The long wait is almost over. Back in 2013, the original Kickstarter campaign raised $2.5 million and ever since we’ve been waiting for the consumer version. Well, now the Oculus Rift Is Available For Preorder ($599). It was initially expected to start shipping in March, but due to the high demand, it looks like June is a better bet at the moment. Initially, the headset will ship to 20 countries, and there will also be a small set of retailers who will have demo units starting in April.
Before preordering you’ll want to make sure you PC is “Oculus Ready”. You’ll need at least an NVIDIA GTX 970 or equivalent video card, an Intel i5-4590 or better processor, 8gm of RAM, an HDMI 1.3 video output, 3x USB 3.0 ports plus 1x USB 2.0 PORT, and OS Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer. If you don’t have the right gear, they’re offering PC’s for sale from other companies and in February, they’ll be offering a Rift/PC bundle starting at $1499.
Not everything is so rosie. The touch controller that enables users to interact with objects in VR won’t be shipping with the headset. They don’t expect it to be ready until the second half of this year. Instead, the rift will ship with a Xbox controller and two games.
