One has announced its price. None are to market. So how exactly has the dust settled again?

The cost plus the price of upgrading is too high for me. With that being said I'm still looking forward to the PSVR. I wish I could get some hands on before purchasing but I'm completely sold on the idea of these being the way of the future.

Yeah, if I were to get it, I know it would only be for PS4 stuff, which does make it a harder sale. I'm hopeful for some of the content though in the sense that they are trying to get games and some exclusive games for their platform. It feels like Sony is trying the most in this regard, while it feels like Oculus is saying the same two games, while Valve is going deeper into their "It's all about you, so we don't care about any of this. You could buy this or not. Whatever man" hole.

For me it's a trade off between a headset I can get now-ish with less content, and a headset I can't get with more content. For that I could hypothetically see myself with both two years from now, if I can justify the cost of everything.

I've preordered, but I'm waiting for reviews and will happily cancel nearer the time.

I'm not convinced yet. I'm not sure VR will work properly for me due to visual impairment. With that in mind it's a bit of an expensive gamble to make.

Too many variables to decide for now:

• The price is definitely an issue, and even excluding it, there is the cost of upgrading my PC to good enough standards.
• The games are just not there. Never mind it doesn't have its killer app, most of the games that support it seems more like cool tech demos than complete games, products with a lot of things being figured out as they go, or are adaptation of existing games available without VR somewhere else.
• Too much competition: Playstation VR, VR One, Gear VR, even MS has a response to VR... before the product is even out there seems to be a lot of market saturation, and given the response the price tag got, it is likely some of them will remove some of the higher end components for something that is less powerful and far more accessible. It is even likely that purists will like the higher VR solution available, while most of the market will be more than happy with a better quality/price ratio.
• Lack of standards: there is no baseline for what a decent VR experience is and what it takes to implement one. Choosing to support one over another can get almost as ugly for developers as choosing between platforms, so most VR games will be exclusives to one or a handful of VR solutions.
• No way to try it but to try it. VR experiences are very difficult to transmit to other people by talking about it or even watching videos of it. Even getting into the idea can be tricky when considering we have little points of reference. The only way to know how my body will react to it: nausea, dizziness, etc. or to long sessions of using them is to actually use them. And even then, the lack of standards means we can't really apply our experiences with one VR headset to justify another without trying it.

In order words, I think I am, at least, 3 or 4 years away from considering a VR headset, which accounts for some people I know getting one and me trying it, and right now the cost is just too high to blindfully go support one product over another...

VR is a dangerous new frontier. Like with cigarettes, some people find that exciting and want to test those boundaries. Maybe VR will benefit from having that kind of image. But, I have a lot of problems with it.

From a social standpoint it is dangerously isolating and I worry about it becoming a huge addiction for its users. This is an issue to me that is even bigger than just the fact that humans seem to be more and more eager to stay away from each other. Video games are already preying on our dopamine triggers and obsessive tendencies and that's without shutting us off completely from the world around us. We don't know how potent the removal of nearly all outside senses will be to our neurological vulnerability. Sensual deprivation is an extremely effect form of torture because it makes people lose connection with themselves and essentially be reprogrammed.

I also worry about people conflating a VR experience with the real thing. There are going to be a lot of games where they're putting you in someone elses shoes and that could be really enlightening but also deceiving. I see people getting confused about the actual merit of "experiencing" something in VR.

Then there's the cost factor that stops this just short of the demographic it's intended for. It just feels like another new shiny toy for the affluent to play with while everyone else looks on with their faces pressed against the glass.

I think everything is off by inches with this latest push for VR. The timing, the price, the applicability, everything. Those inches could be crucial or the coolness of virtual spaces could be enough to keep this thing affloat while the puzzle pieces are fitted into place.

I am skeptical of the platform.

@spraynardtatum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXX0TRtg5Vk

I think I'm still in the tank for a PSVR, as I'm just not in a good position to invest in both a living room PC and the oculus at the moment. If I had a grand or two to burn, I'd go for it just to poke around with things.

Of all the dumb reasons for getting into VR, I'm mainly interested in having a simulated BIG theater sized screen to watch movies in. And imagine being able to play games on such a screen.

The price doesn't really shock me, it's high, but not as big a deal as people make it out to be. Lucky is more than likely being truthful in that it's actually "cheap" considering what's in it, but yeah, pre-price-announcement communication could probably have been better.

Also I wouldn't have gotten it this early anyway since a) there's really nothing worth playing out for it immediately and b) I like to to consider my options, thus waiting for feedback on all the different VR goggles. (I'll likely go with the Sony one eventually, since I spend most of my time playing games on the PS4 and actually don't want to seriously upgrade my PC at the moment.)

Price differences between the U.S. and Europe/Canada/Australia/etc. are total bullshit, though. It's really annoying to always get fucked over price-wise by living anywhere outside the U.S..

I'll wait for the PSVR. My PC is in another room connected to the TV in my living room, and there is no change that'll ever change. If the Occulus and/or VIve ever becomes wireless, I'll try those too.

Still waiting on investing in this console generation and starting to think I'll just stay PC so I'm not an early adopter. Probably give VR another year unless seriously convinced. They need more hands on experiences spread out around the US so that people can try it out.

Yeah I'm just gonna give it a good bit after release to see how everything pans out. I tried a Rift a year ago, and thought it worked well and seemed pretty cool, and I don't mind dumping a big chunk of change on something crazy like that. But at the moment, none of them has anything worth a damn on them yet. And I think a few weeks/months of consumers trying that shit out will work out any big flaws that I might not be ready for.

I think for me there's too much I don't know about my own probably usage and wants out of the device to take that kind of financial gamble now.

The little I've used the rift, I really liked

Bottom line is I don't know what I actually want to do in VR. And until I do I won't know which kit to get and how much I'd be willing to pay. I suspect by this time next year though, I'll have a decent idea.

@jec03: There is already a large list compiled of games that have been modified to work with Developer kits. In fact there is already software that does the hard worked of optimization and setting as well as controller support.

I'm not a person who jumps on disruptive tech. I'll wait until it's all streamlined and more affordable.

There are so many questions to ask about VR. Do i like sitting down using it? Do i want to stand up? Will i get sick? After how many hours will i get sick? What will i do in VR? Is it feasible to just dissapear for a few hours? Which data will be collected?

I don't see myself buying into VR. As long as non-VR is an option, paying an extra hundreds of dollars to play a game from a VR perspective is an unattractive proposition to me.

Can't justify the ~$500 PC upgrade plus the $200-more-than-expected sticker price on the rig. Right now I'm looking at PSVR as my most likely entry point.

I chose "Waiting on the PSVR" only because I want to see how much it costs. The Oculus Rift website told me that I need better USB 3.0 slots and a new CPU, so the good thing about that is that it reminded me that I need to upgrade my CPU. I'll upgrade my CPU and wait a good while before I dive in to VR.

Not sure why you would want jury rigged VR support on anything. That just sounds like the best way to puke all over your 2000$ setup. VR will only take off when we have games made for VR. Not some garbage TF2 or skyrim VR mods. Considering the asking price I'm really curious to see who's going to have the best software support. There aren't that many high end gaming rigs out there and a small subset of those are going to buy a rift. Banking on that consumer base just sounds like a bad plan unless Oculus is supporting development the same way Sony is supporting their own VR games.

I'm still very, very interested in VR. I was never going to get the Oculus anyway, and I never really expected it to be cheap, but a cool 600 bones seems incredibly steep for a peripheral device, on top of having to have a pretty powerful PC. I'm eagerly waiting to see how much the PSVR is gonna go for. I don't think Sony could get away with charging more for it than what their console costs. They're in a tight but potentially advantageous position to release competitive hardware at a better price.

I still want VR. It's too good/important I think for gaming going forward.

I have a PC that meets the requirements barely ( 970, OCed 3570k ), but since we have no base for VR yet, I don't want to see what "meets requirements" is for something that needs to stay 90fps on two screens unbroken with no tearing. I'm also not willing to jump up a card/processor AND pay that kind of price just for VR.

I will be waiting until the other big ones ( VIVE/SonyVR ) come out, and see what they get priced at. I assume VIVE will be more expensive, and SonyVR will be less expensive. If Sony does a SonyVR/Ps4 bundle, I might look into getting that, even if the price is $700-$800 combined. It'd also be enough for me to start buying VR enabled games for the Ps4, rather then for the PC ( I usually just buy consoles as exclusives boxes. ).

If they all come out and are too expensive, I'll probably wait until second gen VR before I adopt. As with all new tech, the price is the first thing they try to bring down, once they realize the market exists for it. I'd say something pithy here about how this might damage the industry while it's still in it's fledgling state, since who the fuck is going to spend $600 on VR, but it's sold out till June, so that doesn't seem to be an issue. If I wait long enough, eventually VR will drop in price. Hopefully many people are buying now/in the same boat as me of waiting till 2nd gen, so we can also start getting some VR only games, which'll only further enhance the market ( though I was already pretty fucking sold when I demoed Alien Isolation in VR at PaX. ).

@pyrodactyl: The reason the PSVR headset appeals to me is that at least I know that all the hardware, whether built-in or addtional, will be included with the purchase. I agree that VR's real test will be when real VR games begin coming out and it sounds like a lot of the games I want to try VR Support with have had some announcement for PS4. Okay well there is only one but still all it takes is one to get me to buy in.

my opinion is that VR is an indictment of our society and the things we value, OP

I have a GTX 980, but the price is between 2 and 3 times what I'd be willing to pay for a peripheral with only, what, like three actual games?

Not that the actual components might not justify it or anything, but I fear they've priced themselves out of mainstream relevance already.

I never purchase a first generation of hardware, so there's no way I'll get this until a new iteration has been released.

Also, although I haven't really seen anyone complaining in this thread about it, I wanted to point at the critics of the price point at large:

$599 seems logical for the amount of R&D and time that went into creating this thing. Meanwhile, also consider the fact that this comes with two games AND built-in audio. Those would have their own price tag if they were separate from the headset. Therefore, I did this minor breakdown in my own head that seemed applicable:

$599 for Oculus Rift

• $120 for games
• $100 for audio system
• $300 for all the other hardware of the Rift itself
• $79 for wires, hookups, etc.

It makes a lot of sense that way. Sure, the games themselves may be more along of tech demos, but so was Ryse...and it was still $59.99 at launch.

There's also the fact that this hardware will have a LOT of applications outside of just gaming.

Frankly, it's just an exciting time in technology. We're finally getting there! We almost have a full-on, legit VR headset released to market (no, I'm not including the goddamn Gear VR).

Still don't care about VR at all.

I want it but 760$ + shipping is just too much money for it.

So, I haven't been following this that closely. Maybe someone can help me out. Does the PSVR piggyback off the processing power of the PS4? I can't see how that could be possible since the PS4 struggles mightily to do 1080/60 on a normal display, much less in VR. Will the PSVR come with it's own processing unit that you plug it into, like a "brain in a box"? If so, how friggin' expensive is that thing going to be considering the Rift sells at $600 for just the headset?

The Rift has too high of a price for me. I'm not in a place where I have that kind of disposable income that I could justify spending on something like that.

While it would have been nice to be able to buy a VR headset for less than $400, I don't believe this should come as too much of a shock to anyone. So far, getting into VR is a luxury, and while it may be a bit expensive for the mass market, I believe it will still do well enough with the enthusiast crowd that the prices will eventually come down. So do I think the price is justified? Yes, because the parts and the tech required to pump out 2-90Hz displays at 1080p are pretty expensive at the moment, but that doesn't mean I can or will buy one right away (I wish).

As for the whole democratization of VR, I think that is still coming but it may take a bit longer than we initially thought and were led to believe. The cool thing is that while the Rift may not be that platform, they have developed the Gear VR line which (if you already have the right phone) is only $100 and (from what I understand) gets much of the experience already. Actually, since the Gear VR doesn't have an external camera for positional tracking, I imagine it acts similarly to DK1 or DK2 which I think were $350 buy-ins.

The interesting thing now is how the competition in the form of Valve/HTC and Sony will retaliate. With the Vive, we may see a more expensive unit due to the lighthouses and wands, or we may see a cheaper unit (as I've heard the weight/quality are not as nice as Oculus CV1). Sony, on the other hand will likely try to get out under Oculus at a lower price point (possibly at a loss) even with their external box, since they own the platform and are incentivized to sell the software too. If so, I would guess it will not or cannot reach the same quality as the more expensive options. If Sony makes the $400-500 price point, it may become the democratizer instead of the Rift.

i'm already planning to invest in a 970/r9 390 tier graphics card in the very near future but that's going to be my last big purchase for a while. I can't spare the $600 for such a specific gadget. I'd much rather get off of the $ for a very nice low latency/ high res/high refresh rate screen for the same amount of money.

I just don't see how this is anything more than yet another attempt to push fad technology for the umpteenth time like the recent push for 3DTV that also ended up in flames. It's another gimmick that hasn't shown any real potential to do anything but replace the right analog stick and make lots of people hurl.

I feel like the dust wont have settled until everything is priced and dated. I'm waiting for sony to give up the deets on their thing. but I'm sure it will still be too expensive for my blood even if they undercut oculus which I doubt they can really afford to do. But they're pushing it so hard, if they say its 600 or even 400 most people will walk away. Regardless of what this tech actually is its still hard to picture an accessory that costs more than the actual thing its an accessory to.

Who else is seriously considering google cardboard at this point?

The whole VR thing still seems like a massive gimmick to me. Then again my only experience with VR is going to a Virtuality arcade once in the mid 90's.

Eh. I dunno. If I ever tried it, I could wind up loving it... but even if it were only $100, I wouldn't be sold. One of these days I'll probably get to try it, though.

As someone who doesn't watch a ton of movies, I'm more excited by the prospect of using them to watch movies. I don't even know if that's supposed to be a feature yet, though.

For me the difference between VR and things like kinect and 3dtv's is that after people tried kinect and 3dtv's they were underwhelmed where as I've heard some really intriguing things from the gb crew which make me very interested in where this could end up, there are a lot of potential uses and things that I think it has merit.

However there are still many questions to be answered and we won't truly know how this shakes out for quite a while, I look at it as a fragile thing, one wrong move from one of these companies, one headset that sells at better price but doesn't work well enough could be enough to stop people from buying one. Does PS VR sell the best to the casual user, and if it doesn't have enough power does that cast a bad light on all vr to the casual user. Does a VR experience in public compare to using it in your house? Do they get to the point they are so confident people just need to try it they offer a money back guarantee, I doubt it, but lets say they did could that be something that gets these things to the mainstream audience in a few years time? Do VR arcades start popping up and is that what pushes people into getting a unit for their home?

So many little things that could change the outcome of these devices, What if PSVR debuted with No Man's Sky packed in at a reasonable price say $300-350 and works perfectly with that game. I would almost certainly be sold on PS VR if only to be immersed in that universe. I can barely imagine how crazy it would feel to be flying/walking around that world without any of my desk or room in my view, to look to my left and actually look left in that world and only see that world would be mind blowing.

Anyway I look forward to seeing how this all pans out, I'd say I'm in the middle where I'm mostly sold that the technology is up to snuff but still waiting for actual full games to get into peoples hands and hear the consumer opinions before I'm actually sold on this. I just can't wait to see all the different approaches and what works and what strategies companies use. I think looking back on this era and why VR either did or didn't catch on will be interesting

I have no idea if VR is going to be the next big thing, or a healthy niche market, or some giant dud. I think VR is something that might really be something after a few iterations so I might be wise to wait for the competition to sort itself out and the tech to get better/cheaper.

Still haven't tried vr yet, and probably won't for a long time. Honestly, I'm more interested in simulating a movie theater experience in vr, which probably sounds boring compared to what it's capable of. If psvr offers something like that for watching Blu rays, then I'm there day one... Depending on the price, or course.

It's funny, the biggest selling point of VR might be the porn, but absolutely no one talks about that, for obvious reasons.

But if VR is as immersive as people say it is...

Gimmick until proven otherwise. There's still too many hurdles from the sound of things to make it at all feasible, the price being a big one. People are kidding themselves if they think $600 will ever be reasonable to a wide audience, I don't care how cheap that is "for VR".

@levio:This was brought up at work today. Definitely curious about it. But I don't think just watching porn through some goggles will be interesting, it'll be the stuff that is designed/shot/created specifically for VR. Would require other peripherals probably. Even doing a FPV, which would be the easiest and already existing thing to do, would be dumb. That would just be weird.

I don't know. Curious indeed. Porn industry is going to go wild for VR.

@hippie_genocide said:

PSVR will indeed require a separate box that piggybacks off the PS4 + the headset. But I do expect them to target a lower price point specifically to avoid the situation that just happened with the Rift. Problem with that is they'd have to sacrifice hardware quality to bring the price down. Though, technically, I guess that sort of gap already exists between console and PC hardware, so it will likely just end up in a similar situation. Some people will be happy with a leaner/simpler experience that maybe revolves more around gameplay elements (as Sony has shown the most promise for game-y looking VR games thus far) while the higher end of things (HTC and Oculus) provide a broader, more flexible, higher end product. Probably a large variety of games but more technical troubleshooting hoops to jump through or something. And then a third, lower tier will exist (GearVR) which is literally the mobile games equivalent. Your Angry Birds and such.

I could see PSVR at $400 and Vive at $800-1000. I could see the justification for Vive being that it provides a standing/moving experience which is more "premium". Plus it includes that extra hardware. On the Oculus end, I could see them offering a discount on Touch to people who pre-ordered the Rift and put their name on the waiting list. If the Touch is $100 and they give those people 50% off then people would be pretty happy I imagine. They already offered a similar goodwill toward the original kickstarter backers.

@amafi: Someone has probably said this, but VorpX is garbage. If you want to puke a whole bunch it's great, but slapping VR into games with shoddy implementation is not a good way to play games.
I don't see this changing in the future. Improvements to VorpX will be few, and right now it's not worth even trying.

Have a DK2 and a VorpX licence. Regret buying VorpX. I can get games to play just fine, but they are no fun.

Before 2015 I had been motion sick in a game one time, playing descent 3 with the gyro in the Sidewinder Freestyle Pro.

Then I rode a boat in GTA V first person with vorpx and I've never been as sick as quickly. It was pretty impressive.

But the point is, if the PSVR fails to take off you end up with a Kinect, only you can't even hook it up to your PC and write awful gesture recognition software for it. You'll just be sitting there dropping pencils and looking up anime girls' skirts for eternity, and that's no way to live. No matter if no one ever gets behind VR again, the PC headsets will have a hobbyist community doing interesting stuff until the last HMD falls apart.

I've chosen to be one the "early adopter enthusiast guinea pigs". I ran through my expenses and my interest in the rift, and decided it's something I have to see firsthand. (I upgraded my Pc last year too, so I'm good on that front) Having waited for 3 years hearing about Vr on podcasts, interviews and reading copious amounts of articles, I need to know. It's something that could offer an experience wholly unique; which is to say, staying home and seeing places I'll never get to in real life, due to responsibilities and other factors of life.

I'm the kind of person who almost never travels out of state, so just being able to be transported to another place for an hour or two is a very attractive prospect. I know that alone juxtaposed with the high barrier of entry isn't the approach everyone will have, but for me it's enough to cast my rod out in the proverbial lake that is vr at this point. Hopefully, in a few years it'll turn into an ocean.