After months of teasing, the Facebook-owned Oculus has finally put a price on its upcoming VR headset, the Rift.
Australians will pay $US649 ($920) plus shipping for the device, a price which includes a modest amount of "Australia tax" compared to the American price of $US599 ($847).
Open for pre-orders at the Oculus website now, a purchase gets you the Rift headset, the stationary USB sensor that tracks your head, an Xbox One controller for games and a new device called the Oculus Remote, which allows you to easily navigate non-game menus and entertainment while wearing the headset. You also get a copy of Lucky's Tale, a Super Mario style 3D platforming game built for VR.
Oculus initially said the devices would start shipping out on March 28, although Ars Technica is reporting that pre-order customers are now being told to expect their headset in May.
Prospective purchasers should keep in mind that a very powerful PC is required to use the Rift. In a blog post Oculus said the "full Rift experience" requires a PC that features an NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD R9 290 graphics card or better, an Intel i5 4590 or better, at least 8GB of RAM, at least three USB 3.0 ports plus one USB 2.0 or better port, and Windows 7 64-bit or newer.
All this is to say that unless your PC was top-of-the-line less than a year ago it may struggle to cope. Building a new PC to the above specifications would cost in excess of $1000. For those looking to pick something up off the shelf, Oculus says it will be certifying recommended rigs with an "Oculus ready" sticker, and that once the Rift is out customers will be able to buy new PCs that come with a headset included.
The Rift's release precedes that of its competitors, but within months we're likely to see a total of three big name headsets on the market.
The HTC Vive, which was built in conjunction with Valve — the company that runs the ubiquitous PC games platform Steam — is comparable to the Rift in that it requires a powerful PC to operate, but it's more ambitious in that its sensors map the room around you to allow free wandering in a virtual space. It will come with a set of handheld-controllers to map your hands into experiences as well.
The third big player in the space is PlayStation VR. Like the Vive, this headset from Sony has not yet been given a price or a release date, but it is expected "in the first half" of 2016.
The differentiating factor of PlayStation VR is that it plugs into the PlayStation 4 you may already have in your loungeroom (and which in any event is less expensive than a powerful PC), and uses an included processing unit to get the extra juice needed to power VR.
