Perhaps an effort to stimulate demand, or maybe a new Rift is round the corner. Either way, the buy-in price for premium VR is now lower than ever.
Perhaps an effort to stimulate demand, or maybe a new Rift is round the corner. Either way, the buy-in price for premium VR is now lower than ever.
Oculus, purveyors of all things Virtual Reality, have this week thrown the gauntlet down to their primary rivals in the PC premium VR space with the Summer of Rift promotion. Their Rift & Touch Bundle is now down to £399 in the UK and $399 in the US, a reduction of £200 from the most common earlier street price for the bundle. Retailers such as SCAN and Oculus themselves advertise this offer as a limited time, limited quantity promotion, so if VR has been on your radar you may want to keep a close eye on stock levels.
To put this price cut into wider context, that’s over £350 cheaper than the HTC Vive’s current MSRP of £759. Despite the Vive’s greater presence in the PC VR market, the Rift now has to be a pretty compelling option.
The Rift+Touch bundle includes:
– Headset
– Touch controllers
– Two sensors
– Remote
– Xbox One wireless controller
– Connector for guitar controllers compatible with Rock Band VR
– Touch controllers
– Two sensors
– Remote
– Xbox One wireless controller
– Connector for guitar controllers compatible with Rock Band VR
The typical recommended system spec for Rift VR is as follows:
Graphics card:- NVIDIA GTX 1060/AMD Radeon RX 480 or greater
Alternative graphics card:- NVIDIA GTX 970/AMD Radeon R9 290 or greater
CPU:- Intel i5-4590/AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or greater
Memory:- 8 GB+ RAM
Video Output:- Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
USB ports:- 3 x USB 3.0 ports plus 1 x USB 2.0 port
OS:- Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
Alternative graphics card:- NVIDIA GTX 970/AMD Radeon R9 290 or greater
CPU:- Intel i5-4590/AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or greater
Memory:- 8 GB+ RAM
Video Output:- Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
USB ports:- 3 x USB 3.0 ports plus 1 x USB 2.0 port
OS:- Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
It’s not clear whether the move is driven by a desire to increase competitiveness, stimulate demand, or some other motive. While it dominated the headlines during their launch in the first half of 2016, PC VR has largely been eclipsed by the popularity of Sony’s platform-specific Playstation solution. It also goes without saying that updates to the first generation retail HMDs are in the pipeline, but no hint of an ETA has yet been given.
