Oculus Rift VR headset to cost at least $300

In an interview with PC Gamer, Oculus VP of Product Nate Mitchell revealed the pricing of the company's VR headset will be at least $300. The headset is expected to be launched in Q1 2016, right now the company doesn't want to kick off a pre-order program as they don't want to make people pay to wait:

Mitchell explained why Oculus isn't currently taking pre-orders for the Rift by saying "there isn't a big reason to take your money too far ahead of the device." He continued: "What I think about all day long is user experience, right? So if I'm going to promise you something and you're going to hand me a significant amount of money or whatever it is—we all know it's going to be at least $300—if you're going to hand me $300 today, I am not going to be excited to tell you: ‘OK, in nine, 10, 12, 11 months, whatever it is, you're going to get something in return.’ The longer you wait, the more you're like, ‘This is obnoxious.’ "

The price of the headset is just one tiny piece of the technology, though. Realistic virtual reality requires a lot of GPU horsepower so the biggest cost of VR will not be the Oculus Rift headset but the price you pay for a high-end gaming system.

On a related note, the Oculus Touch controllers will not be ready in time for the headset's launch. The controllers will be a separate purchase and they aren't expected to ship until sometime in Q2 2016.