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Oculus Rift has been given a permanent price cut, with the UK pricing now standing at £499 for the Rift, plus £99 for the Touch controllers.
Hang on a minute. Didn’t the Rift launch in the UK at £499? Well, yes it did, though the crashing Pound meant the price was raised to £549 in August. There was also the £30 shipping fee to the UK.
So, given the new £499 price includes UK shipping there is a small saving to be had on the Rift itself, but the big price reduction comes for those picking up the Touch controllers, which were previously priced £199.
Oculus VP of content Jason Rubin explains that in the year since the Oculus Rift launched the price of entry for VR has dropped significantly.
“We’ve read all the stories and looked at the analyst reports. VR is going through the normal adoption cycle for new pieces of technology,” said Rubin. “We saw hype into launch, facing impossible expectations, and we will eventually break out with the “hockey stick” of mass adoption.”
He added: “Today’s new, lower price of Rift and Touch doubles down on a year of dropping PC and graphics card prices. It’s costs 30% less for someone to walk into a store and outfit a complete high end PC VR experience, including desktop PC, Rift, and Touch, than it did just a year ago when we launched Rift.
“We believe this lower entry price will attract consumers to PC VR at a faster pace.”
Sales estimates place Rift at only 243,000 units, with HTC Vive at 420,000, as of the end of 2016. Meanwhile the PS VR has shifted 916,000 units in a much shorter space of time.
Source: Oculus
