Meant to be Seen

congrats on this weeks product release at CES!

https://www.oculus.com/en-us/

48 hours to go

Oculus just announced that Kickstarter backers are getting a free Rift. As an early backer I'm not in the Kickstarter loop.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/15 ... ect_update

Did you hear from Palmer or anyone at Oculus?

I'm really excited about this!

Diego.

I emailed Palmer. I don't think he's forgotten us and has never let us down yet. Either way that's an amazingly generous gesture on Oculus' part and I wish them the best of luck with all their future projects. Can't wait to get my hands on CV1 and all succeeding editions regardless of how I end up getting them!

I agree it's a really really nice gesture. I can't wait to hold that CV1 in my hands. After getting a GearVR I can't stand the DK2 anymore

I also emailed Palmer a few minutes ago. He's probably super busy so I don't expect a quick reply.

My vote: pre-Kickstarter backers score a Rift and the touch controllers when they drop later this year.

Wow reading these old threads brings back so much emotion

In the update, it refers to kickstarter backers as "there from the beginning". I propose we change our moniker to pre- big bangers! When the future looks back in time, wondering what there was "before" the big bang.... they/it.... will find us:)

Pre-Kickstarters... Pre-BigBangers.... same diff.... we saw the light, well before it's creation:).

I think you prekickers should have a statue placed on the Oculus headquarter front lawn with all names goldplated on the wall, and with all us KS backers names in silver under. This important info needs to be immortalized!

I'm hoping there will be some digital rewards for each level of supporter in their metaverse, and hopefully takes into account pre-kickstarters. Just to help give the world some additional character since it shouldn't materially change anything there

I misread the email on my phone in the morning and thought I was just getting a limited edition Kickstarter Rift when I ordered my new Rift. Very stoked to find out once I got to work that I'm actually getting an entirely free Rift!

Very cool of Oculus. I can't think of any other company off the top of my head that has made a gesture like this in recent years.

Yeah, now Palmer just have one final task to do. Set the price right. Its such an opportunity to really hit that final pre-consumerVR era ball out of the park with a homerun.

WiredEarp wrote:I misread the email on my phone in the morning and thought I was just getting a limited edition Kickstarter Rift when I ordered my new Rift. Very stoked to find out once I got to work that I'm actually getting an entirely free Rift!

Very cool of Oculus. I can't think of any other company off the top of my head that has made a gesture like this in recent years.

Well the CastAR folk are refunding their kickstarters and still fulfilling the pledges for a final device, so effectively giving out their final devices entirely for free (unlike Oculus they got some significant investment funding before they produced the kickstarter devices, but they've run over time a lot longer than Oculus ever did too, quite a few people were calling for refunds and just wanted out).

I think they both realise that some goodwill goes a long way towards securing a loyal fanbase, something very important when a new market like VR is starting up.

I'm very excited to get my hands on a consumer Rift, it'll be really interesting to directly compare it with my DK1 and see exactly how far things have come since this all started. Oculus benefits from us all being guinea pigs for the consumer release, since as the most die-hard enthusiasts from the beginning we will be the most forgiving with early bugs and hopefully provide them with important early feedback and bug reports. Since many of us are developers it also serves to get the final hardware to a lot of the independent developers that started off the initial wave of Rift content.

I'm sure the pre-kickstarters won't be forgotten, the only reason I was a kickstarter and not pre-kickstarter was that he explicitly asked non-US folk to wait for the kickstarter (being in the UK myself). It would be cool if the kickstarter edition Rifts were serial numbered with your backer number or something (with pre-kickstarters necessarily being specially identified).

Got my order in.
629, ships March

Dang! It has been a while hasn't it? Haven't been back here for ages. I found out by word of mouth from all my friends yesterday. Everyone messaging me like "You get a FREE Rift!!", to which I was like "wtf are you talking about?". And then I read the news. I told them well, I think I qualify for that. I was one of the earliest adopters, but technically not a Kickstarter backer, aside from the $10 pledge to keep up with the updates. I put a pre-order in just in case to make sure. Will cancel later if need be. Would be the best belated Christmas ever!

The best thing about consumer VR arriving is finally being able to show people what the hell I was so excited about 3 years ago. Now they'll finally get it.

Also, the Canadian dollar right now is... not so much. Total order for me was $914. Yikes!

Yeah the price really surprised me at first. But the more I think of it, i now get that its a shift in perspective at Oculus on gen1 of consumer VR. Its not really ready to bash down the mainstream wall yet. And as a enthusiast device the 599 price (or insane 700+ euro price) might be in the right ballpark after all. Still its easy to say after I too got a free one. Lots of angry people out there now.

I remember all of us feeling like $500 for the original DIY Rift kit (with no headtracking or software support of any kind) was a pretty amazing deal. Seems everyone now is getting about 10x the product offering and mad as hell about it.

brantlew wrote: remember all of us feeling like $500 for the original DIY Rift kit (with no headtracking or software support of any kind) was a pretty amazing deal. Seems everyone now is getting about 10x the product offering and mad as hell about it.

Isn't much changed in between those two dates?
(HTC..//SONY..//Cardboard ..)

Those who own PS4 or can pick up one at around $300
Sony HMD will be much temptative option

(Mr.Neil already invested in PS4.. Though money may not be pressing matter for owner of forum , Still in end we all want max return out of our expenditure:!: )

I always never thought that the CV1 would come to around $200-$350 bucks. But putting it in US dollars is a bit deadly cause of exchange rates .35 % from Canada. I have money saved and more money coming in from Work so I think I could spend money on this stuff but I also would like to see the products in Stores.

I bought a Steam controller at EB games, so Valve did put out their hardware into Stores, Maybe Oculus could use Microsoft Store in Malls to sell its hardware idk.
I already have computers and can upgrade pretty easily, Still waiting for AMD's offerings on new pci-e 3.0 - 4.0, Intel is iffy but cool more of a compiling processor.

I remember all of us feeling like $500 for the original DIY Rift kit (with no headtracking or software support of any kind) was a pretty amazing deal. Seems everyone now is getting about 10x the product offering and mad as hell about it.

I remember paying $300 for an ancient MRG HMD, just so I could put a better LCD into it for wide monoscopic FOV as in Palmers original PR HMD's. Never did it though, as VR progress totally overtook things.
Its a cool slice of history still though.

I also remember looking at options around the time I got my Z800, which was over $1000 at the time, and ALL of the worthwhile options were over $600. I think people have just gotten too used to the pricing of the DK units, and have no idea as to just what a bargain they are getting.

Hey all, good to see some familiar names here again. I suppose it's easy to be philosophical about the consumer price when you're getting a free Rift! Sony and Samsung can deal with the mid-range for now - Palmer & co have built the best HMD that has ever existed (for less than you would pay for a couch!) and we were all lucky enough to witness it's birth. I'm sure it's second-time Luckey for VR, but even if this whole thing goes south (the odds of that must be vanishingly small) maybe in 30 years time some bright kid will pick-up an old Rift and be inspired to try again...

EDIT:

mm0zct wrote:I'm sure the pre-kickstarters won't be forgotten, the only reason I was a kickstarter and not pre-kickstarter was that he explicitly asked non-US folk to wait for the kickstarter (being in the UK myself).

I was in exactly the same boat myself, but at least we made it onto the Kickstarter. I'm sure there must be a few pre-kickstarter backers on here who didn't end-up pledging - for whatever reason - it would be a real shame for them to fall through the cracks. I'm sure Palmer will get on it after CES, it's been a pretty busy week!

Anyone heard back from Palmer by email yet? I'm sure he's quite busy at CES...

I can ping Palmer.

cybereality wrote:I can ping Palmer.

Thanks

cybereality wrote:I can ping Palmer.

Thanks from me as well. I didn't want to bombard him with messages as I figured he's super busy with the Rift launch, CES and the AMA stuff. I tossed a question up in the AMA and on the Kickstarter page and then patiently waited.

I figured Palmer hadn't forgot about us. Since we're not on the Kickstarter backer list we wouldn't be getting a survey like everyone else so I wasn't sure if I should put in a pre-order or not. Put one in just in case. Figured I'd have time to cancel if need be before shipping time. Can't miss the consumer launch of VR!

Hey guys!

Long time VR fan here. I actually did my degree just because the course content included VR (not the worst decision I've ever made either). I'm a little sad that I didn't get involved with you all on here because this seems like a really nice and more importantly POSITIVE community. I can't stand reading the Oculus forums atm.

Well anyway I just wanted to say Hi and Thanks to all of you that were around before the Kickstarter and were encouraging each other. All of that clearly lead to Palmer doing his thing and getting the Kickstarter going. I had very little money back then but I was convinced that Palmer was passionate enough to deliver so I saved and backed the Rift. I am very glad I did.

So again, thanks to all you Pre-Kickstarters and you deserve everything that I'm sure you're going to get. I think we all owe you one.

See you all in the OASIS.

cheers

Hey dead4sure, welcome. Its been very quiet here for a while (I suspect people became more closemouthed once it became obvious VR is going to take off, so people are less inclined to share their ideas), but its still my fave community simply due to the extremely helpful and knowledgeable people. Certainly better SNR than /r/oculus

Hi dead4sure. Glad you and everyone that is on these forums has. Been part of this community for a long while. There are so many interesting things that I've read on these forums and learned from everyone here. It has also been a wonderful experience watching VR get built right before our eyes in a rather public manner through all the various prototypes and beta API's and talks that give us a much fuller perspective. Looking forward to what innovations the next 10 years bring as well as the fixing of the many low hanging fruits now that the initial releases will be done soon.

cybereality wrote:I can ping Palmer.

Any word?

dglow wrote:Any word?

He said he still has to get to the emails, and you can imagine how busy things are. Please wait a little longer, thanks.

cybereality wrote:

dglow wrote:Any word?

He said he still has to get to the emails, and you can imagine how busy things are. Please wait a little longer, thanks.

I think that was a worthy cause for @dglow's third post in nearly 3 years I think regardless we'lol be happy but the wait is also quite hard regardless. It's still hard to believe that the CV1 is only 2-3 months away from arriving at our doorsteps! The only thing I'll miss is the Oculus touch controllers. Having the Vive DK1 it's kind of hard going back from tracked hands/controllers. Hopefully the delay won't be too long and some compelling content comes out for touch by the time it is fully released!

cybereality wrote:

dglow wrote:Any word?

He said he still has to get to the emails, and you can imagine how busy things are. Please wait a little longer, thanks.

What are the 'emails' Palmer is waiting for? Are the emails some kind of confirmation on the pre-kickstarter gifts? I am very excited!

^ Likely the fact that Palmer has contacted pre-KS backers via email in the past.

A thought: $600 represents Oculus' price for an all-in VR kit, where 'all-in' includes hand tracking and, possibly, standing/room-scale operation.
Trick is: they're up against a competitor who will offer such a kit first, yet has maneuvered to announce their price last.

What we're witnessing now is a display of competitive corporate marketing jujitsu.

This would explain Palmer's failure to set expectations. Oculus knows they'll sell every HMD they can make at $600, but what they're charging is an umbrella price, one set in anticipation of a holiday 2016 bundle that would include Touch. The real expectation-setting is happening before our eyes.

D

Has anyone heard anything yet? I haven't myself, so just want to make sure.

If anyone does get an e-mail, could they please share on here that one has been received? Just want to make sure I didn't miss it or anything. And also need to cancel my pre-order as well, should it come down to that.

Alkapwn wrote:Has anyone heard anything yet? I haven't myself, so just want to make sure.

If anyone does get an e-mail, could they please share on here that one has been received? Just want to make sure I didn't miss it or anything. And also need to cancel my pre-order as well, should it come down to that.

No word yet. If I receive anything I will post a confirmation but I think the details should be private. If there is any news I'm sure Palmer will reach out here or via email to the larger group as well. But yeah, no word yet.

I hope this deadline doesn't apply to us as well.

http://www.roadtovr.com/psa-oculus-kick ... free-rift/

@alkapawn - well if it does..... sigh:(

lnrrgb wrote:@alkapawn - well if it does..... sigh:(

Have no doubt that Oculus and Palmer will come through for us. My only worry is that there's a very long line.

Cybereality, can you help? No desire to nag, just hoping to curb the collective worries here. You're a mod on the Oculus forums so I assumed you were an employee as well. Any further assist will be very welcome - thank you!

Yes, I would like to help. Let me ping the guys again this week and see if we can get this sorted.

dglow wrote:My only worry is that there's a very long line.

Isn't there some long standing thread, some pattern, coarsing through the human struggle.....something about alpha and omega.... rumors maybe... Though,the idea seems to be associated with things that have legs, if only in passing comments.


I hope we don't seal our fate by poking the --+insert interesting analogy/metaphor here+-- with a stick.....

Oh wait..... didn't facebook abolish poking?...... eh well, if someone gotta do it...., may as well be us:)