The Oculus Rift and controllers dropped from $800 to $600

Oculus is drastically reducing the price of its Rift virtual reality headset and Touch controllers to a combined cost of $600 -- $500 for the headset and $100 for the controllers -- the company announced today.

The Rift was first released a year ago this month, and the Touch controllers came out in December, for a combined cost of $800. It's a pretty steep price to pay to experience VR considering it requires a high-end (read: expensive) PC to run games and programs effectively. The 25 percent cut in costs makes the system a bit more appealing to people interested in VR but deterred by the high price of entry.

In an interview with Polygon, Oculus VP of content Jason Rubin said high costs are a barrier for VR reaching the masses.

"We’ve given hundreds of thousands of demos, and at the end of every demo we give out a survey," he told Polygon. "All the surveys say, 'This is awesome. I want to buy VR.' The vast majority of people are blown away; those that don’t buy, the number one reason they don’t buy is price."

The new price is "sustainable" for Oculus, Rubin told Polygon.

Dropping the price by $200 could certainly help with system sales, but $600 is still much more expensive than any other modern gaming console. The Nintendo Switch, coming out on Friday, is $300 and comes with a controller, and you don't need a $700 or more PC to play it.

To further entice people into purchasing an Oculus Rift, the game Robo Recall was just released for free exclusively on the system, which joins the list of over 350 games available for the Rift.