Oculus Go world premiere: Acceptable compromises, amazing quality for $199

Enlarge / The Oculus Go was finally available to play at a press event. How'd it turn out? (credit: Sam Machkovech)

SAN FRANCISCO-After testing the upcoming Oculus Go headset for 30 minutes, I had to gather my bearings and ask the company's hardware PM Sean Liu to clarify something important. How much is this thing going to retail for, again?

$199, he reminded me.

I needed to double check, because that price sounds very different on the other side of trying Oculus Go at its world-premiere hands-on event at the 2018 Game Developers Conference. Throw out your expectations for what $199 will buy you in terms of standalone, no-wires VR. It used to be that you'd expect to pay half that amount ($99) for a dumb, no-screen, no-memory shell meant to turn your $700+ smartphone into a virtual reality facsimile.

Read 21 remaining paragraphs | Comments