Oculus Rift price set at US$599 as pre-orders begin — but don’t count on booming sales, analysts say

Sarah Frier, Bloomberg News | January 6, 2016 11:36 AM ET

Facebook Inc.’s Oculus Rift, set to go on sale Wednesday, is intended to usher in a new era of virtual reality computing. But if Wall Street’s expectations hold true, that will happen very slowly.
The Oculus Rift costs US$599 and is expected to ship by April, according to the company’s website.
Most analysts with estimates for the Rift expect sales in the low hundred-thousands while just a few said sales may top 1 million. The majority declined to estimate, saying the device isn’t a big deal for Facebook.
Oculus “would almost certainly be a rounding error inside of Facebook for now,” said Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research, who said he’s not estimating sales yet. Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, called Facebook’s investment in Oculus a “non-event in 2016.” He expects them to sell a few hundred thousand units at a loss.