Oculus Rift, the virtual reality headset, is available for preorder on Wednesday and is expected to ship beginning March 28, Oculus said on its website.
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$599 sounds steep but experts have been predicting a high price point for the Rift’s commercial debut.
To find out more about the Oculus Rift, the controller, games and pretty much any other questions you may have, tune into Luckey’s AMA this Wednesday right here! Oculus chief executive Brendan Iribe said in May that the Rift and the computer needed to run it were expected to cost around $1,500. However, it is staying mum for now on the price or shipping date of the headset. Luckily, potential buyers can download a Rift compatibility tool from Oculus to check if their machine needs an upgrade. The release of the headset should also please Facebook, which bought Oculus VR in 2014 for $2 billion.
If you backed the Oculus Rift’s Kickstarter campaign back in 2012 and received the DK1 model of the Rift, you won’t need to put any money down on the headset. Pre-orderers will also get a copy of EVE: Valkyrie, a outer-space dogfight game that has also been a constant presence at Oculus’ demos over the years. If not, Oculus is bundling what it calls an Oculus-ready PC with the Rift headset.
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Luckey also confirmed that the Rift will be sold as with a subsidized price meaning that the company will sell the product for less than what it costs to make. Oculus’s custom Touch controllers will be coming out sometime in the second half of 2016.
