It’s been nearly four years since Oculus wrapped up the Kickstarter campaign for its virtual reality headset, the Rift. Today, the company announced it will open up preorders for the first consumer version of the devices on Wednesday, Jan. 6 at 8 a.m. Pacific.
The devices will ship with an Xbox controller and two games: Lucky’s Tale and EVE: Valkyrie. Both games have been in development on the Rift since the first developer units shipping in March 2013. However, users will still need a pretty powerful computer to run the headset; Nvidia estimates just 13 million PCs worldwide are able to handle the load of VR.
While Facebook-owned Oculus has worked with Samsung on phone-based VR in the form of the Gear VR headset, its own headset will require more power in return for a supposedly more immersive experience. The Rift not only includes the headset, but a stand that tracks head movement as well, letting users move a little more naturally in a virtual environment.
Oculus isn’t alone in the VR space. HTC plans to ship its Vive headset in April, and Sony’s PlayStation VR headset will be compatible with PlayStation 4 consoles, eliminating the need for more expensive PCs.
There are still some major questions about the Rift. A ship date for the headset hasn’t been announced yet, but the company said it would ship consumer devices in the first quarter of 2016. Oculus also declined to announce the price of the Rift. A specialized controller, the Oculus Touch, was announced in June, but its ship date has already been pushed back to the second half of the year.
