Oculus Rift gets $200/£100 temporary price cut

Oculus is trying to offset the slowdown in VR hype with a major hardware price cut.

The Rift headset, along with the touch controllers and a selection of titles, will now cost $399/£399. Oculus says this is a limited time offer for the summer, although as we've seen with Xbox One and PS4, temporary hardware price cuts tend to become the consumer cost expectation going forward.

The move is part of the 'Summer of Rift' promotional activity, which will also feature a number of game announcements ahead of the fourth Oculus Connect event in San Jose in October.

It's not just hardware that will be cut in price, throughout the month the company will also be slashing up to 60% off the price of software, and are also compiling special bundles for consumers to purchase.

Since its launch last March, Oculus has found itself fending off fierce competition from HTC Vive, plus contending with a major lawsuit against Zenimax and the departure of its founder Palmer Luckey. SuperData estimated in May that HTC Vive would out-sell Oculus by 200,000 units by the end of the year.

Both SuperData and IHS expect Samsung's smartphone Gear VR to be the dominant headset this year.