Yesterday the news that Oculus Rift would cost a hefty $599/£499 was disappointing yet unsurprising.
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Available for pre-ordering through Oculus.com, the Rift is initially set to ship to 20 countries, including the USA, U.K., Canada, Germany, Japan and Australia.
The recommendations for the GeForce piece of equipment were made noting the fact that the Oculus Rift does not have the same graphic necessities as a standard monitor would.
The launch came with a lot of hype, and pre-order supplies went quickly. Both of those systems are already available without the Rift for $1,200, so you’re saving a couple of hundred bucks by buying it with the Rift. “But it’s a little sad that the full Oculus experience won’t be available for at least six more months”. The approach to using each device is different; though they both offer 110 degrees of vision, the Rift is more of a sit-and-use device – though not always so – while the Vive would make users move about in the room with a tracking area of 15×15 feet.
The same testing delays applied to Instagram.
Oculus Rift’s Palmer Luckey and Alienware founder Frank Azor. Once you put on the headset, you are in a new, digitally-rendered world.
For Iribe, the next steps are clear: Find more applications for the Rift to make it a more compelling device.
Another bit of news that was a surprise to some was the relatively affordable price tag of $599. While the former is more professionally focused, the latter is linked more with gaming. Some had expected a $1,000 price point, or even higher, just a few months ago. The company, Iribe said, wanted to focus on bringing the best virtual reality experience possible to market and didn’t want to compromise on the quality of the headset or the experience. Thing is, Oculus designed and helped build Gear, so it stands to reason there’s some kind of licensing agreement in place in which Facebook benefits.
While FB isn’t the only major tech company to jump into the VR/augmented reality (AR) space – Microsoft (MSFT) will soon launch its AR HoloLens, Google (GOOGL, GOOG) had Glass and soon will have Magic Leap – it’s the first to market.
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Games makers are gambling millions on the success of virtual reality despite the technology failing to take off many times before. There are certainly enough ports for serious gamers on the machine.
