As Apple preps VR support in High Sierra, Facebook slashes Oculus Rift price to $400 in summer sale

The headset and set of two Touch controllers normally retail for $500 for just the headset and $100 for the controllers. The "Summer of Rift" promotion, launched on Monday, cuts this price to $400 for the set.

"What we learned with the [March] price cuts is that price matters," Oculus vice president of content Jason Rubin told Fortune on Monday. "This is a good time to test a mass-market price."

Valve's preferred VR hardware, isn't the Oculus Rift, but the HTC Vive — developed by the company in cooperation with HTC. But, AppleInsider has confirmed both from a Valve FAQ page, and some preliminary testing, that the Oculus Rift functions in the SteamVR beta with the eGPU Developer's Kit connected to a Mac running the High Sierra beta.

Apple's $600 External GPU Developer's Kit is intended to test VR content creation on any Mac with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity. The product includes a Sonnet external GPU chassis with Thunderbolt 3 and 350-watt power supply, AMD Radeon RX 580 8-gigabyte graphics cards, Belkin USB-C to 4-port USB-A hub, and a promo code for $100 towards the purchase of an HTC Vive VR headset.

Full support for external GPUs in High Sierra will launch in the spring of 2018.