Oculus Rift Cuts Oz Shipping Costs

After over a year of vocal complaints from Australian customers looking to get ahold of Facebook’s Oculus Rift VR headset, the company has now pulled the international shipping costs out of the picture entirely.

A brand new Oculus Rift headset with a pair of Oculus Touch controllers is now priced at a total of approximately $648US ($860AUD).

It’s a quiet but significant development for the company, who have previously struggled to even engage positively with the Australian market – despite being the early frontrunners of the VR category.

“Get into PC VR for the lowest price ever,” Oculus now say on their website.

Since its launch last year, Australian consumers have complained about the high price of the headset. At that time, an Oculus Rift would cost its base price of approximately $860, plus close to $200AUD in shipping – despite the fact that local stock was housed in a Sydney-based warehouse.

Former-Oculus CEO Palmer Luckey even at one point openly responded to the complaints, challenging them to take their criticisms to the ACCC.

In comparison, the new pricing for the headset puts them ahead of even rivals HTC on price. Previous reports have said that the HTC Vive had been outselling the Oculus Rift 2-to-1. It’ll be interesting to see if this latest price-cut changes that picture much, even just locally.

Following an extensive legal battle over the origins of the tech powering their headset and reports the company is scaling back its retail presence, Oculus appear to be a brand much in need of a turning-point. Perhaps this about-face on Australian pricing represents the first-step in a new customers-first strategy for the company. Time will tell.