Oculus Touch to launch on December 6th for $199

Until now, the Oculus Rift has been incomplete. It’s a comfortable, high-end VR headset, but without Touch the experience feels like a preview. A taste of the platform’s full potential. Thankfully, that’s all about to change: At Oculus Connect, the company announced that its motion controllers will be out on December 6th. They’ll cost $199, putting the combined Rift price at $798. For reference, the HTC Vive with its wand controllers costs $799. PlayStation VR launches next week for $400, but that’s only the headset — you’ll need to pay extra for the camera and Move controllers.

Pre-orders for Touch start on October 10th, the same day as its fancy new Oculus Earphones. Each unit will come with a motion sensor, which gives you basic positioning but not true room-scale tracking. For the latter, you’ll need to buy a third sensor for $79. (That puts the total package at $877.)

“Touch is $199, and starts shipping December 6th!” Tune in to the #OC3 livestream: https://t.co/coMFPh8Bms pic.twitter.com/mJ2pcevAfs

— Oculus (@oculus) October 6, 2016

Oculus Touch adds intuitive hand-tracking to VR. The controller compromises of two parts — one for each paw — with analog sticks, face buttons and triggers shared between them. A plastic band wraps around the bottom, giving each pad a sleek, cuff-like look. Once you’ve slipped them on, you can naturally control your avatar’s hands in VR. Waving, punching, picking up objects — even basic finger gestures, such as a quick point or thumbs up. It certainly beats the bundled Xbox One controller — you’ll have to decide whether it’s worth the extra cost, however.