Oculus Rift teardown shows bill of materials and manufacturing just slightly over 200$

[Sakkura]

19 hours ago, LAwLz said:

That sounds like a widely inaccurate claim. That would mean that those tiny lenses (which are mass produced and don't need special cutting) would be about 150 dollars each.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's less than 10 dollars (which is expensive for such a small, non-custom cut* lens).

 

 

*By "custom" I mean as in, it is cut to a specific frame (like when you order glasses) or a certain prescription.

What's wildly inaccurate here is the $200 estimate. Let me repeat that these guys are so ignorant that they think the Oculus Rift is used for game consoles.

[Sakkura]

13 hours ago, LAwLz said:

By the way, please bear in mind that people from Oculus actually hinted at a sub 300 dollar price back when their goal was not to make as much money as possible (when they just wanted VR to become popular). That means that their estimated manufacturing cost for the CV1 was below 300 dollars, as I doubt they would be selling at a loss.

That alone should be more than enough evidence to debunk this idiotic idea that the Oculus Rift costs like 500 dollars to manufacture or whatever stupid price people seem to believe it costs.

They originally said they would aim for a price in the $200 to $400 range. Then they were talking about $350, as it became apparent that a higher quality headset would probably be necessary. Then Luckey had his famous "ballpark" quote about it being more than $350, but still in the ballpark... which gave people entirely the wrong idea, when what he meant (and should have said) was that the claims of a price above $1000 were entirely inaccurate.

 

They did not have an estimated manufacturing cost for the CV1 when they were still working on the devkits, as they did not even know exactly what the CV1 would be.

 

So that debunks this idiotic claim of a $200 manufacturing price.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

What's wildly inaccurate here is the $200 estimate. Let me repeat that these guys are so ignorant that they think the Oculus Rift is used for game consoles.

Good thing the people at IHS is not buying the Rift to play with it. They bought it to estimate the cost.

You constantly saying they mislabeled it as used with a game console is just a poor attempt at undermining their credibility.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

They originally said they would aim for a price in the $200 to $400 range. Then they were talking about $350, as it became apparent that a higher quality headset would probably be necessary. Then Luckey had his famous "ballpark" quote about it being more than $350, but still in the ballpark... which gave people entirely the wrong idea, when what he meant (and should have said) was that the claims of a price above $1000 were entirely inaccurate.

 

They did not have an estimated manufacturing cost for the CV1 when they were still working on the devkits, as they did not even know exactly what the CV1 would be.

 

So that debunks this idiotic claim of a $200 manufacturing price.

That does not debunk anything though, and how is it an idiotic claim?

Unlike the "hurr durr it costs like 500 dollars to manufacture", the "it costs way less than that" side actually has some solid evidence to support our claims.

 

 

Are you getting paid by Oculus or something? You keep defending them in every thread I see. I don't even get why you are defending them in this case. It should be obvious to anyone that there is a hefty profit in this headset. Now, the reason for the high profit margins is up for debate (to make up for the R&D cost, greed, low supply or whatever), but the fact that they have high margins is not.

[Tomsen]

Oh jesus..

 

About the final cost of oculus rift and the comapany's price targets, I don't think that have changes very much really. 

You were not going to find $300 oculus rift today if facebook didn't buy them, that is just foolish to believe. That facebook goes for profit over populism is also a stupid saying. (more popular the product, the more you will sell)

 

I don't think facebook went away from the idea of more mainstream prices, but rather wait till the product actually reach mainstream populism (as oculus would have ended up doing anyway). I also think facebook will segment VR when it goes into that stages, you will find mainstream headsets, high-end headsets and so on. We are still early on in this market, and companies try certain things and see how it shapes the market.

[Sakkura]

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Good thing the people at IHS is not buying the Rift to play with it. They bought it to estimate the cost.

You constantly saying they mislabeled it as used with a game console is just a poor attempt at undermining their credibility.

It's not a poor attempt when it conclusively proves they have no credibility. They don't even understand what kind of tech they're analyzing.

Quote

That does not debunk anything though, and how is it an idiotic claim?

Unlike the "hurr durr it costs like 500 dollars to manufacture", the "it costs way less than that" side actually has some solid evidence to support our claims.

 

 

Are you getting paid by Oculus or something? You keep defending them in every thread I see. I don't even get why you are defending them in this case. It should be obvious to anyone that there is a hefty profit in this headset. Now, the reason for the high profit margins is up for debate (to make up for the R&D cost, greed, low supply or whatever), but the fact that they have high margins is not.

You are the one with the "hurr durr $200" just like the incompetents who came up with that proven-wrong estimate. When have I mentioned $500? In fact, you are the one who came up with that.

 

Are you a Vive shill? You spread FUD against Oculus in thread after thread. I don't get why you're attacking them in this case. It should be obvious to anyone that there is not the kind of profit that you and IHS Markit claim. They left out some of the components and provided unreliable estimates of the cost of others.

[fiberzs is dad]

well lets make our own vr headset  

[LAwLz]

22 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

You are the one with the "hurr durr $200" just like the incompetents who came up with that proven-wrong estimate. When have I mentioned $500? In fact, you are the one who came up with that.

When was it proven wrong?

 

22 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Are you a Vive shill? You spread FUD against Oculus in thread after thread. I don't get why you're attacking them in this case. It should be obvious to anyone that there is not the kind of profit that you and IHS Markit claim. They left out some of the components and provided unreliable estimates of the cost of others.

I am not attacking them here. Unless "this 200 dollar BOM cost seems a bit lower than I expected but still somewhat accurate" as "attacking" and "spreading FUD".

 

No I am not a Vive shill. It's just that I see you spreading a bunch of misinformation (such as Valve being the one blocking cross-platform compatibility when it is clear as day that the Oculus Rift license prohibits it, while the Vive one does not) and then I have to correct it before someone gets misinformed.

 

Which components did they leave out? The lenses? Again, they might be under the misc section since they are are cheap to produce (before you say anything, the comparison with a DSLR lens is hilariously bad for the reasons I explained earlier).

Which components did they provide unreliable estimates for?

[bcp]

The comparison with a DSLR lens is absolutely relevant. DSLR lenses are expensive to produce and not all of that is the complexity of the appartatus. The components themselves are expensive thats a given. Not to mention, we don't know the exact specifications of the Oculus Lenses. All they have released is that they are a Hybrid Fresnel Lens. Comparing them to a high end DSLR (the lens itself, not the entire apparatus) just gives us an approximate quality value as more than the 4$ they value MISC as @LAwLz likes to point out is where the lenses are conveniently placed in the price breakdown. 

 

The overall point aside, no one aside from oculus knows how much they specifically cost to produce. The point of my comment was that the IHS study/breakdown loses credibility by not factoring in one of the more complex, unique parts that allows the Oculus to produce a fairly high quality VR experience for a very new technology. 

 

tl;dr they are closer in price to a DSLR lense than the 4$ other individuals claim

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, bcp said:

The comparison with a DSLR lens is absolutely relevant. DSLR lenses are expensive to produce and not all of that is the complexity of the appartatus. The components themselves are expensive thats a given. Not to mention, we don't know the exact specifications of the Oculus Lenses. All they have released is that they are a Hybrid Fresnel Lens. Comparing them to a high end DSLR (the lens itself, not the entire apparatus) just gives us an approximate quality value as more than the 4$ they value MISC as @LAwLz likes to point out is where the lenses are conveniently placed in the price breakdown. 

How is it relevant? Did you read my previous post which explains why making a DSLR lens is probably 100 times more expensive than the lenses inside the Oculus? Size, coating, number of elements and mechanical parts are all waaaay more difficult factors for DSLR lenses. I might even be underestimating it when I say 100 times more difficult. It's just such a massive difference in the amount of perfect glass that is needed.

 

You are looking at the wrong section if you think IHS put the misc cost at 4 dollars. They estimated the cost for things like the LEDs at 4 dollars. My guess is that they put the lenses under the mechanical misc section which is estimated at 24 dollars (this is where cost for things like the case and misc plastic and metal parts go).

 

 

7 hours ago, bcp said:

The overall point aside, no one aside from oculus knows how much they specifically cost to produce. The point of my comment was that the IHS study/breakdown loses credibility by not factoring in one of the more complex, unique parts that allows the Oculus to produce a fairly high quality VR experience for a very new technology. 

You keep saying that they didn't factor it in, but you a have no evidence for this.

 

 

7 hours ago, bcp said:

tl;dr they are closer in price to a DSLR lense than the 4$ other individuals claim

[Citation Needed]

[Sakkura]

12 hours ago, LAwLz said:

When was it proven wrong

When it was shown that they forgot to account for the lenses, one of the most expensive parts of the headset.

 

Quote

I am not attacking them here. Unless "this 200 dollar BOM cost seems a bit lower than I expected but still somewhat accurate" as "attacking" and "spreading FUD".

 

No I am not a Vive shill. It's just that I see you spreading a bunch of misinformation (such as Valve being the one blocking cross-platform compatibility when it is clear as day that the Oculus Rift license prohibits it, while the Vive one does not) and then I have to correct it before someone gets misinformed.

 

Which components did they leave out? The lenses? Again, they might be under the misc section since they are are cheap to produce (before you say anything, the comparison with a DSLR lens is hilariously bad for the reasons I explained earlier).

Which components did they provide unreliable estimates for?

You are attacking them. You call them greedy and rely on a proven-wrong analysis that underestimates the component cost of the headset. You also made this argument:

 

Quote

It's a shame that Oculus sold to Facebook. Their goals went from wanting to make VR as popular as possible (as in, good and cheap), to making the maximum amount of money they could (which means selling it for the ridiculous price of 600 dollars). 

Which is clearly an attack.

 

The way you rely on misinformation and FUD and the extreme bias you exhibit makes you look like either a rabid fanboy or a shill, all while you accuse others who inject reason into the discussion of being paid off.

 

As for the cost estimates, they are fundamentally unreliable for all the components as the source is an incompetent group of analysts. But their estimate for the cost of the screens is probably the most likely significant deviation from reality.

[jagdtigger]

14 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

When it was shown that they forgot to account for the lenses, one of the most expensive parts of the headset.

Can you prove this with hard evidence?

[LAwLz]

47 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

When it was shown that they forgot to account for the lenses, one of the most expensive parts of the headset.

[Citation Needed]

I would like it on both of the claims (that they forgot to account for it, and that it is one of the most expensive parts).

 

 

47 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

You are attacking them. You call them greedy and rely on a proven-wrong analysis that underestimates the component cost of the headset. You also made this argument:

It's not really an attack as much as a fact. Saying "most of the US prison population are black, which is a shame" is not an attack on black people for the same reasons.

Reread my statement again and you will see that I did not in insult or attack them.

 

1 hour ago, Sakkura said:

The way you rely on misinformation and FUD and the extreme bias you exhibit makes you look like either a rabid fanboy or a shill, all while you accuse others who inject reason into the discussion of being paid off.

When did I rely on misinformation and FUD? When have I shown extreme bias? You mean in this thread, where I literally posted links to the licensing agreements which clearly shows that Oculus are blocking Valve and others from making cross-platform compatibility? The same thread that you were blaming Valve in without providing as much as a single evidence for your very bold claims?

Please bear in mind that this was just shortly before Oculus added extra DRM to prevent cross-platform compatibility.

[bcp]

The fact is, there is no hard evidence on either side of this argument. If you read the ENTIRE list from top to bottom, there is 0 mention of any lenses. I'm not sure what you are specifically looking for, but is that not hard evidence. 

For comparison, lets do a tear down on a modern sports car. Conveniently, there is no mention of cost of a transmission. It is reasonable to assume that forgetting to even mention a component as integral to the function of a car as that is just not reasonable.

 

It's not a fact of hard evidence, it's literally using your EYES! The word LENS does not appear even once on that document. How can you require more evidence than that. If I went outside to wear I parked my car, and it was no longer there that would be enough to know it was stolen. I wouldn't come home and ask around for some more evidence to prove that it was.  

 

Also, you love to state these wild claims that DSLR lenses are 100 times more expensive to produce than a Rift lens, and then go on to ask for citations. I have yet to see you post a citation about why you believe they are that much more expensive, aside from listing parts. That really means nothing. One of the few people who publicly posts about Oculus materials etc made the comparison to a DSLR lens. I for one believe that lends more credibility to that, then your random internet DSLR knowledge. 

[Linusinium]

The prices listed for displays and processors are misleading. I've worked at places* where I had access to discreete info, there are discounts exclusive to mass orders, kept from "smaller" (think less than 50k quantites) customers. I enjoy teardowns as much as the next guy but there is a price we pay when we order a part from a "LG direct" catalogue, there is another price a small company like Wasabi Mango pays and then there is the price that mass order customers leverage, think, Microsoft or Sony orders.

 

R&D is expensive, people tend to underestimate the entire cost of development. It's easy to look at a product and conclude a fraction of the actual cost was required. On the other hand, sequel products tend to have significant portion of the development cost absorbed by R&D of the previous product and some of the cost listed are reduced over time, literature and packaging for example. Inital, original products are always the most expensive to manufacture, with the lowest yield rates. Later in the production, these always improve and other benefits are also passed onto the next product.

 

As for the lenses, FB/Oculus were in position to waltz into a negotation knowing the order saturates manufacturing lines over extended periods of time, immense leverage over OEM's.

[Sakkura]

7 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Can you prove this with hard evidence?

It's not listed in their report, hence it's not included. The link is in the OP, it's clear and unambiguous.

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

[Citation Needed]

I would like it on both of the claims (that they forgot to account for it, and that it is one of the most expensive parts).

 

 

It's not really an attack as much as a fact. Saying "most of the US prison population are black, which is a shame" is not an attack on black people for the same reasons.

Reread my statement again and you will see that I did not in insult or attack them.

 

When did I rely on misinformation and FUD? When have I shown extreme bias? You mean in this thread, where I literally posted links to the licensing agreements which clearly shows that Oculus are blocking Valve and others from making cross-platform compatibility? The same thread that you were blaming Valve in without providing as much as a single evidence for your very bold claims?

Please bear in mind that this was just shortly before Oculus added extra DRM to prevent cross-platform compatibility.

 

The evidence is already cited in the OP. As for being one of the most expensive parts, that's obvious when you're talking specialized, small production run optics.

 

You did insult and attack them by calling them greedy, and you used FUD and misinformation to push that hostile agenda.

 

Oh yeah that other thread, where you tried to use a license agreement to prove something that had nothing to do with the license. A good example of misinformation, trying to seem right by just repeating the same lie over and over again. You provided zero evidence whereas I did. You just chose to ignore evidence and manufacture your own reality that suited your preconceived notion that Oculus is the devil.

 

Oculus added DRM to prevent Vive users from getting free access to software included with the Rift. Again you're spreading misinformation, they didn't just break the Revive hack to spite Valve/HTC or the Vive users. They addressed an actual problem in a way that hurt people who were doing something Oculus had already told them could break at any time.

[LAwLz]

31 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

It's not listed in their report, hence it's not included. The link is in the OP, it's clear and unambiguous.

It might be under the misc section. They didn't list every single screw either, but they were accounted for.

 

31 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

The evidence is already cited in the OP. As for being one of the most expensive parts, that's obvious when you're talking specialized, small production run optics.

Just saying "it's small production run optics" is not evidence. Small production run optics does not equal high price 100% of the time.

 

33 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

You did insult and attack them by calling them greedy, and you used FUD and misinformation to push that hostile agenda.

Didn't call them greedy, and I have not being spreading FUD and misinformation. Either cite me or stop putting words in my mouth. If you are going to claim that I said something then you better actually link to when I said it.

 

 

34 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Oh yeah that other thread, where you tried to use a license agreement to prove something that had nothing to do with the license. A good example of misinformation, trying to seem right by just repeating the same lie over and over again. You provided zero evidence whereas I did. You just chose to ignore evidence and manufacture your own reality that suited your preconceived notion that Oculus is the devil.

Bahaha you're so clueless it's actually funny.

"The SDK license which is the legally binding document stating what you are allowed to do does not have anything to do with what you're allowed to do!". No wonder people in the other thread were laughing at you.

Oh and you did not provide any evidence. You were making assumptions based on vague Reddit posts.

 

 

37 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Oculus added DRM to prevent Vive users from getting free access to software included with the Rift. Again you're spreading misinformation, they didn't just break the Revive hack to spite Valve/HTC or the Vive users. They addressed an actual problem in a way that hurt people who were doing something Oculus had already told them could break at any time.

I think I am done here. Only a hardcore Oculus fanboy would believe something as ridiculous as that.

I will just be wasting my time trying to educe someone who doesn't want to be educated.

 

 

 

And since you seem to think that I am a Vive shill, let me tell you that I think the Vive is stupid as well.

This is what I said about the Vive when Linus said he had one:

On 4/24/2016 at 0:38 PM, LAwLz said:

How long before Linus is bored of his Vive? Judging by the quality of content for it I'd say maybe a week if he played two hours a day (so about 14 hours in total). The more I see about it, the less hyped I get. The handful of games that seem decent, like Job Simulator, are things you play once and then never again.

 

Crap content.

Ridiculously big and clunky.

The cables are like a death trap.

Expensive as fuck.

 

 

I am against bad products and companies. In this case that includes both the Rift and the Vive. I dislike them for different reasons though.

[Derangel]

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It might be under the misc section. They didn't list every single screw either, but they were accounted for.

Oh please. Misc is for random minor things like screws, Velcro, and so on. No one would put a major part under misc. Let's drop the bullshit. They didn't mention the lenses because they don't know the cost of them and no one really does outside Oculus and the company producing them. Stop pretending you actually know what you're talking about.

[jagdtigger]

1 hour ago, Derangel said:

Oh please. Misc is for random minor things like screws, Velcro, and so on. No one would put a major part under misc. Let's drop the bullshit. They didn't mention the lenses because they don't know the cost of them and no one really does outside Oculus and the company producing them. Stop pretending you actually know what you're talking about.

Yes we dont know, but i do not think its that expensive like Sakkura thinks it is

[elfensky]

Where does one go to get the wireless Xbox controller for 18$? I imagine it's partly a bulk discount, but from how many units? 

[elfensky]

On 7/30/2016 at 4:32 PM, AresKrieger said:

Honestly I want the rift to fail since I hate facebook, so if they want to sell it overpriced and thus get less sales/adoptions overall let them it's not like the first gen of VR really performs well enough for me to care anyway tbh.

I really dislike the rift for that, but I'll be damned if it doesn't look way more slick than the vive. The vive (purely on aesthetics) still looks like a prototype to me, with those huge craters for the IR lights and so on. 

Oculus on the other hand, is a slick looking headset with no visible humps or bumps.

 

I just hope the next iteration of the vive improves on that. 

[Derangel]

8 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Yes we dont know, but i do not think its that expensive like Sakkura thinks it is

Probably not insanely expensive, no. Total, to retail, price of the Rift is probably somewhere between $300-$400. At least that's my guess.

[Derangel]

5 minutes ago, ElfenSky said:

Where does one go to get the wireless Xbox controller for 18$? I imagine it's partly a bulk discount, but from how many units? 

That would be one heck of a bulk discount. I wonder if they're just counting the total part cost of the controller in lieu of any real information on how much Oculus pays for each.

[elfensky]

16 minutes ago, Derangel said:

That would be one heck of a bulk discount. I wonder if they're just counting the total part cost of the controller in lieu of any real information on how much Oculus pays for each.

You know, that could be it. Let me look up its parts cost. 

I could only find the manufacturing price of the 360 controller, which is 11$, so 18$ for an improved model sounds reasonable, parts-price wise. 

[Sakkura]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

It might be under the misc section. They didn't list every single screw either, but they were accounted for.

 

Just saying "it's small production run optics" is not evidence. Small production run optics does not equal high price 100% of the time.

 

Didn't call them greedy, and I have not being spreading FUD and misinformation. Either cite me or stop putting words in my mouth. If you are going to claim that I said something then you better actually link to when I said it.

 

 

Bahaha you're so clueless it's actually funny.

"The SDK license which is the legally binding document stating what you are allowed to do does not have anything to do with what you're allowed to do!". No wonder people in the other thread were laughing at you.

Oh and you did not provide any evidence. You were making assumptions based on vague Reddit posts.

 

 

I think I am done here. Only a hardcore Oculus fanboy would believe something as ridiculous as that.

I will just be wasting my time trying to educe someone who doesn't want to be educated.

 

 

 

And since you seem to think that I am a Vive shill, let me tell you that I think the Vive is stupid as well.

This is what I said about the Vive when Linus said he had one:

 

Crap content.

Ridiculously big and clunky.

The cables are like a death trap.

Expensive as fuck.

 

 

I am against bad products and companies. In this case that includes both the Rift and the Vive. I dislike them for different reasons though.

It's under the misc section with the screws? Oh come off it.

 

The fact that they're complicated hybrid fresnel lenses is the main thing making them expensive, the limited production run just means economies of scale don't bring the cost back down much.

 

You did call them greedy, stop lying.

 

Again with the inane SDK license, when the SDK is not what's at stake in that discussion. Stop derailing the thread with the same nonsense you kept repeating the last time.

 

And then you finish off by confirming that you're arguing against Oculus because you're biased.

 

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Yes we dont know, but i do not think its that expensive like Sakkura thinks it is

You think it costs the same as a screw? Well I don't. It's a hybrid fresnel lens, not exactly your garden variety lens. I'm not saying they cost hundreds of dollars, but they are definitely more than a couple bucks (or cents, when we're talking screws).

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, Derangel said:

That would be one heck of a bulk discount. I wonder if they're just counting the total part cost of the controller in lieu of any real information on how much Oculus pays for each.

That seems likely. Still, I don't think Oculus is paying much for the controller. I was annoyed that Oculus chose to have it included in the bundle, but it's not like the controller is the difference between "$350 ballpark" and $600.