Oculus Rift will hit retail stores across the UK and Europe on 20 September.
The suggested retail price in Europe is £549 or €699.
The product itself as well as in-store demos will be available in the UK from Amazon.co.uk, John Lewis, Curry’s PCWorld, GAME Digital, and Harrods. By Autumn, Rift will be available for demo in over 600 retail locations worldwide.
The Facebook-owned virtual reality device is now available for pre-order.
This is a considerably higher price tag than the US sales of Oculus Rift, which was recommended at $599. This is true even taking into account recent exchange rate fluctuations, since $599 is equivalent to around £460.
Put another way, this is almost a 20 percent mark-up on the US price, where the Oculus Rift has been available since May.
Pricing has been a perennial drawback for virtual and augmented reality devices, which Google attempted to overcome with the launch of its simplified Google Cardboard.
In February, controversy arose over the pricing, which founder Palmer Luckey had previously said that the device would be in the $350 “ballpark”. He later explained that this had been in contrast to earlier price estimates of $1500.
He admitted that the “device” was expensive, but said that this was due to the inherent cost of the components rather than the costs of recouping R&D expenditure, saying that Oculus doesn't "make money on the Rift". He contrasted this with expensive smartphones, which he said cost a fraction of this to make.
Rift will be also now be available in Canada as well as European countries such as France and Germany.
Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of Oculus Rift was announced and closed in 2014, as part of what Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said was Facebook’s mission to “make the world more open and connected”.
Possible competitors in the space include Microsoft’s HoloLens.
