The consumer version of the Oculus Rift will launch in Q1 2016

It’s strange to think that we’ve been talking about the Oculus Rift for three years now and it still hasn’t been released, not that I’m complaining. Virtual reality is a new field and Oculus VR is the de facto “face of the industry” at the moment, so I want the company to spend as much time developing the Oculus Rift as it needs to. That being said, the company has finally given us a date to expect the consumer version of its long-awaited virtual reality headset. 

The first virtual reality headset to make waves finally has a full release date. The Oculus Rift headset will be available as a full product at retail during the first quarter of 2016, its maker Oculus VR announced Wednesday morning. Oculus VR hasn’t released a price or exact release date for the consumer version of the Oculus Rift, only promising it will ship with “compelling content, a full ecosystem, and a fully-integrated hardware/software tech stack designed specifically for virtual reality.” The Oculus Rift was first revealed as a Kickstarter project in August 2012, raising more than $2.4 million dollars by offering $300 kits directly to developers interested in virtual reality. Creator Palmer Luckey, a few months before, wrote on an online message board: “Really excited about this, I think it could be the kind of thing that jumpstarts a bigger VR community.” And Oculus VR did just that. After receiving a few rounds of funding, the company was purchased by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion. Through all this, the company still only sold Oculus Rifts as development kits to those interested in creating experiences for virtual reality.