Oculus Rift

[Bullett]

I love my DK2, use it almost exclusively for iracing.

£200 is a good price but I'd be wary. It can be a massive pain in the arse to get working on some/most games, there is little support except users supporting users. You often need to fiddle with 3rd party apps and config and whilst the game itself often works well few menus are in VR. PCars, AC are examples of bad implementations.

My other concern would be continuing support from developers of the DK2, I could be scaremongering here but I wouldn't support a developer version long term after a consumer version is available.

I run it on an i5, 8gb ram and AMD7970. iracing works great, PCars is a laggy mess even with minimal eye candy.

[Chuck328]

snuffy said:

500 sheets and my CPU (okay, it is quite old now I'll admit) and my GPU (which cost me £250 only 18 months ago) are not up to the job it seems:



And I was all ready to order one, but I'm not spending £500 plus what will be, in effect, a new PC (since I'll need a new MB as well for the CPU).

I can't see these selling well.

Same boat as you, bit disappointed. £500 is already a lot, add on a decent new CPU/GPU/Mobo and it's over a grand... Am oot (for now).

[Bullett]

snuffy said:

And I was all ready to order one, but I'm not spending £500 plus what will be, in effect, a new PC (since I'll need a new MB as well for the CPU).

Just ran that as well and need both a CPU and GPU which is effectively a new PC. Whilst mine is not cutting edge it runs everything I throw at it at high or better.

snuffy said:

I can't see these selling well.

Well, delivery is now May according to the website so the fanboys got in early. It will be interesting to see how demand drops off.
Right now, with these requirements and pricing this is an extreme niche. There is no way the general public will buy into this at a base price of more than a current gen console without the PC to run it.

[snuffy]

Bullett said:

Well, delivery is now May according to the website so the fanboys got in early. It will be interesting to see how demand drops off.
Right now, with these requirements and pricing this is an extreme niche. There is no way the general public will buy into this at a base price of more than a current gen console without the PC to run it.

Or it could be that people are getting their orders in early and hoping to flog them on for a profit. As I recall, people where doing that when the PS3 launched and a lot of people that did that got their fingers burnt.

[Guvernator]

Just bought a new gaming rig with a 980ti GPU so my PC could in theory run this but I'm still not getting one, £500 is just too much but pre-orders sold out in 14 minutes so someone's buying them.

A colleague at work was trying to order one but couldn't get on the website as it was busy so it's probably all the US guys buying them up. Wonder how many they actually had available for pre-order as that will be the true indication of uptake. If they only had a few thousand units ready, I can quite easily see those going so quickly.

[paolow]

With apparently credible competition waiting in the wings I wonder at the pricing.....

http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/5/10714522/htc-valv...

[snuffy]

From the BBC's story just now : The study, backed by graphics chip-maker Nvidia, suggested only 1% of PCs worldwide had the CPU horsepower to give people a smooth VR experience.

If that's correct they are already selling into a very small market.

[mikef]

Well my PC is "ready for Oculus Rift"

The order page is saying May

Does anyone know which state they are legally based in. I recall that some states (NY for example) allow payment to be taken immediately, not when ready to ship...

[craste]

I'm waiting for the Sony VR.

Plug it in and every game will be smooth as butter with it, I'd imagine.

If it comes in at around £250 to £350 the Sony VR will clean up I think!

[born2bslow]

I'm gutted, I held off getting a DK2 knowing the consumer version was coming. The price is more than I'm willing to pay. I'll give it 12 months and see how the prices go, looks like 3 cheap monitors for now.

I've been watching Dk2 on eBay, you can get lucky at £250 with the majority going for £300-£350

Sad that my 4gb gtx770 is below recommended specs

[jammy_basturd]

snuffy said:

From the BBC's story just now : The study, backed by graphics chip-maker Nvidia, suggested only 1% of PCs worldwide had the CPU horsepower to give people a smooth VR experience.

If that's correct they are already selling into a very small market.

I think all these VR headsets are going to be about the same price, for exactly this ^^^ reason. If they sold them at a price that would make them viable for the masses, the masses would try to use the headsets on outdated PCs, the experience would be sub-par and the reputation would be awful.

Instead they're aiming at hardcore gamers, the type that spend plenty of money on their rigs to ensure they are using the latest and greatest stuff available. These people will get the best experience for VR headsets, will give VR a better reputation and provide the manufacturers with more profits.

[MattyB_]

craste said:

I'm waiting for the Sony VR.

Plug it in and every game will be smooth as butter with it, I'd imagine.

If it comes in at around £250 to £350 the Sony VR will clean up I think!

But how many console owners are willing to spend that much?

And lets not forget, VR takes a huge amount of horsepower to get a good experience - there is a reason you need a graphics card that costs more than a PS4 alone to power it. You don't want to even blip in the slightest below 60fps, ideally 90fps as Oculus and Vive are doing.

What kind of detail are you going to get off a PS4 to get 60-90fps? Not to mention the fact you realistically need greater than 1080P to get reasonable image quality on the eye. That, and if they're churning it out for £250, I just can't see it offering anywhere near the same experience.

Maybe Sony have something magic up their sleeves, I know the demo units have been impressive, but I'll be very, very interested to see how their consumer units tally up.

[MattyB_]

I sold my DK2 in preperation to order a Vive/OR - but at this price, I'll definately be waiting to see what happens.

The Reddit Occulus section is ablaze with nerd-rage over the price. Palmer Lucky often posts there, so I'll be interested in seeing what he replies with in reply to the backlash.

[Bullett]

craste said:

I'm waiting for the Sony VR.

Plug it in and every game will be smooth as butter with it, I'd imagine.

If it comes in at around £250 to £350 the Sony VR will clean up I think!

Nope, I think it will be a niche like OR and Vive.
£250-£350 is still as pricey as the console it runs on and even though the experience will likely be good it's going to be 1080 at best which will look rough to most consumers.

[JustinF]

Waiting for the steam version here, much as I enjoyed my DK2 it's still a product of a little fish in a very big pond, Valve on the other hand have more experience, resources and influence, the later may well be key in getting others to code with the device in mind.

[EricE]

My theory regarding the price is that they knew they'd have limited production capacity, so they increased the price to avoid a scenario where the device gets backordered for months and resold on ebay with 100-200% markup.

MattyB_ said:

The Reddit Occulus section is ablaze with nerd-rage over the price. Palmer Lucky often posts there, so I'll be interested in seeing what he replies with in reply to the backlash.

Better yet, he has a "ask me anything" scheduled for later today.

[red_slr]

Been trying to pre order for last hour... just keeps crashing at payment step.
BS. <slow hand clap>

[born2bslow]

The pricing is probably to recover some of the development costs by taking advantage of the early adopters eagerness. Fairly common practice.

[red_slr]

Anyone actually managed to get their order accepted?

[JustinF]

not sure why anyone would bother rushing, it's like a console release but with way less market saturation. You pay a premium to be first in and have very few software choices, all of which are sub par to the next wave.