Oculus Rift PC Bundle Might Explain Price Confusion

So!  The Oculus Rift has a price. And it’s expensive. 600 some buckaroos for the consumer version--certainly makes the bonus they handed out to early supporters seem like a bargain, huh? Well, unsurprisingly, there’s been quite a bit of hubbub surrounding that number, what with an earlier estimation from the CEO putting the cost as half that much.

Well, earlier this week, Oculus founder and designer Palmer Luckey went to Reddit to do one of their world-famous AMA’s, and unsurprisingly the topic of the price came up. While he said a lot on the subject, I draw your eyes to this section right here:

“Earlier last year, we started officially messaging that the Rift+Recommended spec PC would cost roughly $1500. That was around the time we committed to the path of prioritizing quality over cost, trying to make the best VR headset possible with current technology. Many outlets picked the story up as “Rift will cost $1500!”, which was honestly a good thing—the vast majority of consumers (and even gamers!) don’t have a PC anywhere close to the rec. spec, and many people were confused enough to think the Rift was a standalone device. For that vast majority of people, $1500 is the all-in cost of owning Rift. The biggest portion of their cost is the PC, not the Rift itself.”

Now, during the AMA, when he said that, it didn’t make much sense: people were asking about the $600 dollar rift cost, and it’s hard to imagine a 900-buck PC would be strong enough to handle this device, even if you did build it yourself. But as it turns out, there is a sort of logic to it… but only if you’re either a member of the Oculus team or some kind of PC-themed prophet.

You see, Alienware has just announced that they're going to be the first PC hardware company to release a special PC+Oculus bundle. They’re going to be moderately high-end specifically to meet the Oculus Rift’s recommended specs, and tell me, dear reader--can you guess how much this bundle will cost?

1600 buckaroos. $1200 for the PC itself and a discounted $400 for the Oculus attachment. That's in the ballpark.

So there you have the start of the $1500 statement, and even the $350 original price estimation--the guy was probably getting his notes crossed with the Alienware announcement. Or it’s all one big coincidence and I’m reading too much into it, but… what fun is that?

Not as if the price of PC hardware being larger than anticipated is much of a conspiracy to unravel.