Lock in a year of Digiday+ for 35% less. Ends May 29.
After all this time, what’s a little more waiting when it comes to owning an Oculus Rift? Moments after the virtual reality headset went on sale this morning, the website crashed dampening excitement over the $599 device.
The Facebook-owned company says it will begin shipping in April and the hefty price tag doesn’t include taxes or free shipping. Early adopters will get an Xbox One Controller, a copy of the video game Eve: Valkyrie and the more family friendly “mind blowing” game Lucky’s Tale.
So far, the launch is off to a rocky start.
After the countdown clock ticked toward 11 a.m. ET, Oculus’ homepage pointed people toward the checkout page that displayed a blank screen for many, who tweeted their annoyance toward Oculus founder Palmer Luckey:
Luckey tweeted that Oculus is “experiencing insanely high load,” adding that “Credit card processing is trying to stay [live] under load from mass script kiddie fraud attempts.” He promised that there was “no chance” of the Rift selling out.
The page is back online, though it’s loading slowly. Those who have been able to get on haven’t been thrilled with the $599 price tag, a touch higher than the rumored $350 to $450 price that had been floating around:
$600 for the Oculus Rift lol they can keep it
— ITANI (@Itani) January 6, 2016
An Oculus Rift VR headset can transport you to unbelievable fictional worlds, like a world were people will spend $599 on an Oculus Rift — CEO Kaz Hirai (@KazHiraiCEO) January 6, 2016
I CALLED IT! $599 OCULUS RIFT. (I am very sad to be right, because that’s too rich for my blood right now)
— Ryan McCaffrey (@DMC_Ryan) January 6, 2016
Well, perhaps the $99 Samsung Gear VR might be of interest to them.
More in Marketing
OpenAI gives ChatGPT ads a visual upgrade
OpenAI is building on its single ad format to include some new iterations that give advertisers more optionality over their appearances.
‘Trust becomes the product’: Marketers grapple with Google’s new suite of AI-powered ad agents
First comes innovation, then comes transparency. At least that seems to be Google’s approach as the tech behemoth enters its agentic era. At Google Marketing Live (GML) yesterday, Google announced a new souped up suite of agentic ad tools backed by its LLM, Gemini. Google plans to roll out more ads in AI Mode in […]
Who owns agentic workflows? Agencies struggle to govern new tools as marketing budgets surge
Deciding how AI is used, vetting tools, shaping best practices and how staff are incentivized to use AI tools are still up for debate internally at agencies.