Oculus announces new box and permanent price drop to $499 (when current sale ends)

Oculus announced today that once the Summer of Rift sale has concluded, the price will move to $499.99 permanently, instead of the $599.99 price the system had a week or so ago. In addition to this, they also announced that a new box would be arriving in retail channels and online soon. Brendan Iribe said that sales of the Rift have been so brisk since Monday, that current supplies of the existing box and Touch are running out. Replacing the split packaging, comes a new retail box that includes both the headset with two Touch controllers and two Oculus sensors. In the long run, this new packaging will probably help Oculus keep their shipping costs down a bit, and also avoid customers getting one package but not the other due to a shipping mishap. Retail channels will only have to worry about one sku, which makes inventory less confusing. It's certainly likely that Oculus will still offer a standalone Touch package online, for the tiny percentage of Rift owners that could possibly need the original offering.

I have to admit, that I'm a little bit surprised about the permanent price drop announcement. While it makes complete sense, I'm not sure I agree with the timing. Why not let consumers continue to think the price will spike back up $200 as soon as this sale is over? Now, procrastinating VR fence sitters, can say, "well, it's only $100 more if I don't get one immediately.." I think it may have made a bit more sense to make an announcement like that when there is only two weeks left in the sale, not at the end of the first week.