Oculus Rift Pre-Orders Now Open

[Arthur]

Anyone getting one? It's £499 (inc. VAT) + £30 shipping to the UK.

 

Source: Oculus Blog

 

We’re excited to announce that Rift is now available to pre-order for $599 USD on Oculus.com and it will ship to 20 countries starting 28 March. People have been dreaming about immersive high-end VR for decades, and we’re thrilled to share Rift with you this March.

 

Rift will also be available in limited locations at select retailers starting in April.

 

Recommended PC Specification

Your PC is the engine that powers Rift. We recommend this level of hardware to ensure good performance across the range of games and experiences.

 

• Video Card NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
  
• CPU Intel Core 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
  
• OS Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
  

[caffrey]

My PC is ready, and I've been wanting one since they were first announced but that price I can't really swallow, I can see this being a very niche market which could potentially throw developers off.

The threads on reddit and neogaf are interesting to say the least.

[3s-gtech]

It could be good enough to justify the cost. However, as the only parts of my PC that hit the specs are the SSDs and RAM it'd cost me near double that to build a new PC to go with it [emoji17]

[ZeroHour]

The price is too much for now, especially without the rift controller coming out around the summer, my rig couldnt handle it as well and I dont want to buy a new graphics card until the new nvidia ones appear this spring/summer.

[Arthur]

I don't want to buy a new graphics card until the new nvidia ones appear this spring/summer.

Same here. There isn't any point buying a GTX 970 or 980 Ti at this late stage.

 

The price is too much for now, especially without the rift controller coming out around the summer

I am going to wait too. Hopefully with more competition (HTC's Vive for example), VR headsets will be a lot cheaper by the end of 2016?

 

I almost wish I had backed Oculus on Kickstarter now since they will get the latest Rift for "free".

 

Oculus gives free Rift headsets to thousands of early Kickstarter backers

 

More than 7,500 early adopters who provided the initial funding for the Oculus Rift VR headset through its original Kickstarter will get a free unit of the Rift's upcoming first consumer edition, the company announced today.

 

Everyone who pledged at least $275 (£190) to get the first Rift Developer Kit during Oculus' August 2012 Kickstarter will soon be e-mailed a form asking for their shipping address.

[localzuk]

Only thing I'm "below spec" on is the CPU. Got a 2550k at the moment.

 

£499 is quite expensive, sure, but it isn't overly expensive IMO. The bleeding edge is pretty expensive.

[caffrey]

499 is a lot to spend on something that you haven't tried, what if you bought one and it made you sick all the time....

Palmer Luckey had a AMA on reddit last night - seemed to manage okay.

[pcstru]

I was tempted until I ran the compatibility check and realised that £499 would double because I would need to upgrade to the bleeding edge. I think the price will quickly fall, apart from anything else the current product has a bunch of value added stuff that has to be pushing up the price.

[DalekSec]

I want one but my GHX card is few years out of date, hopefully the price of the 970Ti will go down soon so I can buy that and a Occulus Rift (Rest of my computer is way above spec needed)

[sted]

499 is a lot to spend on something that you haven't tried, what if you bought one and it made you sick all the time....

Palmer Luckey had a AMA on reddit last night - seemed to manage okay.

 

at the moment i seen no killer app for it and until that happens esp as nothing i own has a better video card than a 555m and a 3rd gen i5 (and in different pcs) also you appear to "get" an xbox one controller with it why couldnt you buy without i have 2 of them already and wouldnt need a 3rd that could knock £40 off. TBH the route hololense is taking looks to me to be far more interesting anyway

[localzuk]

I'm interested for games like Elite Dangerous, and even Minecraft. It'd be great to wander around Minecraft in VR.

[Duranis]

I would love one but my PC is WAY underspec and even if I had the money spare to upgrade and buy one I still couldn't justify it yet.

[jaminben]

Pre-ordered mine last night... gotta wait till May though

[Joanne]

I had a go on one at BETT last year and it did make me a bit motion sick. Suppose you would get used to it. First person shooters used to make me feel sick too!

[caffrey]

The system readiness test is a bit rubbish, try out the firestrike benchmark, as long as it scores over 9000 you should be okay

[Joanne]

The system readiness test is a bit rubbish, try out the firestrike benchmark, as long as it scores over 9000 you should be okay

 

over 9000

 

[DalekSec]

over 9000

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]34114[/ATTACH]

 

WHAT 9000! THERES NO WAY THAT CAN BE RIGHT!

[haldarulon]

This is going to be a Betamax Vs VHS issue for the PC

You can almost see software developers making VR exclusives between Oculus & Valve

and right now the valve is looking better!

[DalekSec]

This is going to be a Betamax Vs VHS issue for the PC

You can almost see software developers making VR exclusives between Oculus & Valve

and right now the valve is looking better!

 

I'm gonna do what I always do when its A Vs B,

 

By both products! Then its win win (Apart from my back account)

[GuyJD]

This time last year I was 100% getting a Rift when the consumer version was put on sale but now that that moment is here I'm more swayed towards the Vive, I'd love to support Oculus for what they've done in finally bringing VR to the home user but I can't justify buying it now to only be wishing I'd got down the Vive route come Christmas.

[localzuk]

I suspect the difference in quality of experience is going to be pretty high between the Rift and others to be honest. Cheaper devices have existed for years, but they've all suffered the same problem - they've been a bit poor. Yes, the Rift is expensive, but it is also trailblazing. So, it likely costs near to its price to produce anyway. Given time, it may well drop in price but the initial price isn't that crazy!

[v4learning]

My brother got one a couple of years ago he is a programmer so got one of the early test versions....it is mad! I bet the consumer versions are much better quality too!!

[jaminben]

I suspect the difference in quality of experience is going to be pretty high between the Rift and others to be honest.

 

That's my gut feeling... I think the Vive will have more features but won't actually have good image reproduction compared to the Rift.

 

Time will tell.

[caffrey]

I've caved and preordered , won't be coming till June so plenty of time to cancel

[NotSoFast]

I loved my £2.50 Google Cardboard so much I bought a PS4 at Christmas very much with VR in mind later this year. I have a feeling Sony have nailed the design and they certainly have a big potential audience, and therefore may attract developers. We'll see!