Oculus Founder Defends $600 Price Tag

[kbrickley]

You could party with virtual prostitutes with the OVR for $600 too.

For $1200 you could do both.

For $1,000,000 you could do two chicks at the same time. I figure, if you had a million dollars you could hook that up.

I am sure one of the brothels in the Philippines or Thailand could hook you up with a Sandwich Special, Charlie's Angels, or Fantastic Four for a lot less than 1 mil

 

[sboucher]

Some of it may have to do with the fact that they are still in litigation with Zenimax over the stealing of trade secrets..

Has anyone heard or gotten any update how the lawsuit is going? its been over a year and I have no doubt Zenimax may be seeking an injunction of sales.. The highcost maybe calculated to settle with Zenimax.should they seek that

Shit, good point! I completely forgot about that.

 

[Seventyfive]

You could party with virtual prostitutes with the OVR for $600 too.

For $1200 you could do both.

For $1,000,000 you could do two chicks at the same time. I figure, if you had a million dollars you could hook that up.

 

[SeymourGore]

Two chicks for a million dollars? That's an expensive 30 seconds.

 

[nilepez]

Actually I think you should go back and reread the threads and if you still think I don't know what I'm talking about, you need to improve your reading comprehension.

Someone asked how do I know the people crying are millenials and my comment is that if more than just the millenials are the ones crying, we have a bigger problem in this country than the Oculus Rift. As in, I would hope people 30+ are mature enough to not throw a temper tantrum.

Well if you don't think anyone here is a whiner, then all is well. If you do, then it's safe to say that people in their 30's are whining about this.

 

[Seventyfive]

Well if you don't think anyone here is a whiner, then all is well. If you do, then it's safe to say that people in their 30's are whining about this.

I said it in an earlier post but to reiterate that I'm not trying to broadly insult everyone who can't afford one, I am specifically making a comment regarding the insane bitch fest that is going on at /r/oculus on reddit.

 

[nilepez]

I said it in an earlier post but to reiterate that I'm not trying to broadly insult everyone who can't afford one, I am specifically making a comment regarding the insane bitch fest that is going on at /r/oculus on reddit.

Ah. Got ya.

 

[dgz]

After years of "in the range of 350" assurances, 600 seems a bit too much. Gonna go with Vive unless the Rift is really something else. Oh well, I didn't want to give FB any money anyway.

 

[SvenBent]

Only reasons I'm not pulling the trigger is that after experiencing adaptive sync first-hand, I'm leery of buying a display that doesn't have it!

Adaptive sync only helps if your PC is to slow to drive your monitors refresh rate if/hen you run with sync on with double buffering (triple buffering does not have this issues to begin with) and you fps is below your refresh rate.

needing to have adaptive sync is basically is saying: "my PC is to slow for my monitor".

personally I hate running with low fps and would never like to run fps below my refresh rate anyway, so adaptive sync does nothing for me beside giving me a minuscule more input lag.

 

[Ur_Mom]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykVubb2_SvQ

Francis raging about the cost. Some comedy gold in there. Mark fucking Suckadickaberg... Great stuff.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

Hey Peter-man!!! Check out channel 9!

 

[Killahurtz]

I never gave a rat's backside what it was going to cost , the wife and I squirreled away enough to get the Rift and the Vive...we don't mind driving new technology and have done it for years. We have a lot of "next big thing" pieces around the house and some were good and some were not. I use the DK2 for racing a lot...it is going to be a step forward no matter how I slice it

 

[[21CW]killerofall]

Am I the only one here who doesn't give a damn about VR? It could cost $100 and I still wouldn't buy it.

 

[gxp500]

LOL @ companies that go on reddit to defend their products, if that isn't an instant fail i don't know what is. I hope this fails just because of that.

 

[Krenum]

Just like I thought it always would be....

A 600 dollar niche market. I love being right.

 

[NoNRG]

Do you have to pay the $600 immediately for a pre-order, or is there a down payment of ~$50? I would never pay $600 for a product that releases in 5 months.

 

[Supercharged_Z06]

No charge until the day it actually ships to you - then they hit your card.

 

[Briguyatx]

Just think, you can pick up a Fury X and the Rift and have two over-hyped products that really should have been 399 at launch.

 

[shatterstar]

So much potential.... Now it will Definitely be a Niche product. I'm no cheap bastard by any means as I do have the hardware to run this but its price point and requirement are too much to ask for.

Just curious, for those of you still planning on buying it on release;
-do you have all the USB ports available to run this without constantly pulling out cables?
-is it worth more to you than getting a new top of the line video card?
-is it worth more to you than getting a new 4k monitor or 1080p projector?

I would rather get an extra video card, extra 4k monitor or extra 1080p projector with the money.

 

[Miikun]

So much potential.... Now it will Definitely be a Niche product. I'm no cheap bastard by any means as I do have the hardware to run this but its price point and requirement are too much to ask for.

Just curious, for those of you still planning on buying it on release;
-do you have all the USB ports available to run this without constantly pulling out cables?
-is it worth more to you than getting a new top of the line video card?
-is it worth more to you than getting a new 4k monitor or 1080p projector?

I would rather get an extra video card, extra 4k monitor or extra 1080p projector with the money.

Well if you already have a 4k monitor, definitely get the video card first to make the most of your previous investment, it's synergistic. But 1080p projector? No way, a headset is far more compelling, though i'd just pre-order now (no cash up front) and wait to see the Vive before committing to pay. Seems like software will support both, and I'd bet that HTC/Steam would be happy to sell oculus / osvr owners a steam-vr controller "upgrade" so it's probably not a huge deal. That high end video card, though, will be pretty devaluated by the time geforce 10 or whatever shows up mid 2016, but then that's business as usual.

 

[Nenu]

Am I the only one here who doesn't give a damn about VR? It could cost $100 and I still wouldn't buy it.

Do you play games running on a 3D engine?
Games like Fallout4, Witcher 3, Call of Duty..., rather than say minesweeper or flat games.
I dont mean do you currently use 3D.

 

[cptnjarhead]

I was surprised to see $600 price tag, but i need to upgrade my pc anyway, so waiting was not even a choice. I agree with some others here, that Oculus over delivered and the consumer product is the best device they could make without compromise. Now we will see what the reviews say, but imo, apple can release a tablet that is 3 times the price of other comparable android tablets, and nobody gives a shit.
Dont get me wrong, all the products i have ever used from apple have been premium design and quality, but not worth the price imo. Luckey should have never given a price, he is green when it comes to Marketing. I'm sure he will leave pricing details to others in the future.
Either way, I'm excited and cannot wait to see when people actually receive the product.
Some questions though, obviously with the hardware requirements for the Rift, what are Sony, and MS going to do? Consoles do not have the power to run VR on their own, maybe their headsets will have built in soc's to handle the lack of CPU/GPU of the consoles.

 

[Darunion]

So much potential.... Now it will Definitely be a Niche product. I'm no cheap bastard by any means as I do have the hardware to run this but its price point and requirement are too much to ask for.

Just curious, for those of you still planning on buying it on release;
-do you have all the USB ports available to run this without constantly pulling out cables?
-is it worth more to you than getting a new top of the line video card?
-is it worth more to you than getting a new 4k monitor or 1080p projector?

I would rather get an extra video card, extra 4k monitor or extra 1080p projector with the money.

I mean, it is $600 not the cost of a brand new car or house. Not trying to be snobby but it also is not a 5 or 6 figure price.

I do agree (not sure who said it) that this product has to be as good as it can be to create a market for these devices. Otherwise they end up where 3d 'goggles' for your smartphone and apps go. Cheap ones can come later but this needs to be a flagship so you don't have some other company come out with more features. While I won't be getting one for some time since I need a new PC first, I would love to try it especially with games like eve or E.

 

[steakman1971]

This is very expensive. The original price of $350 or so was doable. But $600? I need wife permission for something like that
I was going to jump in, but like others, I'm going to sit on the sidelines. I should know better anyway - early adopters have fun, but lots of growing pains (and financial loss). I remember when 3D first hit the scene - I bought a Monster Voodoo card. Shortly afterwards, the Voodoo 2 came out with support for SLI. I couldn't resist.
Oh well, that's how the tech world rolls.

 

[Kelby]

I honestly thought hard about this. I even went to the website and ran the test to see if my computer was compatible.

I failed. Apparently I need to upgrade my i7-3770K to a i5-4590.

 

[Seventyfive]

LOL @ companies that go on reddit to defend their products, if that isn't an instant fail i don't know what is. I hope this fails just because of that.

The guy doing the AMA is already worth $2 billion. If he wanted to, he could sit on his couch and have hookers blow him all day. Instead he's still working and advancing technology for the benefit of mankind. I think it's pretty cool that he was willing to take the time to do an AMA even knowing he was going to get ripped a new one for the price point.

So much potential.... Now it will Definitely be a Niche product. I'm no cheap bastard by any means as I do have the hardware to run this but its price point and requirement are too much to ask for.

Just curious, for those of you still planning on buying it on release;
-do you have all the USB ports available to run this without constantly pulling out cables?
-is it worth more to you than getting a new top of the line video card?
-is it worth more to you than getting a new 4k monitor or 1080p projector?

I would rather get an extra video card, extra 4k monitor or extra 1080p projector with the money.

-Yes
-Wouldn't have bought it if I didn't already have a 980Ti
-The 4k monitor I want is $1500 so I am waiting for that to come down in price

Consoles do not have the power to run VR on their own, maybe their headsets will have built in soc's to handle the lack of CPU/GPU of the consoles.

It was revealed that the Sony PS4 VR will need an external processing unit that will help crunch the video and audio. There's a slide deck from a Unity conference on youtube if you're still curious.

 

[cptnjarhead]

This is very expensive. The original price of $350 or so was doable. But $600? I need wife permission for something like that
I was going to jump in, but like others, I'm going to sit on the sidelines. I should know better anyway - early adopters have fun, but lots of growing pains (and financial loss). I remember when 3D first hit the scene - I bought a Monster Voodoo card. Shortly afterwards, the Voodoo 2 came out with support for SLI. I couldn't resist.
Oh well, that's how the tech world rolls.

True, Luckey did say $350, but that was based on the tech they had at the time, if they had released the product then it would have probably been around that price, but would have basically been the same the the DK's that were already out, and that would have been disastrous because consumers expect far more from a product than a dev. This product is the best they can possibly produce at this time. Sure it will be cheaper in a year or so, but this is a cutting edge product. As others have stated, Oculus is putting the best product out they can with no compromise.

 

[sboucher]

I was surprised to see $600 price tag, but i need to upgrade my pc anyway, so waiting was not even a choice. I agree with some others here, that Oculus over delivered and the consumer product is the best device they could make without compromise. Now we will see what the reviews say, but imo, apple can release a tablet that is 3 times the price of other comparable android tablets, and nobody gives a shit.
Dont get me wrong, all the products i have ever used from apple have been premium design and quality, but not worth the price imo. Luckey should have never given a price, he is green when it comes to Marketing. I'm sure he will leave pricing details to others in the future.
Either way, I'm excited and cannot wait to see when people actually receive the product.
Some questions though, obviously with the hardware requirements for the Rift, what are Sony, and MS going to do? Consoles do not have the power to run VR on their own, maybe their headsets will have built in soc's to handle the lack of CPU/GPU of the consoles.

That's not entirely true. Look at Gear VR running off a Galaxy S6 smart phone. It depends on how the developers make the software. Generally they keep the graphics low enough to be able to run on the target hardware at the target frame rates.

For Sony's headset, we don't know a lot of details yet. It is a 1080p oled display last I heard with 120hz, and supposedly runs very smooth. I recall some speculation that there was additional tech built into the device to help accelerate the graphics processing. Should know more about it soon as that device is supposed to launch soon as well.

I look at this transition to VR as being very similar to the leap from 2D to 3D years ago. Price is painful at the moment (like 3d was back in the early days). But price will come around, and the tech will continue to get better.

Once you've tried it, you really will understand just how promising this is for the future of PC gaming.

 

[cptnjarhead]

That's not entirely true. Look at Gear VR running off a Galaxy S6 smart phone. It depends on how the developers make the software. Generally they keep the graphics low enough to be able to run on the target hardware at the target frame rates.

For Sony's headset, we don't know a lot of details yet. It is a 1080p oled display last I heard with 120hz, and supposedly runs very smooth. I recall some speculation that there was additional tech built into the device to help accelerate the graphics processing. Should know more about it soon as that device is supposed to launch soon as well.

I look at this transition to VR as being very similar to the leap from 2D to 3D years ago. Price is painful at the moment (like 3d was back in the early days). But price will come around, and the tech will continue to get better.

Once you've tried it, you really will understand just how promising this is for the future of PC gaming.

You have that kind of backwards, G.VR is not running off of the samsung phone, it IS the samsung phone, sure there is a small amount of tech in the headset but not much. No smartphones currently or for a few years will be able to run with an i5 4590 and GTX 970 / AMD 290. If Sony and MS want to compete, they will have to at least match the Rift in specs and performance, and i just cannot see that without there being some sort of gpu/cpu help in the headset.

 

[cptnjarhead]

...that leads to another question, wouldn't or shouldn't sli or xfire be a better fit for the Rift, each card running each side of the display? Although syncing two cards one each eye might be tricky.

 

[schoolslave]

Am I the only one with ZERO and I mean absolute ZERO interest in VR for "mainstream" gaming?

Hardcore simulators - yes.
Remote medical applications - yes.
Watching movies - yes.
CoD, Dark Souls, Battlefield, casual games etc - hell no.

 

[cptnjarhead]

Am I the only one with ZERO and I mean absolute ZERO interest in VR for "mainstream" gaming?

Hardcore simulators - yes.
Remote medical applications - yes.
Watching movies - yes.
CoD, Dark Souls, Battlefield, casual games etc - hell no.

Probably not, but with the hardware requirements, you might as well play games with it, otherwise you missing out on some of the media its made for. And who knows, maybe you will enjoy the experience. Here is a first hands on with the consumer product i have seen.. http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gaming/gaming-accessories/oculus-rift-consumer-edition-1123963/review/2

 

[USMCGrunt]

...that leads to another question, wouldn't or shouldn't sli or xfire be a better fit for the Rift, each card running each side of the display? Although syncing two cards one each eye might be tricky.

SLI/XFire introduce latency and, last I heard, it was too much. Keep in mind, VR needs bleeding edge fast response times, I think the target for Rift is 15ms from input to output. Too much latency and things become nauseating.

John Carmack on VR latency

A total system latency of 50 milliseconds will feel responsive, but still noticeable laggy.
20 milliseconds or less will provide the minimum level of latency deemed acceptable.

An attractive direction for stereoscopic rendering is to have each GPU on a dual GPU system render one eye, which would deliver maximum performance and minimum latency, at the expense of requiring the application to maintain buffers across two independent rendering contexts.

The downside to preventing GPU buffering is that throughput performance may drop, resulting in more dropped frames under heavily loaded conditions.

Looks like multi-gpu configurations COULD work, but the game would have to be specifically coded to create additional buffers for each additional GPU. Meaning in the short term, multi-gpu is a big no no but if VR catches on, as game engines age out of production, the replacements will be coded to include multiple buffers and anything else that would be needed for SLI/XFire to work with VR.

 

[USMCGrunt]

CoD, Dark Souls, Battlefield, casual games etc - hell no.

Why not?

 

[cptnjarhead]

SLI/XFire introduce latency and, last I heard, it was too much. Keep in mind, VR needs bleeding edge fast response times, I think the target for Rift is 15ms from input to output. Too much latency and things become nauseating.

John Carmack on VR latency



Looks like multi-gpu configurations COULD work, but the game would have to be specifically coded to create additional buffers for each additional GPU. Meaning in the short term, multi-gpu is a big no no but if VR catches on, as game engines age out of production, the replacements will be coded to include multiple buffers and anything else that would be needed for SLI/XFire to work with VR.

I guess "tricky" was a little Understated.
Always faithful brother.

 

[USMCGrunt]

I guess "tricky" was a little Understated.
Always faithful brother.

'rah

 

[sboucher]

You have that kind of backwards, G.VR is not running off of the samsung phone, it IS the samsung phone, sure there is a small amount of tech in the headset but not much. No smartphones currently or for a few years will be able to run with an i5 4590 and GTX 970 / AMD 290. If Sony and MS want to compete, they will have to at least match the Rift in specs and performance, and i just cannot see that without there being some sort of gpu/cpu help in the headset.

No I don't have that backwards, that's actually precisely what I meant. Gear VR (as a platform) is run on the Galaxy S6 hardware.

As I mentioned, there is additional hardware in the Sony headset although we don't know details on that yet. I still not expect it to be able to compete with the rift though. Although we don't exactly expect a PS4 to be able to compete with a high end gaming PC either, do we?

 

[sboucher]

SLI/XFire introduce latency and, last I heard, it was too much. Keep in mind, VR needs bleeding edge fast response times, I think the target for Rift is 15ms from input to output. Too much latency and things become nauseating.

John Carmack on VR latency



Looks like multi-gpu configurations COULD work, but the game would have to be specifically coded to create additional buffers for each additional GPU. Meaning in the short term, multi-gpu is a big no no but if VR catches on, as game engines age out of production, the replacements will be coded to include multiple buffers and anything else that would be needed for SLI/XFire to work with VR.

The information linked was pretty old.

The latest GPU hardware, and future driver and gameworks for VR implementation are specifically designed to alleviate the latency issue with multi-gpu configurations. Supposedly..

We'll see once hardware is in reviewers hands..

This is why I bought it up on a separate thread. I'm really hoping [H] gets one of these things and starts developing a benchmarking standard for VR.

 

[nysmo]

I think the $600 price is hard to swallow because the next Rift doesnt seem to really offer any additional value over the previous versions. There's still gonna be a screendoor effect at that resolution, and the DK1 already had near perfect tracking of movement. It just seems like a minor bump in price for nearly double the cost. The positional tracking seems pretty pointless since you'll be playing seated in a chair most of the time, giving you the option to merely lean forward maybe 12 inches or so to inspect things, a novelty that will surely wear off quick. Being able to stand up and walk around in an empty room you have set up precisely for VR experiences is just unrealistic, and even if you did it the concept itself is still limited to whatever application developers provide for. I mean how many instances are you really going to want to walk around vs be seated in?

Ultimately your time using the Rift will be spent sitting down with a controller in your hand, the exact same thing you have been doing with all previous VR systems. It just doesnt feel like a $600 experience anymore.

 

[sboucher]

https://developer.nvidia.com/virtual-reality-development