The Oculus Rift will be sold with a $599 retail price. And Oculus is taking a wash on the hardware. Oculus Co-Founder and VP of Product Nate Mitchell revealed to TechCrunch’s Jordan Crook earlier today that the company is selling the hardware at cost in an effort to kickstart the VR ecosystem.
This is in addition to giving away 7,000 Oculus Rift units to early Kickstarter backers.
At $600, the Rift isn’t an impulse buy — especially since a decent gaming computer is required — but $600 isn’t a crazy price. This is proved by the overwhelming demand, as Oculus sold out of its initial pre-order run in a matter of hours.
“It’s about getting the Rift into as many hands as possible,” Mitchell said. “We want the Rift to be in the hands of millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people and to bring them into VR. That’s ultimately the goal.
“Pricing the Rift farther and farther away from people is not what we want,” he added.
This strategy likely wouldn’t be possible without the deep pockets of Facebook, which purchased Oculus for $2 billion in 2014. If Zuck can afford to build Jarvis, he can probably afford to keep the price of the Rift low enough to make it as affordable as possible.

