VR’s biggest reason to jump in now: price drops

I feel genuinely bad for CNet’s Dan Ackerman. Earlier this week, he wrote a sad breakup note to VR, explaining that his huge investment (including day one purchases of Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Sony PSVR headsets, plus optional accessories) hadn’t produced enough enjoyment over two years to keep him happy. If you haven’t been keeping track of VR prices, that was at least $2,000 in hardware.

Emphasis on “was.” If you haven’t purchased a VR headset yet, congratulations: You missed the early adopter phase. Since then, these headsets have dropped by hundreds of dollars, new controllers have been released, and software has become more abundant — better yet, it’s cheaper. As is always the case, the earliest adopters subsidized VR’s lengthy R&D period, in some cases heavily.