You can be sure of one thing in tech: Sticker shock quickly gets people up in arms.
When the pre-orders for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset went live Wednesday morning, it was the first time the company finally revealed the headset's $600 price tag. And lots of people were agog at the cost of virtual reality.
glad to see the Oculus Rift will be so expensive only the five richest kings of Europe can afford one— gabentrückung (@shoryucannon) January 6, 2016
Let's be real for a second people, we all knew Oculus Rift would not be expensive when it launched... BUT $599.99?!— BobbyWasabi (@bobbywasabi199) January 6, 2016
so i was gonna preorder an oculus rift today but fuck that it's so fucking expensive— egg bf (@knxggles) January 6, 2016
I was so ready to order an @oculus_rift - until it was twice the price of a PS4 and still required an expensive PC to run. VR dream crushed.— Craig Corlis (@CraigCorlis) January 6, 2016
The Oculus Rift's final price was announced, and WOW is it way too expensive. It's about twice what I would actually pay for it.— Star Ocean: 2nd Tori (@ametur_poet) January 6, 2016
Some were sure this meant doom for the virtual reality headset.
Oculus Rift is now more dead than it already was. Eye-wateringly expensive.— Ben Griffin (@LicensetoQuill) January 6, 2016
Others wondered if means Sony's PlayStation VR, which has no price yet but will run on the PlayStation 4 (which is cheaper than buying a high-end PC), could win the day.
The ideal (realistic) price for PSVR for me is £350 ($399). That price for Rift will certainly push people more towards PSVR if it's cheaper— Charlie (@PikaPocket) January 6, 2016
But, as some pointed out, we don't flinch at other, equally expensive tech. (Though it may be subsidized.)
@jebusf ? more expensive than a rift pic.twitter.com/7BHReWNves— Alex Donaldson (@APZonerunner) January 6, 2016
Boy, it’s a shame HDTVs never took off at $2,000. It would look so much better than the 480p sets we’re stuck with.— Michael Futter (@Futterish) January 6, 2016
Some have every right to complain about the price -- specifically, Europeans. In the UK, the Rift is going for £499 (roughly $729), and €699 (about $752) across Europe.
699 euro for an Oculus Rift. Too expensive for consumer. Gonna wait and see what Sony does.— Minze Tijtsma (@tijtsma) January 6, 2016
It's also worth noting that you'll need a high-end Windows PC, with components that could cost around $900-$1,100 to assemble yourself. That's a tough pill to swallow. But if you're already someone who plays graphically intense PC games, you also probably already have something that can run the Oculus Rift, or won't cost as much to upgrade. (Oculus VR's top brass have said many times that initially, PC gamers will probably be their main audience.)
Like any new technology, it won't always be this expensive. But Oculus has set a line in the sand proving that high-end virtual reality experiences won't come cheap.