Oculus will begin taking pre-orders for the consumer version of the Rift virtual reality headset on Wednesday, January 6 at 8 a.m. PT, it said today. But it still hasn't revealed how much it will cost to get in on the first round of consumer VR.
Every consumer version of the Rift will include the launch game Lucky's Tale, a 3-D platformer in the vein of Super Mario that has been one of the most entertaining Oculus titles at demo events. Pre-orderers will also get a copy of EVE: Valkyrie, a outer-space dogfight game that has also been a constant presence at Oculus' demos over the years.
Rift is about perfecting the VR experience, not cost-cutting; to that end, Oculus seems to be preparing would-be early adopters for some sticker shock.
"VR will become something everyone wants before it becomes something everyone can afford," Oculus founder Palmer Luckey wrote on Twitter just before Christmas. "Future advancements and high volume will make VR available to everyone eventually, but 1st gen will be mostly early adopters. ... There are a lot of people who expect to spend a couple hundred bucks and use their existing low-end laptops."
So, rule out "a couple hundred bucks," then. Oculus will likely announce the pricing at the same time it takes pre-orders live, and it's already tipped that Luckey will be out in full force doing a Reddit AMA later that day.
