Oculus Founder Defends $600 Price Tag

[HardOCP News]

According to this AMA with Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus "handled the messaging poorly" when he announced the "ballpark" $350 price range for the Rift earlier this year. I like the comment he made about reselling the included Xbox controller for profit.

My answer was ill-prepared, and mentally, I was contrasting $349 with $1500, not our internal estimate that hovered close to $599 - that is why I said it was in roughly the same ballpark. Later on, I tried to get across that the Rift would cost more than many expected, in the past two weeks particularly. There are a lot of reasons we did not do a better job of prepping people who already have high end GPUs, legal, financial, competitive, and otherwise, but to be perfectly honest, our biggest failing was assuming we had been clear enough about setting expectations. Another problem is that people looked at the much less advanced technology in DK2 for $350 and assumed the consumer Rift would cost a similar amount, an assumption that myself (and Oculus) did not do a good job of fixing. I apologize.

 

[Gweenz]

*shrug* I always assumed it would be around $900. That said, I'm going to wait until the price comes down or the technology matures. I also don't think they will hit their street date, and it will get pushed back to Christmas.

 

[Sonicks]

I don't buy that explanation at all.

Given that they were so hush hush about the price and release date until the DAY OF the pre-orders says a lot about how coordinated their efforts were to keep that information from the public.

A year ago today, if they stated the consumer version was $600 they would have been dead in the water. Instead they kept the real details from the public and kept drumming up the hype/consumer interest in hopes that when it drops, people wouldn't think about spending that much rather than mulling it over for a year.

 

[Gweenz]

I don't buy that explanation at all.

Given that they were so hush hush about the price and release date until the DAY OF the pre-orders says a lot about how coordinated their efforts were to keep that information from the public.

A year ago today, if they stated the consumer version was $600 they would have been dead in the water. Instead they kept the real details from the public and kept drumming up the hype/consumer interest in hopes that when it drops, people wouldn't think about spending that much rather than mulling it over for a year.

That was pretty shitty. It was an obvious move to drive the hype up to the "gotta have it" point, then announce the price.

 

[Sonicks]

That was pretty shitty. It was an obvious move to drive the hype up to the "gotta have it" point, then announce the price.

Yeah, they made damn sure to purposefully set expectations at a certain level so as to keep interest alive during the course of all of their developer conferences and showcases.

 

[d_stilgar]

Sell 360 controller for profit? So his recipe is this,

1) Buy $600 VR HMD.
2) Sell included 360 controller for $610.
3) Profit!

 

[Darunion]

That was pretty shitty. It was an obvious move to drive the hype up to the "gotta have it" point, then announce the price.

Right. I was expecting contract manufacturer prices, components, additional R&D, or poor cost analysis. Really just sounded like marketing responses to a question that should be from operations management.

 

[cortexodus]

That was pretty shitty. It was an obvious move to drive the hype up to the "gotta have it" point, then announce the price.

Shop page loaded, saw the $600 price tag, plus $30 shipping, plus $45.72 in tax, turned to my co-worker and said "ballpark $350, huh?", closed the window.

I guess VR won't be happening for me this year.

 

[Yakk]

Marketing, marketing, marketing... You'd think Oculus would have access to good marketing people being bought by FB and all...

Best comment I've read went something like this :

Oculus should've released a $1,000 Oculus TITAN version with an Elite controller to make the "regular" $600 version with the regular controller look cheap.

 

[sboucher]

Marketing, marketing, marketing... You'd think Oculus would have access to good marketing people being bought by FB and all...

Best comment I've read went something like this :

Oculus should've released a $1,000 Oculus TITAN version with an Elite controller to make the "regular" $600 version with the regular controller look cheap.

Shit, hell of an idea! People would have bought it too.

I was expecting it to be around $500, so the $600 was a bit of a surprise. What really hurt though is the exchange rate. I'll be paying almost a grand for this thing by the time it's in my hands.

 

[Fifth Horseman]

It's not the $600 price tag that scares me personally. I mean, I just dropped almost $800 on a g-sync capable monitor earlier this week. The $350 ballpark figure that was thrown out earlier doesn't phase me either; they're a new company and I'm figuring it was a faux pas on the founder's part saying that. I see it more like owning a high end enthusiast video card. Not everyone's going to get the high end card for various reasons.

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! Yes the Rift does have high refresh rate capable displays in it but is it anywhere near the quality of something that has adaptive sync? I'd want to experience it first hand before dropping the cash on it.

The other reason is that I just dropped almost $800 on a new monitor...

 

[Seventyfive]

I bought one. I think it sucks for people who were misled by the various comments about how cheap it might be but at the end of the day, if someone is worried about the difference between $350 and $600, they probably shouldn't be buying this thing in the first place. To properly run it you'd need a 980 or realistically a 980Ti, that alone is $600-650. If you can't afford the $350 price difference, you're not the target audience.

People might think I'm an asshole for saying this but at the end of the day, bleeding edge shit always costs a lot of money. I want a self driving car, am I crying about how Tesla screwed me? How they hate poor people? How life isn't fair and I'm entitled to a self driving car? No. I'm just going to wait until either I make enough to afford one or until the technology trickles down to an affordable level.

TLDR: They overpromised and underdelivered but the real problem is America is too full of entitled cry baby millennials.

 

[USMCGrunt]

It's not the $600 price tag that scares me personally. I mean, I just dropped almost $800 on a g-sync capable monitor earlier this week. The $350 ballpark figure that was thrown out earlier doesn't phase me either; they're a new company and I'm figuring it was a faux pas on the founder's part saying that. I see it more like owning a high end enthusiast video card. Not everyone's going to get the high end card for various reasons.

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! Yes the Rift does have high refresh rate capable displays in it but is it anywhere near the quality of something that has adaptive sync? I'd want to experience it first hand before dropping the cash on it.

The other reason is that I just dropped almost $800 on a new monitor...

Screen tearing and ghosting in VR is a very very terrible thing, as such, the Rift uses Low Persistence to eliminate them. If the desire for Adaptive Sync technologies was the only thing stopping you, it shouldn't. I have a DK2 and never experienced either one.

 

[USMCGrunt]

TLDR: They overpromised and underdelivered but the real problem is America is too full of entitled cry baby millennials.

No, the real problem is they overpromised and underdelivered. It doesn't matter what generation the consumer belongs to, there's going to be backlash when you set improper expectations.

 

[Seventyfive]

No, the real problem is they overpromised and underdelivered. It doesn't matter what generation the consumer belongs to, there's going to be backlash when you set improper expectations.

People can either place blame internally or externally. For example, Tesla keeps saying they are coming out with a Model 3 that will be $35,000. If they release it and it's $50,000 am I going to go nuts and have a temper tantrum? No. At the end of the day it's my fault I can't afford a $50,000 car, not Tesla's fault for selling it for $50,000.

People perceive that their messaging is the problem but in reality, their messaging is irrelevant. The only thing truly relevant is the final price and its affordability. The final price is determined by the seller and the affordability is determined by the buyer. No matter what their messaging was, high or low, good or bad, the only thing that will put the car into someone's garage is the price/affordability equation.

 

[Seventyfive]

Per my post above, this is relevant and free:

http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Marcus-Aurelius-ebook/dp/B0082XJGRK

 

[Sonicks]

I bought one. I think it sucks for people who were misled by the various comments about how cheap it might be but at the end of the day, if someone is worried about the difference between $350 and $600, they probably shouldn't be buying this thing in the first place. To properly run it you'd need a 980 or realistically a 980Ti, that alone is $600-650. If you can't afford the $350 price difference, you're not the target audience.

People might think I'm an asshole for saying this but at the end of the day, bleeding edge shit always costs a lot of money. I want a self driving car, am I crying about how Tesla screwed me? How they hate poor people? How life isn't fair and I'm entitled to a self driving car? No. I'm just going to wait until either I make enough to afford one or until the technology trickles down to an affordable level.

TLDR: They overpromised and underdelivered but the real problem is America is too full of entitled cry baby millennials.

How are you even trying to use the overpriced Rift to tear into millennials?

The difference between 350 and 600 is quite a large when you consider what actual use case of the device is: a VR experience with (so far) a very tiny number of applications. It's hard to justify that kind of cost considering its use, bleeding edge or not.

From what I gather, the DK2 would have been a perfect entry level consumer device so they really should have introduced two models instead of the one highly priced 'no-compromise' version.

 

[sboucher]

No, the real problem is they overpromised and underdelivered. It doesn't matter what generation the consumer belongs to, there's going to be backlash when you set improper expectations.

Actually you guys have that completely backwards. They under promised, and over delivered on the actual product.

They under promised by stating a lower quality product would be supplied at a lower target price ($350ish). That product was initially planned to be a slightly upgraded version of the DK2..

They over delivered by deciding they were not happy with the quality of that product, and decided to make a substantially better product that will have a longer life cycle. Obviously that costed a lot more money.

They made a wise decision. No-one is going to be talking about the price of the product in a few years when it comes down. If they came out with the shitty version, everyone would be talking about how crappy it was for years to come..

 

[sboucher]

From what I gather, the DK2 would have been a perfect entry level consumer device so they really should have introduced two models instead of the one highly priced 'no-compromise' version.

I cannot express just how completely WRONG you are about this. I owned a DK2, it was so far off from a consumer product. The screen door effect was very bad, the optics were not up to par, the latency wasn't great, and head tracking not smooth enough at 60Hz.

If Oculus released a half ass product, that would have killed VR before it even started.

 

[Ur_Mom]

They under promised by stating a lower quality product would be supplied at a lower target price ($350ish). That product was initially planned to be a slightly upgraded version of the DK2..

They over delivered by deciding they were not happy with the quality of that product, and decided to make a substantially better product that will have a longer life cycle. Obviously that costed a lot more money.

This is what I'm seeing. It's more than what we expected. The price is a bit higher than expected, but when the quality was lower, $350 made sense. If you want a $350 VR set, I'm sure there will be something available. It won't be this one, and it won't be as good as this one.

You get what you pay for. I'm still waiting. At least until I see some good software and can get the hardware to run it (which I'll be upgrading to just for the VR).

 

[Deleted member 93354]

I bought one. I think it sucks for people who were misled by the various comments about how cheap it might be but at the end of the day, if someone is worried about the difference between $350 and $600, they probably shouldn't be buying this thing in the first place. To properly run it you'd need a 980 or realistically a 980Ti, that alone is $600-650. If you can't afford the $350 price difference, you're not the target audience.

People might think I'm an asshole for saying this but at the end of the day, bleeding edge shit always costs a lot of money. I want a self driving car, am I crying about how Tesla screwed me? How they hate poor people? How life isn't fair and I'm entitled to a self driving car? No. I'm just going to wait until either I make enough to afford one or until the technology trickles down to an affordable level.

TLDR: They overpromised and underdelivered but the real problem is America is too full of entitled cry baby millennials.

I'm not crying. I just can't justify it for what they are offering....yet.

Like I can't justify getting an XBone or PS4

 

[Sonicks]

I cannot express just how completely WRONG you are about this. I owned a DK2, it was so far off from a consumer product. The screen door effect was very bad, the optics were not up to par, the latency wasn't great, and head tracking not smooth enough at 60Hz.

If Oculus released a half ass product, that would have killed VR before it even started.

That was an assumption on my part. Having experienced Google Cardboard and being blown away by it, I figured the DK2 would be a huge leap forward as an entry level 'true' VR experience.

 

[Seventyfive]

How are you even trying to use the overpriced Rift to tear into millennials?

If some of the people having childlike cry baby temper tantrums are in their 30's or 40s' we have much bigger problems than the oculus rift pricing.

The difference between 350 and 600 is quite a large when you consider what actual use case of the device is: a VR experience with (so far) a very tiny number of applications. It's hard to justify that kind of cost considering its use, bleeding edge or not.

http://www.theriftarcade.com/oculus-rift-dk2-supported-games/

From what I gather, the DK2 would have been a perfect entry level consumer device so they really should have introduced two models instead of the one highly priced 'no-compromise' version.

In the AMA Luckey explained that there are other people coming in at the lower price points (gear vr) so they felt like the OR should be used as a benchmark to show what VR should be rather than as an entry level device.

 

[Seventyfive]

I'm not crying. I just can't justify it for what they are offering....yet.

Like I can't justify getting an XBone or PS4

I apologize to anyone for implying that EVERYONE is a cry baby if they cannot afford one. This was definitely not my intention and again I do sincerely apologize.

I was more referring to the Reddit bitch fest that is going on.

 

[sboucher]

That was an assumption on my part. Having experienced Google Cardboard and being blown away by it, I figured the DK2 would be a huge leap forward as an entry level 'true' VR experience.

Shit man, if you were blown away by Google cardboard. Oculus consumer VR is going to make you jizz in your pants.

 

[Kardonxt]

They should have come out a long time ago and said that they decided the dk2 based product wasn't up to par and they would be making a higher quality product at a higher price.

Saying the product will be around $350 and never updating that figure is not a misunderstanding, It's you lying.

 

[OldBuzzard]

At $350.00-450.00 I would have considered it.

At $600.00? Not now not no how.

Besides, I'm so danged old that I might not be around by the tine there are decent applications for it

 

[sboucher]

People that aren't hardcore gamers willing to spend this kind of money should really be looking at the Samsung Gear VR.

The Gear VR adapter is only a $100 add on. You do need a Samsung flagship phone (S6, Note 5), but those can be obtained cheaper through subsidized pricing on contract.

Actually the Gear VR is making me seriously consider a Samsung phone as my next device.

 

[Kardonxt]

I should add that I planned on buying one, saw the price, laughed, showed my co-workers, we all laughed together, then went about my day.

There does seem to be an awful lot of entitled whining about it from people who can't afford it. Honestly I think they did us a favor. With how fast the display tech is moving there is sure to be a model next year with better specs at a lower price.

 

[tetris42]

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! Yes the Rift does have high refresh rate capable displays in it but is it anywhere near the quality of something that has adaptive sync? I'd want to experience it first hand before dropping the cash on it.

Adaptive sync doesn't matter as long as you have vsync and keep it above the target framerate.

Besides, what you want is basically impossible at this point in time. AMD only supports Freesync, Nvidia only supports Gsync. They would have to engineer it to support both those for multiple card compatibility and Gsync alone would probably add at least $200 to the price. I've been wanting Gsync forever, but I just can't justify it, because it's so much more. It's been 2 years since it was announced, and you still can't get ANY Gsync IPS monitor for less than $800.

They made a wise decision. No-one is going to be talking about the price of the product in a few years when it comes down. If they came out with the shitty version, everyone would be talking about how crappy it was for years to come..

Completely true. People would have complained about either the price or quality, no matter what. In time, people will forget the launch price.

If some of the people having childlike cry baby temper tantrums are in their 30's or 40s' we have much bigger problems than the oculus rift pricing.

We have problems.

 

[sboucher]

They should have come out a long time ago and said that they decided the dk2 based product wasn't up to par and they would be making a higher quality product at a higher price.

Saying the product will be around $350 and never updating that figure is not a misunderstanding, It's you lying.

This I will agree with. Lucky admitted it himself. They did say that they added a lot more tech to it back in September, but gave no idea just how much more it was going to cost.

Speculation on the net just before launch was around $500 US though.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

This is what I'm seeing. It's more than what we expected. The price is a bit higher than expected, but when the quality was lower, $350 made sense. If you want a $350 VR set, I'm sure there will be something available. It won't be this one, and it won't be as good as this one.

You get what you pay for. I'm still waiting. At least until I see some good software and can get the hardware to run it (which I'll be upgrading to just for the VR).

Yeah, if anything it kind of makes me want it more than I did. Not because it costs more, but because it has better technology, and as a byproduct, that costs more. The price is a little high, but probably not overpriced based on what they spend per unit, the amount of people they're expecting to actually buy one, etc. Also, there is no properly competing product complete ready to go yet. I'd guess many of the other products will be a bit less, but they could easily be more than anyone initially thought they would be. (who knows...)

If I'm going to jump on something like this, I'll pay the extra to know that I'm going to appreciate the hardware. (assuming it's as good as they're trying to suggest)

 

[SpeedAddiction]

When expectations are suddenly confronted with reality I can understand how some can suddenly be let down. Although, every company, at one time or another, has over promised and under delivered according to someones expectations.


I'm not buying one initially but I see no problem with their jump in pricing. Now if I bought one and a few months later they implemented a monthly subscription fee, then I would be upset.

 

[Sonicks]

http://www.theriftarcade.com/oculus-rift-dk2-supported-games/

That list you provided shows 155 applications that mostly look like limited technical demonstrations rather than full blown games. Much like the roller coaster, swing, shooter, and video apps I downloaded on my phone for Google Cardboard. I can't justify paying 600 to try out those types of apps/games despite the likely huge improvement in quality.

In the AMA Luckey explained that there are other people coming in at the lower price points (gear vr) so they felt like the OR should be used as a benchmark to show what VR should be rather than as an entry level device.

I understand this part completely. They are in the business of delivering the true no compromise VR experience but that still doesn't change the fact that most people won't pay that price.

Instead of bringing VR to the mainstream with the Rift, they succeeded in creating the market that they are now seemingly pushing themselves out of with this expensive niche device (in an already niche market).

They are more likely to succeed with the Samsung Gear than the Rift at this point.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

I don't think they OVER or UNDER promised. I think they just didn't make people aware of the real situation properly. They were promising one thing for one price, while releasing something else for another price. The whole situation is different, not lopsided. It scaled up. (in price and hardware)

 

[infin@]

$599USD + shipping and taxes...yikes.

Being in Canada with our exchange rate currently in the low 70s that would push this purchase to over $900 CDN. I wish I could justify spending 2 days wages to the wife but I have a feeling I will be waiting a while (sigh).

 

[sboucher]

That list you provided shows 155 applications that mostly look like limited technical demonstrations rather than full blown games. Much like the roller coaster, swing, shooter, and video apps I downloaded on my phone for Google Cardboard. I can't justify paying 600 to try out those types of apps/games despite the likely huge improvement in quality.

You are correct, the link he sent you is software for the DK2.

A full list of AAA titles for the rift has not been announced yet.

 

[Meeho]

I don't buy that explanation at all.

Given that they were so hush hush about the price and release date until the DAY OF the pre-orders says a lot about how coordinated their efforts were to keep that information from the public.

A year ago today, if they stated the consumer version was $600 they would have been dead in the water. Instead they kept the real details from the public and kept drumming up the hype/consumer interest in hopes that when it drops, people wouldn't think about spending that much rather than mulling it over for a year.

Not really surprising from a company that owes its existence to crowdfunding but sold out to Facebook while backers got shafted.

 

[USMCGrunt]

Actually you guys have that completely backwards. They under promised, and over delivered on the actual product.

They under promised by stating a lower quality product would be supplied at a lower target price ($350ish). That product was initially planned to be a slightly upgraded version of the DK2..

They over delivered by deciding they were not happy with the quality of that product, and decided to make a substantially better product that will have a longer life cycle. Obviously that costed a lot more money.

They made a wise decision. No-one is going to be talking about the price of the product in a few years when it comes down. If they came out with the shitty version, everyone would be talking about how crappy it was for years to come..

Whatever angle you want to look at it, they failed at communicating their message properly. You don't advertise your building a Ford Model T and then release a Bugatti Veyron, which is basically what they did. The original and long time message was a good VR experience for the masses (Model T) and over the last 2 weeks, they hinted at high quality/higher price and then in the last 24 hours, responding to the price backlash explained that they wanted to bring the best experience with quality parts/materials (Veyron).

 

[sboucher]

$599USD + shipping and taxes...yikes.

Being in Canada with our exchange rate currently in the low 70s that would push this purchase to over $900 CDN. I wish I could justify spending 2 days wages to the wife but I have a feeling I will be waiting a while (sigh).

Yep $914 was my total cart amount. Will probably be more after brokerage and taxes at the border.

Figured it will be worth a few days in the dog house