Facebook cuts price of Oculus VR again
July 10, 2017
Oculus, the VR-firm owned by social media giant Facebook, is cutting the price of its VR headset for the second time this year.
In a blog post, Oculus announced it is to price its Rift headset (bundled with hand-tracking Touch controllers) at $399 (€350), two-thirds of the price the company was charging just months ago.
The company said the new lower price for its headset will be available for six weeks as part of a summer sale. The promotion is also occurring in the UK, with the same Rift and Touch bundle now priced at £399.
It is the second price fall conceded by Oculus this year after the package was trimmed to $499 on March 1st. The latest price drop means it is now retailing at the same price as the PlayStation VR headset.
According to market research firm SuperData, Samsung Electronics is the clear leader in the VR market with its Gear VR headset, which shipped 782,000 virtual reality headsets during the first quarter of the year. Coming in second was the PlayStation VR headset, which shipped 375,000 units. The third-place vendor was Vive, with 95,000 units. A distant fourth place was Oculus, which was only able to ship 64,000 units in the first quarter.