Oculus Rift

It's the first time ever I'm waiting, I literally always get all the new tech when it comes out but this time I'm waiting. I had a DK2 and it was amazing it really was but I think I'm going to wait for reviews and what not. Room scale is of no interest to me though at the moment as I don't have room for it sadly.
 
This is a gen1 product, the very first of it's kind. Of course it's not going to be perfect.

It will still lag, you'll still see pixels, anyone thinking otherwise has no idea where we are technology wise.
 
Zeeflyboy said:
What a ridiculous comment...

First of all you wouldn't expect to see $600 of actual hardware in there, since the rift itself would probably be around $530-$550 once you subtract the Xbox controller and wireless dongle.
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I've linked to this before but it's highly unlikely that the controller and dongle are costing Oculus much to bundle with the Rift. Palmer Luckey confirmed that in a quote "To be perfectly clear, we don’t make money on the Rift. The Xbox controller costs us almost nothing to bundle, and people can easily resell it for profit. A lot of people wish we would sell a bundle without “useless extras” like high-end audio, a carrying case, the bundled games, etc, but those just don’t significantly impact the cost.” Source: https://www.inverse.com/article/9973-oculus-founder-palmer-luckey-we-don-t-make-money-on-the-599-rift

Oculus have probably only paid a few dollars to add each accessory and therefore probably wouldn't reduce the end price by much, if at all.
 
Zeeflyboy said:
What a ridiculous comment...

First of all you wouldn't expect to see $600 of actual hardware in there, since the rift itself would probably be around $530-$550 once you subtract the Xbox controller and wireless dongle.

Then you have many custom components with associated tooling costs, development costs and the oculus home software development costs. Bespoke headphones with an inbuilt DAC add to the cost too. Also a tracking camera which isn't shown in the video. At some point you actually have to pay the people that are actually doing all the work to manufacture and distribute it too. Customer service staff don't tend to work for free either in my experience.

They have said repeatedly that they aren't really making any money on rift hardware itself, and I see nothing that suggests otherwise to be honest. Even if they were somehow, god forbid someone try and sell something they've spent years developing for a profit!

Shame to see from certain posts on here and elsewhere that fanboyism seems to be fully in force with these VR headsets... I had hoped that was really more a console based phenomenon. VR is such a nascent industry that the more competition and the more players we have the better for everyone, especially consumers.
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you dont have to be angry, thats my opinion i am entitled to as you are to yours, and dont throw away fanboism, thats a sign of argument bankruptcy.
anyhow, i still dont see the cost of a "subsidized product" as they said, unless they order parts in the dozens, add R&D cost to recover in short term instead of long term, like 100k units instead of couple millions, dont forget that oculus was kickstarted, then sold a lot of dev kits, before it got 2b million injection.
to me i see the total cost not being more than 200$, if they are mass produced, and other costs are spread on the long term, so if subsidized as they claim, we should be really far from 600$ retail price, and more about 250-350$, beside, next year you might see a lot more headset, probably with better components selling for under 300$ mark, the only remaining thing would be the platform & apps and how would they work on random headsets.
i am all for VR tech, i am happy for oculus to have made it a reality and i hope they profit a lot from it, still doesnt make me blind to the fact that they screwed the launch and the rythm at which VR should reach mainstream( and valve also...before you say i am a fanboy again ), and the argument palmer said about mainstream perf not ready for VR is BS ( the reason according to him to have given up on cheaper headset).
because if VR came out 10 years ago, should we have waited for 390/970 gpu to get out ? no, games scale according to perf not the other way
btw, i really didnt expect Vive to be 800$, i was gonna pre-order one and was waiting for 400-500$ price range, before they smack me on the head with 800$, so yea maybe next year.
 
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I think it's probably the same as current consoles and therefore they are making a profit on each unit sold. Lets put it this way, I don't personally believe they are losing money on each unit. They will also be looking to drive purchases through their Rift storefront as this is lucrative revenue too.
 
AlamoX said:
you dont have to be angry, thats my opinion i am entitled to as you are to yours, and dont throw away fanboism, thats a sign of argument bankruptcy.
anyhow, i still dont see the cost of a "subsidized product" as they said, unless they order parts in the dozens, add R&D cost to recover in short term instead of long term, like 100k units instead of couple millions, dont forget that oculus was kickstarted, then sold a lot of dev kits, before it got 2b million injection.
to me i see the total cost not being more than 200$, if they are mass produced, and other costs are spread on the long term, so if subsidized as they claim, we should be really far from 600$ retail price, and more about 250-350$, beside, next year you might see a lot more headset, probably with better components selling for under 300$ mark, the only remaining thing would be the platform & apps and how would they work on random headsets.
i am all for VR tech, i am happy for oculus to have made it a reality and i hope they profit a lot from it, still doesnt make me blind to the fact that they screwed the launch and the rythm at which VR should reach mainstream( and valve also...before you say i am a fanboy again ), and the argument palmer said about mainstream perf not ready for VR is BS ( the reason according to him to have given up on cheaper headset).
because if VR came out 10 years ago, should we have waited for 390/970 gpu to get out ? no, games scale according to perf not the other way
btw, i really didnt expect Vive to be 800$, i was gonna pre-order one and was waiting for 400-500$ price range, before they smack me on the head with 800$, so yea maybe next year.
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Then you were a bit off target with your expectations. Optics / screen technology is hugely expensive, why do you think iPhones and the latest Samsung devices cost so much? Generally speaking, the Vive is actually cheaper than what people thought it was going to cost. There's no way the cost-price of the headsets is $200 / £150...
 
Also, not sure if this is news or not, but I took it from the oculus forums pre order thread.

Screenshot_2016_03_31_15_32_31.png
 
ci_newman said:
Then you were a bit off target with your expectations. Optics / screen technology is hugely expensive, why do you think iPhones and the latest Samsung devices cost so much? Generally speaking, the Vive is actually cheaper than what people thought it was going to cost. There's no way the cost-price of the headsets is $200 / £150...
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I don't dissagree but in pure component costs the latest Apple phone (6S Plus) is estimated to be around a third of it's price to consumer: http://press.ihs.com/press-release/technology/upgraded-components-iphone-6s-plus-costs-apple-extra-16-device. Apple and Samsung are making huge margins on their high end handsets and is not why the handsets are priced so high.

However this is a far smaller operation, dealing with newer technology and selling in far, far less volumes (on the PC headsets) so for Oculus it's probably true they will have much smaller profit margins in comparison, or more than likely be selling just under breakeven point on each unit. Obviously that will likely change over time as VR tech evolves, sells as standalone units and becomes more mass market etc.
 
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ci_newman said:
Then you were a bit off target with your expectations. Optics / screen technology is hugely expensive, why do you think iPhones and the latest Samsung devices cost so much? Generally speaking, the Vive is actually cheaper than what people thought it was going to cost. There's no way the cost-price of the headsets is $200 / £150...
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optics are still not that expensive even custom made, unless as i said if they are ordering parts by the dozens instead of hundreds of thousands, the screens they are not that high end, it's fairly common rez and refresh, and beside oled screens are cheaper than LCDs right now, rest is plastic and sensors really not expensive.
for ppl who still say smartphones are expensive, iphones 6 estimated cost is 120$, and VR headsets are nowhere close to the complexity of the parts a smartphone has.
 
Merlin5 said:
Also, not sure if this is news or not, but I took it from the oculus forums pre order thread.

Screenshot_2016_03_31_15_32_31.png
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It's a load of rubbish. We are in the last day of March and the banks have closed, and guess what - no shipping to UK owners. Shipping cannot and will not take place in March now.

I don't think the issue is that there are delays, the issue is the complete wall of silence from Oculus. I no longer know a single person that has kept their Rift pre-orders, we've all jumped shift to the Vive instead.
 
ci_newman said:
I don't think the issue is that there are delays, the issue is the complete wall of silence from Oculus. I no longer know a single person that has kept their Rift pre-orders, we've all jumped shift to the Vive instead.
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Well i didnt expect them to get it right so not really that disappointed.

However i will be keeping my Oculus order despite the launch fiasco mainly because of :

a) More comfortable and lighter to wear. (deal breaker for me and the Vive is approx same weight as the DK2)
b) Clearer and better image quality on the Oculus
c) Only £529 so not £750 like the Vive is.
d) I dont have the room space to take advantage of that Vive feature
Plan on getting something like the Virtuix omni or the Cyberith Virtualizer instead.
e) Oculus touch (from those who have used them) apparently a smidge better than the Vive controllers.
f) Access to both Oculus store and Steam store. Whereas Vive only has access to steam vr store. Not casting any blame to anyone but as it stands thats how it is (note it will hopefully change so that both headsets get access to everything but who knows)

there you go :)
 
AlamoX said:
you dont have to be angry, thats my opinion i am entitled to as you are to yours, and dont throw away fanboism, thats a sign of argument bankruptcy.
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Not quite sure where you got that I was angry? If it's any consolation I'm not at all :)

You are indeed entitled to your opinion, however far fetched I think it may be, but I am equally entitled to disagree. The fanboyism comment, as you will see if you re-read my post, refers to certain posts (plural) on here and elsewhere - it was not directly pointed at you. If you care to step on to any number of discussions on the big old web you will see there is indeed rampant fanboyism on both sides and as I said I find that disappointing.


anyhow, i still dont see the cost of a "subsidized product" as they said, unless they order parts in the dozens, add R&D cost to recover in short term instead of long term, like 100k units instead of couple millions, dont forget that oculus was kickstarted, then sold a lot of dev kits, before it got 2b million injection.
to me i see the total cost not being more than 200$, if they are mass produced, and other costs are spread on the long term, so if subsidized as they claim, we should be really far from 600$ retail price, and more about 250-350$, beside, next year you might see a lot more headset, probably with better components selling for under 300$ mark, the only remaining thing would be the platform & apps and how would they work on random headsets.
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But again you are focusing purely on raw hardware costs. Even if you are correct that it's less than $200 of hardware (which I'm not so sure, at the volumes they are ordering and the amount of bespoke parts I would guess it's a bit more personally, having been involved myself in some chinese manufacturing), you need to pay for the salaries of everyone involved from development to support, you pay the factories that are manufacturing it who need to make a profit and pay their staff, or if you own the factory then you still have to pay the lease and the staff, you need to pay for distribution, you need to pay for warehouse space because these things don't just roll off the production line onto the back of a truck, you need to cover yourself with enough margin for warranty returns and so on and so on. The actual physical hardware cost only tells part of the story.


i am all for VR tech, i am happy for oculus to have made it a reality and i hope they profit a lot from it, still doesnt make me blind to the fact that they screwed the launch and the rythm at which VR should reach mainstream( and valve also...before you say i am a fanboy again ), and the argument palmer said about mainstream perf not ready for VR is BS ( the reason according to him to have given up on cheaper headset).
because if VR came out 10 years ago, should we have waited for 390/970 gpu to get out ? no, games scale according to perf not the other way
btw, i really didnt expect Vive to be 800$, i was gonna pre-order one and was waiting for 400-500$ price range, before they smack me on the head with 800$, so yea maybe next year.
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On that we agree, and yes they have totally screwed the pooch on this launch.
 
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I pre- ordered within minutes of the pre orders going live. I have yet to have a confirmation or any notice that mine has been shipped or otherwise....

Disappointing.
 
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