The Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch are getting a big (but temporary) price drop: for the next six weeks, the VR headset and motion controller bundle will sell for $399, nearly a $200 discount to the normal price. It’s part of Oculus’ summer-long attempt to promote the Rift, now that it’s been out for over a year. According to Oculus VP of content Jason Rubin, the sale is meant to draw people who “may have been sitting on the sideline because of price,” and entice people who may not have been considering the Rift to look at its growing app and game library.
The summer sale follows a permanent price drop this spring, when the Rift and Touch each got $100 cheaper. (This new sale doesn’t affect buying them individually — the Rift alone will still be $499, and Touch $99.) Echoing what we heard back then, Rubin promises that the current-generation Rift is still far from the end of its lifespan. “Somebody who goes out and buys a Rift [on sale] is not going to find themselves with hardware that’s outdated any time soon,” he says. “The Rift is going to be driving a lot of enjoyment for people for many years.”
Rubin says that’s because “the hardware is not holding up VR adoption. It’s price and content, and now that we’ve kind of gotten to the point where we feel comfortable with content, we’re continuing to attack price.”
Buyers will still need a gaming computer to use the Rift, and there’s no bundle discount for them as part of this sale. However, Rubin notes that the price of an Oculus-approved PC has dropped steadily over the past year, especially after Oculus introduced a lower minimum specification — you can now get one for around $650. (The Rift also works with some gaming laptops now, which also makes it more appealing to people who have more money but don’t want a desktop.) “The PC is very quickly not becoming the expensive part of the VR equation,” he says. “And we want to make sure that the VR hardware itself isn’t an expensive part of the equation. So we’re headed toward mass-market pricing.”