Oculus Rift Kickstarter backers to receive free updated model

Yesterday, co-founder Palmer Luckey revealed an exciting detail: preordering the Rift reserves a spot for later Oculus Touch preorders. Earlier this week Oculus announced that the Rift would be available for pre-order – that day has come folks, the Rift is up for grabs! Oculus said that it will be “sharing everything you need to know to order your Rift on Wednesday when pre-orders go live”. If you pre-order an Oculus Rift now, you’ll have to wait until May before it ships.

6,955 people paid enough to receive this edition of the Oculus in this gracious move by the developers. While $300 ensured a development kit back in 2012, it’s expected that the retail version of the Rift could run significantly higher.

What the announcement of pre-orders also signals is that Oculus could end up beating the HTC Vive to market after all. Also, pre-orders will not require any money upfront, allowing customers to cancel their orders before shipment.

That’s a pretty sweet deal for the early backers who helped get this company moving. Oculus reported that those that preorder Rift will “secure a place in line” for Touch controller preorders later this year.

Valkyrie is a multiplayer dogfighting shooter that shows off what the Oculus Rift can do, which is probably one reason that it is being given away with the headset.

Facebook, which bought Oculus for $2bn in 2014, said it planned to expand the use of its technologies, to include “communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas”.