Buying an Oculus Rift headset with a new Windows PC will cost $1,500

Yea, I think the 2 had 720p displays, the retail one will have 1080p so it should be much better.

It'll still be version 1 because developer kit =/= commercial release. That's like saying a new game release is at version 30 because there were 29 previous versions during development.

Software revisions =/= hardware revisions. This will be their third publicly available headset, with other prototype versions in between. To say CV1 is version 1 hardware is incorrect.

Wow, what a price!

That's including the price of the computer.

Exactly, so that's pretty cheap if you don't own a PC yet.

Cheap? Lol...

Well even if you own a pc, but it's not one the high end gaming side it won't be able to run the rift that well.

I'm thinking it will be around 500$ because for 1000$ one can have a hell of a windows pc...and if won't run on that smoothly then its not worth it...

Just upgrade your current PC. The rift may be between $300 and $600. The latest graphics cards aren't too expensive. If you can't afford Oculus Rift by itself then you can't afford to have a PC that runs it.

I'll just upgrade my current PC, so I'll have a Pentium D and a Titan whoa, best idea ever.

Titan and Pentium D?? Bottleneck?!?!

That's my point, upgrading to the newest graphics card won't do anything. Some people will still need a new PC.

Waiting for HoloLens

I wonder if this is similar to what Hololens will cost... seeing as it's an all-in-one device. I'd expect somewhere around $1000-1500.

But remember, hololens is not a full PC, it is limited to universal apps. But hololens is cooler than the oculus

It's also different from Oculus/Morpheous in that they're virtual reality (VR) while HoloLense is augmented reality (AR).

AR devices become VR if you put a cover on and block out your surroundings...

You would think so at first glance but no. If you cover an AR device (that's not using a camera and screen setup) and cover it, you block the devices view of the world and therefore it can no longer augment it (e.g. Position a virtual video player on your wall)

So they make sure the cover just blocks out the surroundings and the movement detection still works. Then your AR device is also a VR device. AR is capable of both. VR isn't...

Hololens is a full PC just like the Xbox One is.  Whether Microsoft allows you to run x86 applications on it is a separate issue. 

I thought they said you need a "high end" PC to run Oculus.....$1500 for a new PC AND Oculus......that PC can't be that high end.

Building a PC with the announced recommended specs should only cost about $1000.

LOL I'm guessing you buy from brands like Alienware and Origin.

That's not too bad. Need a time machine, though. Went out and bought brand new game rig, dual monitors, Saitek HOTAS, CH pedals, TrackIR (4? Pro), and we then promptly started having kids and moving a lot over the next few years. Barely used the stuff. That Xeon equivalent of the C2D 8400 isn't so hot now, and as for the motherboard it's on, the only working USB ports are two front ones. I expect that when we are done with our fixxer upper and boot the kids out, the Holodeck Rift should be available. :D

Smart move bundling it really. You just know people would go out and buy it and try to run it on their £300 laptop then wonder why it makes them feel so ill. Even at $1500 dollars though I think your not going to get high above minimum graphics on most new games. Considering this thing needs to run dual 1080p displays at 60 FPS, and have minimal latency for all the head movements the hardware is going to need to pre-render a considerable amount outside the frame for when you move your head.

>60FPS What? No, 60FPS isn't even the minimum requirement. 70FPS to 90FPS is the bare minimum and they are aiming even higher.   I seriously hope there's intrusive popup that annoys anyone who tries to run this shit on a potato and doesn't get the required FPS. It should tell them to turn down the graphics settings and, if that doesn't work, buy a new PC/play a less intense game.   I already see massive amounts of retards screaming about the sub-par experience because they genuinely believe that 30FPS should be enough. Or, even better, cinematic 24FPS.

Think I'll wait for the hololens.

Better buy a sennheiser hd 800 for the same price hehe

Annnnnnd there goes any/all of my interest in it. I'll just use Hololens (although it's different), rather than needing to upgrade or buy a new PC in addition to the Oculus hardware. That price-of-entry is unrealistic for the average consumer.

Who's to say HoloLens isn't priced at $1000 or more?

While it's certainly possible, I highly doubt it. I seem to remember some rumors or postings somewhere that mentioned that MS was attempting to keep the HoloLens at an acceptable, consumer friendly price-point upon release so that more people could use it, especially those who would want to use it with their existing Xbox Ones. Without any further knowledge, I'd happily pay around $500 for it, but I don't think it'd even be that high. For comparison, the devkits of the Oculus were around $300 if I'm not mistaken. The original Xbox Kinect upon launch was like $250 with a game included, and the current gen stand-alone Kinect 2 is around $80 on Amazon. I wouldn't be surprised if MS wants to keep the HoloLens below a $500 price-point.

Seems reasonable given that this is an enthusiast niche in the first place, and not really even targeted for the average consumer for now. I'll just use sunglasses (although they're different), rather than needing to upgrade or buy a new PC in addition to the Oculus hardware.

But as the makers of various VR tech have said (Oculus, Project Morpheous, etc.), making VR successful and accessible will depend solely on getting consumers to try it in the first place and making it mainstream (doing it cheaply). A $1000  baseline investment before being able to use/purchase the Oculas will prove an obstacle seperating Oculus from that goal.

Sure, but there are 10s of millions, if not 100s of millions of people who do not need to invest that much, but can rather purchase the OR separately and thus introduce others to the tech as well. Of course, cheaper is better, but quality trumps cheap.

Anybody that has purchased a PC from a big box store doesn't have a machine powerful enough.  Even the so called desktops you can buy probably don't have the power supplies necessary for the video cards.  So unless your machine is Alienware or Origin you're probably looking for a new machine or a healthy upgrade.

My thoughts exactly. Mainstream users can't simply go buy the rift and expect it to work with their iMacs, and note books, and generally run-of-the-mill spec'ed PC's people tend to buy from places like Best Buy...this first 'final' version of the rift is not going to achieve mainstream status in my opinion.

I would ague those numbers you provide are the number of people who WILL need to significantly upgrade or replace their PCs to tun the rift. The fact is, unless your a gamer, designer, developer or some sort of modeller (3d or data), you likely wouldn't have purchased a computer with the muscle required for the rift. I'm a designer/developer and have a quad core i7 with 16 GB of ram at home and still need to upgrade the video card at the very least to run the rift. I've also got a surface pro 3 which can't handle it and a quad xeon with 12 GB ram at and nvida quatro 4600 (still goes for about $1000) and it to can't run it. 3 fairly high end computers and not one can run the rift without further investment on my part. And I consider myself an enthusiast and gamer, so what chance does the main stream consumer have?

As previously pointed out, this is an enthusiast niche (there are still a lot of them, the numbers can be argued of course), most of them will get away with no or a GPU upgrade. It is also the enthusiast crowd that is the big spender crowd. The tech will get cheaper eventually, and will introduce more people in the market, a bad initial experience on the other hand would kill the market outright. At this point, the mainstream consumer is not the target, but if one becomes interested, most likely he'll just have to skip a smartphone upgrade and invest that in a GPU instead (or if buying a brand new pre-built, skip 2-3 smartphone / tablet upgrades). P.S. yes, a Quatro is not a gaming GPU, much like a truck is not a sportscar despite having as big of an engine, nor is the i7 or 16GM RAM likely to be your bottleneck

These are the current specs Oculus website states you will need to get the best performance. NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater 8GB+ RAM Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output 2x USB 3.0 ports Windows 7 SP1 or newer https://www.oculus.com/blog/the-rifts-recommended-spec-pc-sdk-0-6-released-and-mobile-vr-jam-voting/

I wonder if a 770 would work. The 970 is just a slightly improved version of it. It's still a ridiculous price point for anyone interested. Definitely geared for a specific group of people.

Seems fair.

And the computer they are bundling it with is an Intel atom chip, 2gb ram, 720p screen, all in a 10" 2 in 1. Hahahah btw, the oculus rift is a joke compared to Halolens.

I'm gunna get Project Morpheous. May look at Oculus again if they follow through with their supposed plans to bring it to PS4.

Call me when I can pretend I'm fucking jessica alba

This is expensive, i pass. I hope HoloLens is much affordable than this, also hoping HoloLens can take advantage on hardware like XboxOne or a hig-end laptop/desktop, just like the Oculus Gear takes advantage on the GPU of a Galaxy Note 4 or a Samsung Galaxy S6 edge.

The amount of people bringing up totally unrelated things, like HoloLens, is too damn high.

And vr just failed. Project Morpheus would have to be £150 to have any chance. After this news, Morpheus will not be less than £300. VR failed before it lands.