Available for pre-order from today for 'serious' VR enthusiasts. Few more bundles available, please search "Oculus Rift Bundle" on Amazon. Published release date is 23rd April 2016.
CamelCamelCamel.
Dual voltage power supply?
All power supplies these days should be dual voltage. You just need your own kettle plug.
The crappier ones have a switch between 115V and 230V. The good ones auto detect.
Am I the only one failing to see the value?
Building it yourself estimates
$300+ for an i5- 6400
$500+ for a gtx970
$80 ~ for the HDD
$100 ~ for windows 10
$140+ for the ram
$300+ for the case, motherboard and psu
$1100~ rift+controller
Actually the alienware box retails for about $1500 here so its on par with the Rift Australian price anyway
seems to be going for around $1700 (with only a 2gb gtx960, can't seem to configure it the same on Dell AU)
Ahh okay might be a slight saving then if you intended to buy a new system + rift. Still, prices might change in a few months when it actually ships. Its also worth noting that Amazon won't charge until it ships so you'll be slugged with the new exchange rate for better or worse.
Let's break it down shall we.
(based on staticice. if unavailable based on RRP / average price found elsewhere)
i5-6400 - $270
? mobo - $150 (Random figure)
GTX 970 - $450
8GB 2133Mhz DDR4 RAM - $60
1TB HDD - $70
Windows 10 $150
802.11AC WLAN $80 (I'll give them benefit of the doubt that it will be a Killer AC wireless card, alienware usually use them)
?PSU + Case - $200 (hoping for some quality PSU and god knows the price "alienware"case)
Total - $1430 for PC only.
Oculus Rift Cost - $1100
Total PC + Rift = $2530
Not too bad I reckon, If you build your own PC and get Rift by yourself it will cost only $100 lesser. Save $100 for a prebuilt machine is ok.
however if you build yourself you get the benefit of ensuring the parts are of a high quality
And troubleshooting if something goes wrong. Trying to find which component is messing up your system isn't fun.
Building yourself is all well and good if all goes well, but it's a pita when something goes wrong. Something to keep in mind.
that's true, if you haven't build a pc before i would think more about it, however if you've built 3-4 and 1 in the last 3-4 years you'll be just fine. Back in the 90's building was difficult, now it's pretty easy.
Building it yourself also guarantees it won't have that disgusting pleb Alienware branding on it.
haha, nor does it come with pre-installed bloatware you need to remove
And troubleshooting if something goes wrong. Trying to find which component is messing up your system isn't fun.
Building yourself is all well and good if all goes well, but it's a pita when something goes wrong. Something to keep in mind.
If something goes wrong with your prebuilt system, are you going to ship the whole case back to Amazon?
If you're computer literate, you can troubleshoot it and find out which component is causing problems, and return just that component. And to a local retailer.
@lostn:
Honestly, it was more of a general comment about people always recommending building yourself rather than buying a prebuilt system. That said, doesn't Amazon cover shipping for DOA type issues? Also, you're not gonna get issues of part compatibility which can be an issue if you build yourself.
Well, yeah, you can troubleshoot, but it's still not always easy to isolate the problem, especially if you don't have spare components to swap around.
Don't get me wrong, I build systems for myself, but I'm also in the process of troubleshooting my Skylake build and it's a pita.
@TheContact: I've never bought a branded PC before. Do they put a sticker on the case that says warranty void if seal is broken? Some retailers do this if they build it for you even if it's not branded. If so, any time you need help with it, you'd have to send back the entire PC. And sending it to the USA and back is going to take some time.
If you get the parts locally (or even buy a branded PC locally) at least you won't have to wait long, and if you have another PC, you can swap parts out to test it, and if some part happens to be faulty, at least you can temporarily use your old part while you wait for RMA and still have a functioning PC.
If you're dealing with Amazon and a branded PC the manufacturer doesn't want you tampering with (I don't know what Alienware are like with that) you better hope nothing goes wrong because.. 3 months later, SSD failure, send the whole thing back, wait a month. Another 4 months later, your RAM is causing BSODs, send the whole thing back again, and go another month without your PC. If you have a third part fail, that's another month you lose your system. That would be 3 months that you weren't able to use your system, meanwhile your warranty doesn't get extended just because you were without your system for 3 months of it.
I would never buy an entire PC from overseas. Just too risky. Unless there is local warranty.
If anything, I would wait till these are available to purchase locally and then compare prices. If it's not too much more, I'd get it locally for peace of mind. But since I'm a PC gamer anyway, I'll eventually get a new rig, and just use that for VR if/when it becomes affordable.
Will they ship to AU?
Yes.
Cool that might avoid the insane $178 postage fees for just the headset if you buy it direct from oculus.
Rift was like $1200+ Aud solo thanks to the postage.
Seems reasonable, though keep in mind there will be import tax / probably high shipping charge. Personally I'm going to wait a couple generations and see how VR is looking then.
shipping and tax is included in the price.
(USD)
$1,599.00 + $297.44 Shipping & Import Fees Deposit to Australia
Sensible to wait. There are a few competing technologies too so I'd expect some to be the losers in the battle (Rift possibly one of them).
my google cardboard is good enough
Don't hate but I think Oculus screwed themselves with making their vr headset too niche in the market place.. I mean you need the very best PC to run it, and the vr itself costs $1200+
Not very consumer friendly imo
I suspect you'll find the Rift will be a bargain compared to the HTC Vive.
No I'm just going straight to the Playstation VR
While the initial cost of entry (the PS4 itself) might be cheaper than the reasonably specced up PC required for PC VR… I think PSVR will also be a fairly premium product, I expect that standalone processor box that the PSVR attaches to is full of all kinds of magical and pricey tech.
Like ozbjunkie implied in his comment below, there'll be a sharp decline in the cost of these in a year or two (economy of scale, recouped R&D costs, etc.), but there's always been a premium to be paid for being an early adopter.
I'm just hoping the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive is eventually available here at retail at a decent price point, would happily have ordered the Rift even at its current price, but the shipping cost makes me sad.
The amount of times I have to correct people….
The PSVR will not be more expensive then the RRP for a PS4, that is fact.
The PSVR standalone box does not assist the PS4 with performance. Its only purpose is to process the images the PS4 creates so it works on the PSVR. There is no magic here it is a very simple device.
Fact? Are you a Sony exec who decides pricing? Otherwise, it's just speculation unless you have an actual source for Sony saying that they are going to retail it for less than the RRP of the PS4s. Also keep in mind even Oculus said one thing about the price of the Rift prior to the actual announcement of the price of the Rift, so hey.. things change. They might be aiming for one thing, but the realities of business may mean things don't go as planned.
The standalone box certainly does help with performance, Sony even described it as a "powerful processing box" at Unite 2015, They'd have to make quite a lot of quality sacrifices to achieve an actual 120hz (with 120fps) at 1920x1080 without the box doing some of the work. Once again, keeping in mind that in modern games on PS4, a lot of optimization is currently in use to just maintain 1080p@60, if you're pushing for 90 or 120fps, the box will be doing some of the co-processing.
Nobody is going to buy the PSVR for $600 if the console is $400.
And you are misunderstanding the box, please do some research.
What you are describing is the PS4 rendering a game at 60fps and the box interpolating the image to create 90fps. This is just one of the few things the box does.
These features the box does are actually very simple tasks for a high end GPU, they separated this from the PS4 GPU because its quite a low end GPU and its already pushed to its limits.
None of this means that the PS4 can do anything but provide a very average VR experience, they still can't get around the fact that in most game engines the CPU can only do 25-30fps for starters and you would have to remove so many visuals to achieve anything close to the FPS they want.
Yes, interpolation is used. It is used to drive the 60fps output of the PS4 to 120fps (http://ps4daily.com/2015/03/ps4-vr-headset-120-fps/). So could be that this mystery box is doing interpolation plus image processing for the PSVR headset. I'd certainly consider that "helping" the PS4. Though I guess the point is that the PS4 itself isn't doing much more processing with the PSVR present.
Have to side with raistlin on the price. Nothing is fact until the press release on the price is out. Wouldn't surprise me if the PSVR costs more than the console. Even if it's only $50 or $100 more. Still a helluva lot cheaper than the Rift.
I will bet you now the PSVR will be 400 or greater on release, personally predicting something in the $500 range.
The point is the box doesn't help the fact that the PS4 can't render anywhere close to what real VR needs. It doesn't help performance of the actual game.
There is no PSVR pricing confirmed so anything could happen obviously so I guess we will see.
What is "real" VR? Seems to me the PSVR will render 1080p VR at 60fps real/120fps interpolated with the added VR box. Though this is a reduced resolution compared to Rift/Vive, I'd call it real enough. Certainly effective enough to have a great VR experience.
Agreed that the PS4 will not be able to cope with detailed scenes like a dedicated PC + high end GPU. Thing is, software for the PSVR has a fixed platform to program to, and that allows optimisations that cannot be done on a PC platform. Means it'll be able to eke out a bit more than you'd expect. Plus, most games don't need highly detailed scenes.
Anyways, time will tell how it goes. By journalist accounts, the PSVR is quite effective. I'm cautiously optimistic about it. Certainly is the far cheaper route to decent VR gaming.
Which VR headsets have you used?
I have used both the newer Oculus Rift and Rift headset as well as the older DK2.
The DK2 and the PSVR have the same resolution and I can tell you from using the DK2 that the resolution is too low for VR to be more then a gimmick.
The PS4 also can only render most games in 25-30fps, this means that to achieve 60fps they will have to cut down a lot of the game visuals or use other engines.
There will be plenty of PS4 exclusive VR games but I would not expect them to be very in depth or interesting since the PS4 just isn't suitable for it, everyone will be developing on PC.
This is also why the PSVR will be cheap, it has DK2 screens in it basically.
I know what you mean but when you buy the affordable option and its mostly a novelty it shortly becomes useless.
@samfisher5986: As opposed to only a few people buying the expensive but good one, and then development ceases because not enough people buy it for it to be a viable install base for developers.. so your expensive peripheral turns into a paperweight.
By the time it drops in price to mass market price, it might be a few years and developers will have dropped it by then.
In all honesty, I can only see either indie games on it, or normal first person games that have been repurposed for VR. I can't imagine much exclusives, and as long as their games are available without VR, there will be a lot less incentive to buy VR.
For a developer to make a game VR exclusive is a big risk. The install base will be tiny at first, and they need a return on investment in the early years which they won't get unless they are of the budget of indie games.
We are already at the point where game developers are putting VR into games and there isn't even a public release yet.
I wouldn't worry about how popular something is yet.
@samfisher5986: Yes, the same thing happened with UMD movies for the PSP, Wii games, PSP, Wii U, Vota, etc. The support was there before it launched and at the beginning. When it bombed, that support dried up.
Them putting VR into games right now means nothing. People made Vita games before it launched too. Where are they now? Sony themself hung the Vita out to dry.
Will they keep making VR games if it doesn't sell is the question.
Err what?
There was no support for UMD at the start, nobody had it and nobody really cared.
Also everyone knows the only reason you buy nintendo products is for the first party games, if they don't appeal to enough people it will die.
@samfisher5986: There were plenty of movies released on UMD. I own quite a number of them myself.
But not after the first year.
Also everyone knows the only reason you buy nintendo products is for the first party games, if they don't appeal to enough people it will die.
That's not true of their handhelds. Wasn't true of the SNES/NES either. The Gamecube got a lot of third party support, at least for the first half of its lifespan.
I think you are mixing two things that do not go together.
They made and released UMD movies to push the market into buying it.
We already have VR Headsets and game developers are making their games VR compatible because thats what people with VR headsets want.
We don't have Sony for example making a bunch of VR only games so people buy VR headsets, its completely the opposite.
Perhaps these Oculus Rift exclusive games will fit in with what you are saying, but who cares about Oculus? Rift is the way to go.
The Gamecube got a lot of third party support but most people purchased the console with first party games in mind.
Not particularly, dont pay any attention to the websites claiming $1500USD for the Vive they're all bullshit. Most experts are predicting around the $700-800USD range, keeping in mind this actually comes with controllers for VR unlike Oculus.
I disagree, but only because i) people are dropping $3k on a 4k TV where there is little content, ii) this is better than having a cheaper and less technologically advanced product which screams "here's VR and it kinda sucks!"
In fact, I do remember these headsets 20 years ago, with horrible 400x400 res, laggy input detection, etc. Sega World circa 1998. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP8wSw4bBuA
After a price drop of 50% in 12-18 months I'll be looking forward to getting one of these myself, so I dont have to sit-up to ozbargain.
The required specs are not Oculus' fault, it's just a fact for immersive VR. There should be plenty of games with cartoony graphics that won't be hard to run
Tbh if they released the DK2 (slightly improved) as the final consumer version for a cheaper price and never even discussed the full insane 2k (or whatever) model it is now they would have had much more success bringing vr into peoples homes. No one would be complaining, they were amazed when it first came out.
They're rushing to get a product out that imo isnt ready for 2016. Bad business and alienating alot of people - if you want VR to suceed you'll want everyone using it
No, if you want VR to succeed you want to release a quality product and control the experience as much as you can… which is what Oculus is doing.
It's not necessarily mass market yet, and there's still a big possibility it never will be, but releasing a half ready product as a consumer version would have lead to a lot of discarded Rifts gathering dust.
Once again, early adopters always pay a premium for whatever new tech gets released, but in time.. if the product is good enough, it'll catch on and become cheaper.
The reason you're wrong is because your whole arguement relies on the idea that oculus would have "released a half ready product" if they didn't release the best of the best.
You're 100% wrong because if the DK2 was released as a consumer version and marketed correctly they could have owned the market and brought VR to every home. It just has to be good enough.. The current oculus is too advance for 2016, only hardcore gamers will buy and It'll die
The DK2 is mostly a novelty, the average person doesn't want to play it for more then 5 minutes.
You can't read text, huge screen door effect etc.
@Truthbe: Everybody has a different idea of what "good enough" means.
Also: regarding "VR to every home", many people don't bother with PCs any more because they have tablets and phones. Fewer still have a PC with strong graphics performance - they have cheap laptops. By being tethered to a PC with relatively high-spec requirements, you are already inserting your product into a niche. There was never any chance for Oculus Rift to be "in every home".
Besides - Oculus' "cheaper" / "good enough" offering is the GearVR.
It's portable, you don't have to be tethered to a PC, it's only AU$150 if you already have the right phone - yes I know they are pricey phones but a lot of people already have them or would consider upgrading. You can far more easily demo the setup to friends / family / coworkers to broaden VR interest into the mainstream.
Alternatively - there are probably more people with PS4s at this point, than with VR-capable PCs. Playstation VR will most likely be "good enough" for most people, and more affordable. Oculus, not being aligned with Sony (or Microsoft/Xbox), have had to take another tack with the Rift and go for high-quality. This is only the first generation - costs will come down as uptake increases.
Note also that they are competing with the Valve/HTC Vive. No matter what the Rift is, it'll be compared to the Vive - and if the experience doesn't compare favourably, the price (to a certain extent) won't matter, because it's mostly enthusiasts that want VR on their gaming PCs in the first place.
Once again, early adopters always pay a premium for whatever new tech gets released, but in time.. if the product is good enough, it'll catch on and become cheaper.
Yeah but when the first gen iPhone was released, the price was no more expensive than it is now. If anything it was cheaper. The price just didn't go down.
I can see them using the iPhone model. Each year a new model comes out slightly improved for the same price as the previous gen, which then gets phased out. In this case, you'd always be paying the same as what the early adopter paid but get an improved unit.
Note also that they are competing with the Valve/HTC Vive. No matter what the Rift is, it'll be compared to the Vive - and if the experience doesn't compare favourably, the price (to a certain extent) won't matter, because it's mostly enthusiasts that want VR on their gaming PCs in the first place.
Vive will be the better product since OR will for now be limited to sitting down experiences with an Xbox controller. That's basically strapping a monitor to your face + head tracking. This isn't real VR. You aren't acting out what your character is doing, so the 'reality' part is removed from VR. I can get these gaming experiences already with any PC or console. I just won't have the head tracking. The gameplay will otherwise be the same, since the controls are the same.
But it all comes down to Vive's price. They've been tight lipped about it, so we can assume it won't be any cheaper than OR, or else they will have pounced on the opportunity to one-up Oculus.
I think if these two headsets can't be priced at an affordable price for critical mass, it probably is ahead of its time and the world isn't ready for it yet.
iPhone and iPad did not have to depend on early adopters to prop it up until it was affordable for the masses. The masses were on board from day 1. The masses were the early adopters, and they didn't pay more than anyone else because that was the price it would always be set to (actually they've gone up since then).
Your comment should not be targeted at Oculus. The Vive will have very similar requirements.
You're right, I used Oculus because the deal is about oculus but my comment goes the same for any hardware heavy VR that costs $1000+
Try before you buy is all I can say, made me sick after 5 mins
I'm assuming you tried the DK1 or DK2, these are known to make people sick.
I've yet to meet someone that has gotten sick from the HTC Vive and haven't heard of it happening on the new oculus.
Yep DK2
How many people do you know who have a Vive, and where did they get it from?
I've been to an event where we all tried the Vive.
I'd love to know how many ozbargainers take up this particular deal
Isn't oculus owned by facebook?
That's a good enough reason to not buy it.
No whatsapp for you then?
Buy the bundle, get it before June/July (the current estimate for Rift delivery if you order the stand alone now), sell the rift for 2k+ on ebay (DK2 first shipment were selling for 1.2k+ (rrp$350+75 delivery) around June 2014. Good luck!
Are we all predicting VR tech to be a success or a failure?
My feeling is success. A lot of people have been waiting a LONG time for the technical capabilities to be there and even if this rally fails, we will see major strides in development.
even if this rally fails, we will see major strides in development
Can't argue with that logic. "Even if it fails, it's a success."
The biggest benefit is that companies are competing to solve problems to give their product the edge in ergonomics, movement, screen quality and refresh rate, hand controls and more. Also, there seems to be an emphasis on getting it right the first time as each company want to carve out their name as the leader from the get-go (think McDonalds and fast food). We will definitely see improvements in later iterations with companies borrowing tech and ideas from others but I really believe we will have solid products from day 0.
My prediction: OR and Vive will fail in the first year, then it will get sold at a loss and become successful.
PS VR will sell okay (better than the other two), but it will sell fewer units than Kinect 1.0 which MS did consider a success. Its legacy will be like that of the Kinect and Wii Sports. Really novel at first, then gets put away and not played again.
Rumor has it Apple, Nintendo, and Google are jumping on the VR train also. You can guess what will happen next… China will make their own VR headsets that rip off other people's but are sold very cheap (and nasty).
If this is the case, everyone is betting big on VR. It's getting too big an investment to fail. It will just be a matter of which VR will sell better? The affordable but inferior ones, or the superior experiences that are too expensive?
People are going to be in a big shock when they realise that this PC will barely play the majority of VR games that will be coming out.
This is more for people that want to play "Oculus" certified games that will have reduced graphics requirements so it plays well on these "Oculus" PC's.
An Nvidia 980 Ti or a Fury X is an absolute minimum for VR but you honestly want to wait for the next round of Nvidia/ATI cards around June if you want to play VR properly.
Thats really down to the quality requirements of the game. I think the Rift needs to render 90fps at the highest quality which is achievable with current tech and I doubt the companies will cater soley for high end cards.
I think the part that is misunderstood is that Oculus are not making any games, they just have exclusive games with these requirements. There are so many games that have planned VR support that have nothing to do with Oculus and have not made special VR games, they are simply making the current games VR ready.
The majority of current generation games will not run at 2160x1200 at 90fps on an Nvidia 970, you would struggle to do that on a 980 Ti.
Its quite easy just look at game benchmarks at 2k resolution, you won't be seeing 90fps on many games at all, even if you reduce the graphics.
Oculus don't want you to know this as this would severely limit the sales for their VR headset, thats why they have these exclusive VR games with low requirements.
What box do you recommend then? I cbf building a PC from scratch these days.
You can put the parts together and ask the shop to build it for you.
At the very least you want a high end Skylake CPU with a Fury X or Nvidia 980 Ti.
GTX 970 minimum, single card only as it doesn't support SLI. and no laptop support (due to Optimus issue) unless you can find a proper desktop GPU on a laptop casing with no Optimus setup.
Recommended Specs:
Video Card NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPU Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
Memory 8GB+ RAM
Video Output Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
USB Ports 3x USB 3.0 ports plus 1x USB 2.0 port
OS Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
Whats the diff vs the DK2 and buying an xbox controller?
DK2 = $300-350 second hand
bigger FOV, higher resolution, higher refresh rate, less distortion, less 'screen door effect', lighter weight, integrated high quality (supposedly) headphones, etc etc
Will be ordering the HTC Vive instead, seems to do everything the Oculus does and then some. Also worked on by Valve and actually comes with controllers at launch.
Will buy if it launches with Half Life 3 and HL3 is exclusive to Vive.
Otherwise, they're going to have to really make it worth my while.
I'd have to set aside a room dedicated to VR with lots of space. If it's connect to my PC it will be in my study, which is only a small room. If I'm moving around in there, I'm going to crash into something and either hurt myself or break some expensive equipment.
HL3 wont launch with vive but I am sure it will be natively supported when it is eventually released. Valve explicitly state they want to combat exclusivity deals and want everyone to have access to games no matter which HMD, something unfortunately oculus don't want to do.
Then I'm not buying it.
It's going to be priced out of my budget and will require a setup I can't provide.
My joke was that the impossible HL3 releasing with it is the only thing that would change my mind.
But I don't expect HL3 to ever be made. Valve is taking it easy with game development, because they're swimming in Steam dough. They don't need to make games ever again if they don't want to.
Before I fork over for any VR, I'd need to test them all first. But no one seems open to letting me try it.
2.7k is a big investment sight unseen. Maybe a demo will win me over. Until I experience one, I'm holding off. This is a huge risk. If it doesn't end up selling well, you won't even have anything to play on it.
I went with the alienware bundle. I still have time to cancel before it ships and my CC charged. Have no idea if I will derive $2800 worth of value from this set up as I have never experienced VR before. But you only live once and I can always sell it and take a bit of a loss should the system disappoint.
Core i5-6400 4C/4T (Even though the description says it includes Hyper-Threading)
8GB DDR4 2133Mhz
Nvidia GTX970
1TB HDD
Xbox One Wireless Controller
802.11AC WLAN
Win10 Home