Oculus Rift Pre-Orders

The Oculus Rift is finally available for pre-order and many are having sticker shock with the $599 price tag. With tax and shipping costs (really? shipping costs on a $599 device? I suppose I might be spoiled by Amazon), it can come out to almost $700 in the United States. However, this is pretty close to the price of a high-end monitor (such as the curved 34-37 inch models), and you get a decent amount of hardware included: motion tracking, the tracking camera, Xbox controller, Oculus Remote, etc.