Oculus Rift Price Drop: Virtual Reality Headset, Controller Bundle Now Costs $399

If you’ve been on the fence about getting a high-end virtual reality headset, Oculus has an aggressive promotion designed to get you on board. In a post Monday, Oculus announced that it will temporarily drop the price for a full Rift bundle to $399.

The discount comes as part of the “Summer of Rift” promotion from Oculus. The bundle includes a standard Rift headset, along with a set of Touch controllers for gameplay and in-app control. Throughout the summer, Oculus will also offer promotions for Rift owners like free multiplayer weekends and discounts on games.

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For Oculus, the price drop follows additional cuts on its flagship headset during the past year. The headset alone initially launched at $599 last year before seeing its first price drop in March to $499. Oculus Touch controllers saw a similar price drop at the time, which brought the price for a full bundle to $599. At this current price point, a full Rift setup is now the same as a PlayStation VR virtual headset. By comparison, a full HTC Vive headset bundle costs $800 and includes controllers.

The aggressive price strategy could be a sign that Oculus wants to kickstart sales for the Rift. VR headsets have seen steady growth and penetration among consumers, but the Rift has generally been an also-ran versus its competitors.

According to IDC sales numbers from the first quarter of 2017, the Rift was a distant fourth among headset models with an estimated market share of only 4.4 percent. For the quarter, the headset was bested by companies including Samsung, PlayStation and HTC.

Read: Facebook Announces Spaces, VR Hangout App, For Oculus Rift F8 Conference

Generally, the Rift has been in the same conversation as the HTC Vive when it comes to VR. Both are still relatively niche thanks to their higher price tag and cost of entry — competing options like Samsung’s headsets only need to be paired with a smartphone — but because they’re paired with a gaming-capable PC, players can typically get a higher degree of interactivity and immersiveness from applications. With its aggressive price drop, Oculus likely wants to position the Rift as a value-competitive way for players to get into VR.

Oculus has also been a major part of Facebook’s plans for virtual reality since its acquisition in 2014 for around $2 billion. At its F8 developers conference earlier this year, Facebook unveiled its social VR app Spaces.

However, the platform has remained a long-game investment for both Facebook and Oculus. In a Reddit Ask Me Anything post last year, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said the company wasn’t making money on the Rift at its $599 price point.