Mankind took a big step closer to living in The Matrix today when the highly publicized VR company Oculus announced in a tweet that their virtual reality headset—the Oculus Rift—will be ready to ship to consumers in the first quarter of 2016. Versions of the Rift have been circulating amongst developers since Oculus VR’s successful Kickstarter back in 2012, when big gaming companies like Valve, Epic Games, and Unity hopped on board in support.
We’re incredibly excited to announce that the Rift will be shipping to consumers in Q1 2016! http://t.co/XEZ04ZP6UTpic.twitter.com/kpcK5zhpZt
— Oculus (@oculus) May 6, 2015
Oculus VR—which was bought by Facebook in 2013—says the Rift headsets will be “affordable,” though no price details have been shared yet. In a blog post, the company said, “The Rift delivers on the dream of consumer VR with compelling content, a full ecosystem, and a fully-integrated hardware/software tech stack designed specifically for virtual reality. It’s a system designed by a team of extremely passionate gamers, developers, and engineers to reimagine what gaming can be.”
According to the post, Oculus will reveal more details next week, and that the Rift will be available for preorder this fall. In the meantime, consider the social ramifications of strapping a big black box to your face.
Read our Breaking feature on VR pioneer Chris Milk.
(via Buzzfeed)
