We love the Oculus Rift. Having tried it a few times, we know it works a treat, and that’s before the improved retail headset releases and many of developers keen on the idea of virtual reality (VR) begin working on VR titles in earnest.
There’s no doubt about it, it’s a great piece of tech, but you’re going to have to pay through the nose to get one.
Having gone on pre-order last night, we now know that it’ll set you back a sizeable $599 (R9, 500).
Analysts actually predicted that Oculus’ VR headset would sell five million units in its first year alone, but we’re not so sure anymore.
You’re also going to have to front the shipping costs, as well as import fees, because Oculus will not be shipping the Rift to SA, at least not initially. In fact, only 20 countries will have the Oculus shipped to them at launch.
The date of the Oculus’ launch, by the way, is March 28th for the first batch. Following that, you can expect them to arrive in April.
Should that not bother you, we’d recommend you follow Oculus’ advice and download their Rift compatibility tool. It’ll suss out your PC’s specifications and let you know if your rig can handle the headset.
After all, it has fairly high hardware requirements:
Minimum Requirements:
Video Card NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPU Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
Memory 8GB+ RAM
Video Output Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
USB Ports 3x USB 3.0 ports plus 1x USB 2.0 port (it seems that report was right on the money)
OS Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
NVIDIA goes so far as to suggest a GTX 980 as the minimum requirement for a 60 fps VR experience.
At least you get two free games with your Oculus Rift pre-order; that’s something.
To be fair, the Oculus Rift is by far and away the most advanced VR headset, and Oculus are actually selling their headsets at a loss.
Oculus’ founder Lucky Palmer has said as much, via Twitter, following complaints about the price.
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
You could always try selling the Xbox One controller the headset comes with, and make a little money back that way.
The bundled Xbox controller costs us almost nothing to add, and gives devs a consistent target. Sell it for profit if you don't want it!
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) January 6, 2016
Other things we can’t afford, sad face
This monstrous PC can run seven games on seven monitors at once, and costs a cool R475, 000
The most powerful All-In-One PC on the market: Maingear’s Alpha 34
AMD’s R9 Fury X2 is delayed to coincide with VR headsets launch
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Just another useless invention for couch potatoes. Others climb real mountains, drive real cars, play real sport or kick real ass!