made more. Now that our dollar is worth $0.71 USD, we make less money even though our wages remain the same. Companies also lose money because of this, so they raise the CAD price in order to match the USD price. Technically because of the exchange rate, they're similar in price but they cost more Canadian Dollars, which is what we deal in. People make the same amount of Canadian Dollars (technically less, comparing it to USD) but every product costs more Canadian Dollars. I don't know how else to explain it. We make the same, but things cost more so it's easy to scoff at $825 bucks when most people I know (I'm a student) only make a bit more then that a month.

The only way your 825CAD=602USD thing would be valid is if we used US Dollars in Canada.

Even if I had a PC that was "ready" for VR and the money to throw on this, I would have been waiting for PSVR at this stage of software.

Like I see that some people say, games. PSVR looks like an amazing time with Rigs: Mechanized Combat League already. Most excitement I'd have in PC gaming with OR would be flying simulation in War Thunder, but the PS4 version of that is getting PSVR support. Same for the racers, only one I care for is Gran Turismo.

(Different strokes like someone else said. Got the money? Got the demand for the best graphics? Rift and PC! Care more for you know, having money to spare, and the framerate and immersion deal? PSVR!)

@onemanarmyy: I'm not sure what the deal with Europe is but both the ps4 and xbox one were more expensive in Europe at launch too ( ps4 399 usd 399 euro, xbone 499 usd 499 euro ) there has to some economic reason for it, but yeah in this case 700 euro is outrageous.

@brianp: sony said that their vr will be priced as a console not oculus. and htc vive is expected around $1000-1200

Yeah there is absolutely no way I am spending half a grand ($730) on just a head set.

That's what I said. My point is that I think people thought that meant sony's VR would be too expensive to compete in the VR market, but seeing as oculus has a high price point, it might make them more competitive as a side effect. I think it might actually be a good thing oculus is this much money.

599 US Dollars

Not to mention you need atleast a 970/r290, so if your below that add another 300 to it.

I'll pass, only had a passing interest in it and doubt my stomach could take the vertigo i'd get anyway.

@onemanarmyy: it's an american company. they pay taxes after income, and then you pay VAT meaning you pay taxes both in your country and in the US like every other time you buy a product from a US based company, that makes it more expensive outside the US.

Wow, Canada's exchange rate sucks donkey balls. How about another recessions USA?

if this is priced at 499 i think it seems a fair price point for me but then again it seems like getting to 599 is not that much of a stretch. I was ready to get one but suddenly i felt the need to wait... maybe around tax refund time lol

$599 doesn't seem too bad and I already have a PC that exceeds the requirements so I would probably buy it if I had the money.

that is the minimum really, if you look into what it takes to run games at 2160x1200 at 90fps with FOV at 120 and then warping the image you are looking at 2 970s/390s or a 980ti. we got a lot of games this year where even 1440p/60 wasn't really an option with a 970 unless you turned stuff down

i just bought a new pc and my video card is apparently not strong enough. i have a 960 4GB OC. everything else is fine from the check app. still, that's kinda crazy. really curious about the playstation vr performance.

QFT.

This feels alot like when the iPhone released. The potential was there but the idea of a pocket computer hadn't yet permeated our lives, so it was easy to shrug off the big price tag and say "well its just for crazy tech nuts." Cut to 2009 and it was hard to imagine life without some kind of smart phone. 2016 is VR's version of iPhones 2006. Give it a few years and I bet these things wont just be cheaper, they'll prove to be necessary evolutions in interacting with computers.

I don't know if Palmer Luckey is a billionaire but I agree with your statement. That quote doesn't change a damn thing for the consumer. If anything it just further illustrates that the tech, while feasible, is still a ways from being where it needs to be.

I think the price is reasonable since the rift is new and they've definitely made a premium product. I'm looking forward to the PS VR though since I already own a PS4 and I expect the base price to be $399 and the Move bundle pack to be $499.

Yeah... 850 dollars for me to even get my foot in the door on something that is completely unproven? Fuck that shit.

Look. It sounds cool and it might end up being amazing, but that is way to high of a price point even if it is justified. The barrier to entry is far to high, I personally believe, for this to end up being anything but a failure in the future. The enthusiast crowd might be willing to pick it up and have the hardware to do so, but the general mass market crowd won't. And I hate to say it, but they're the ones that kind of matter to a point. There are a hell of a lot more of the general market than enthusiasts, and as such a hell of a lot more money.

And the biggest problem they have, and will continue to have, is being able to market this to the general consumer base. You cannot show what VR does, you have to experience it. When this thing has a 600 dollar price tag, or your regional equivalent, it has to have a better showing than a few people going, "Hey, this is fucking rad." And not only that but a lot of people don't have a computer that can run this thing. Look at the hardware statistics that Steam puts out and you can see the details for yourself.

So... kinda meh across the board. I expected the price to be really quite high given the development time Oculus has had and everything surrounding it. But at the same time it doesn't change the fact that the barrier to entry is absurdly high. Playstations VR, if it comes in at a lower price, could end up being the one the general public will gravitate towards. Because you have a system out of the box that is cheap and you know what you're getting that works hand in hand with a VR system. Even then it's a tough sell for somebody that isn't an enthusiast and doesn't know what they're getting.

with the MINIMUM of a 970 + a better i5 it was really clear that it is not for the general consumer. if you don't want to turn detail down on bigger games you are looking into a similar range of horsepower as to run the game as 4k/60fps. if you don't have something like a 980ti I would not even consider buying into VR just yet

The Euro price includes VAT, which is at least 20% in most of Europe. Anyone surprised by the price difference either slept through their Econ 101 or is just a dumbdumb. This is not new, you should be used to this.

That said, oh lawd that's expensive.

The $150 'lol you're not American' tax we get hit with in the UK and Europe is pretty galling too.

I'll be getting a Gear VR headset to play around with for a bit and will wait a few years until the Rift-level VR tech falls into 'normal person' price range. That thing is limited, but it's £80!

This is a very good point and will continue to be a thorn in VR's side. Added to this is due to the tech, theres no way for publications, websites, etc to be able to demonstrate it either (at least in a way which would make me want to buy one)

I'm a doubter and I dont think VR will progress out of a niche market and go the same way other fads have gone such as 3D and motion controls

600 bucks + a PC to run it is a steep entry point for a piece of hardware that seemingly has no killer game or app.

@thefriend: I just pre-ordered an Oculus as well, and I don't even have a PC so I ask you, who is the mad man now???!! :)

Crap, this is going to be expensive...

Not only is the $600 price tag out of my range but I'd also need to upgrade my PC (which hopefully I can do this year). That's a immense level of entry that gets dangerously close to two grand. No thank you.

So I guess the world still isn't ready for VR.

Say what you will about how affordable the price is for this kind of tech, but this is still filling in the role of a tertiary peripheral for your existing system to play games on. People were already taken aback by the XB1 Elite Controllers price tag, although in that case it played the exact same games as a regular controller while the Rift will allow for completely unique new experiences. No matter how cool the experience though, I just can't see myself spending that much money (on top of the PC upgrades) on a fancy new gadget when most triple A games will still be coming out for my regular old pad to play on - and still be great fun.

When parts become cheaper and theses things drop to the $200 range then we will see. At that point if VR hasn't flopped once again, the games should be better too. This extravagant price tag is for early adopters only and I'm afraid it's going to sink them a little as it will drive a lot of potential VR customers away. The Wii was so wildly successful because of it's accessibility and price point. No one is going to spend $600 to let grandma ride a virtual rollercoaster.

@driveuplife: Five hundred and ninety-nine US dollars.

Call me pessimistic, but if a company says they "plan" to launch something at a specific price that needs to be taken with a grain of salt until it's official, and if a company is wishy washy in any way with prices or release dates or anything like that then most likely you'll have no idea what they'll do. It's within their rights to be teases and string you along, it's just bullshit.

Yup the Canadian dollar sucks right now. I upgraded to a Geforce GTX 980 last year so I thought I was going to be ready for this but I didn't realize the CPU requirements were also going to be so steep, my CPU is a bit too old so I would need to buy a new motherboard and CPU in addition to the Rift which is a bit too pricey for me at the moment.

I'll probably upgrade my CPU later in the year since I have some other reasons to do so and then I'll consider picking up a Rift.

@tarquinn2049: If looking around your ship is the bar you can have a TrackIR for a fraction of the price.

guess i'm going to go with a Valve Vive, or whoever is 400. cause fuck that is expensive; palmer luckey can say what he wants, he is a fricken billionaire.

The VR race has been so preoccupied at releasing the technology for the sake because they could, they never stopped to think if they should

Pre-ordered the rift along with the Alienware machine that's being advertised. Been waiting so long for in home VR. Psyched!!

My computer meets the requirements, but my wallet doesn't. Apparently it's 1K in Canada? Wow, darn our weak dollar.