Oculus Rift + Touch price slashed, going for $400 delivered.
So two price drops in 6 months, they must have reached market saturation at the previous price point?
Wow. That’s a helluva price drop. Minus retail prices that’s $400 - $120 (2x sensors) - $100 (Touch) so $180 for just the headset. But they still don’t sell it separately so now I am even madder.
I, uh, just finished buying most of that…
God damn it.
Which i don’t think is very high.
Wonder how much they are eating in costs at that price.
This would almost be enough to make me bite. But I’d want to juice the graphics card in my wife’s PC so she could also run it, and currency mining is driving up card prices. Conundrum. Stupid currency mining.
I just sprung (nyuck nyuck nyuck) for that.
To be fair, it’s not unusual for, say, TVs to fall by that much or more a year after release. Maybe production costs have come down a fair bit. And it’s not like this is a console with a 7–10-year expected lifecycle. It’s the first consumer-ready generation of a rapidly evolving tech. Pretty much everyone expects this first generation to be obsolete by next year (I certainly hope so). That said, we’re not seeing Vive do the same, which points to them eating a cost.
I ended up paying $650 + $200 so more than half off a year later. That’s a good thing IMO. I am just very, very salty about their repair options.
For those thinking about getting a Vive vs Rift, especially with this latest price drop I would say wait and see if HTC responds.
The Rift is clearly a better headset than the Vive minus the camera capability, better FOV, glasses support, and much less imposing fresnel distortions. So if you are just sitting or standing it’s probably the better option.
However for roomscale, the real reason to buy VR, Vive is superior by a large margin. Oculus tracking was, as of a couple of months ago, decidedly inferior to Vive. Especially the setup, me and various friends couldn’t get through their room scale setup without it complaining about not being correct no matter what we did. If you force the issue it still works, but not as reliably as Vive. They will probably fix those issues eventually but just from a tech standpoint I think the Vive is the better way to go, especially with the new single motor lighthouses. I always had brief moments of occlusion with the Rift, even dead center, whereas the Vive has been rock solid.
Here’s my quick notes about my Oculus experience.
I’ve not had any problems with my 360 tracking on the Oculus. I’m using 3 sensors (1 that came with headset, 1 that came with Touch and one I ordered separate) and the experience has been really great so far. Robo Recall, Arizona Sunshine and SuperHotVR are amazing experiences that are made even better via room scale.
My glasses haven’t been an issue, neither has Sarah had any problems. However, feel that might be based on head/face shape and glasses type more than anything.
I only honestly notice fresnel issues when something is stark white on a black field, which is pretty rare.
I love the Touch controllers. I haven’t used the HTC controllers, but they just look worse. Maybe they’re good and I’m being a jerk, but I love me some Touch control. Everything about using them, after a short adjustment period, feels very natural.
I can only really do comparisons with the DK2 (I have it and the CV1), but it’s a TON lighter than the old one.
So far, I’m very pleased with what I picked. I did stress about it for a while, but I ended up going with Carmack. I’m happy with my choice (not getting it for 400 dollars less than 2 months later happy JESUS) and suggest the Rift without any real misgivings.
Note: I run an i7-4770 with 12GB of RAM and a GTX1080 Founder’s Edition.
I think visible light plays a large part in how well it works, kind of like reflections can hamper a Vive. Did you get through their roomscale setup without it saying it was a non-optimal setup? 3 different setups later I still couldn’t do it, though it did work OK if I just overrode the setup.
It took a minute, but it went through. I have the 2 set on the left and right of my monitor and the back one across from the one on the right on a bookshelf. I just moved stuff into this room, so there isn’t much going on in there and was using overhead light, so it certainly could be just that environment.
Regarding room-scale tracking, with three sensors the Rift is every bit as good as the Vive in my setup. Two are on my desk, and the third is on the other side of the room on top of a bookshelf where it has a pretty clear view of the whole room.
Well some possible good news. I started a ranty thread on Reddit over my warranty woes and one of the users suggested checking into my CC extended warranty. Turns out I have an extra 24 months of protection thanks to Mastercard, so I submitted the fairly easy forms and am waiting to hear back.
That’s great news. Good luck.
Wow. Reddit was useful. Who woulda thunk?
$400 and I can get it from Amazon (I trust their return policy way more than Facebook’s)? Deal. I’m sure I’d appreciate Zelda or Horizon better as a ‘game’, but the new experiences of VR will be better for me as a person. I don’t need to blow 100 hours on yet another open world game.
Ok so I"m dumb. I have a Vive already and still jumped on this deal. Exclusives made me do it. (Revive is OK but not good enough for games like Edge of Nowhere).
Re-veev? Re-vyve? Re-vivvy?
Great news. But does not excuse Facebooks “lol you are SOL” policy. While it is the only negative I have seen about the Oculus its a big one. Hope you get your refund and/ or replacement!
Just placed an order with Amazon. Had to pay taxes, but 3 year protection plan from square trade was only $13 vs going to squaretrade.com where it was at least $64.