Facebook is offering the Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch at a discount in its six-week summer sale, which starts Monday. During the sale, The Rift and the Touch controller are being offered for $400 in a set instead of the usual $600.
Making Oculus Rift more acceptable
Oculus dropped the price as part of its “Summer of Rift” event, during which the company is also set to launch some new titles and offer discounts on games. Those waiting for a price cut have the best opportunity to grab the Rift headset, as the discount will only last for the next six weeks.
After this temporary cut, Facebook’s VR device has come in line with the prices of other popular high-end VR headsets, such as those for the Xbox and PlayStation. The Sony PlayStation VR costs $400, but the cost rises to $460 when purchased with motion controllers and a mandatory sensor camera. The HTC Vive costs $800.
This is the second price cut after the one announced in March, when Facebook permanently slashed the Rift’s price to $500 and the motion controllers to $100 instead of $200, notes Fortune. Until last year, the Oculus Rift was priced at $600, and after adding the Touch Controller, the price jumped to $200.
According to Oculus Content VP Jason Rubin, the discount will encourage people who until now have been hesitant to buy or were not considering the Oculus Rift at all due to its high price. Rubin, however, did not share sales numbers to suggest if the VR headset is gaining popularity. According to research firm Superdata, Facebook sold 243,000 headsets in 2016.
A discount isn’t a bad thing
A lot of gamers and enthusiasts might be skeptical after the latest discount, thinking that the company might be ramping up for the next version. However, Rubin reiterated that lowering the price does not mean that the current version will become outdated.
“Somebody who goes out and buys a Rift [on sale] is not going to find themselves with hardware that’s outdated any time soon,” Rubin said.
According to Rubin, the Rift has a lot more to offer because both the price and content have kept people from buying the headset, but now that “we’ve kind of gotten to the point where we feel comfortable with content, we’re continuing to attack price.”
Rubin also has an answer to those who think that slashing the price of the VR headset is a desperate move to boost sales of the VR headset. Rubin stated that the company has already said that it will take some time for VR to be accepted by the masses.
“It’s not going to happen overnight. We’re following exactly the game plan that we said we were going to follow from the start,” the executive said.
Further, Rubin said that even the Sony PlayStation was put on sale, “and they’re not in desperation to sell hardware. Sales are not always negative.”
He also talked about upcoming games. He said that there are some multiplayer games in the pipeline, such as Echo Arena, Star Trek: Bridge Crew and so on, which will accelerate the adoption of the VR headset.
