Alienware announces Oculus Rift bundle and more at CES 2016

Heavy traffic on the “Oculus Rift” web site has momentarily shut out buyers who are now waiting to get their hands on the headgear. Here’s what we know so far about Oculus Rift’s release date, specs and features.

Available for pre-ordering through Oculus.com, the Rift is initially set to ship to 20 countries, including the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, Japan and Australia.

Alienware Oculus Rift bundles to ship before preorders from Oculus itself, reports The Verge – also great news if you’re looking for an Oculus ready PC. It will then debut in selected retail stores sometime in April.

“I think the $599 price point was higher than some people expected, but it’s really not the key inhibitor for adoption – it’s having a PC that’s Oculus-ready”, J.P. Gownder, a Forrester Research Inc. analyst, told us.

This way, you can also get the free games and Xbox controller offer with the Rift, as well as reserve your spot for the Touch pre-orders. Game developers will have a global… Also, they can have Eve: Valkyrie in virtual-reality.

“PC VR is most likely going to be a smaller category of enthusiasts and gamers than broad mobile VR”, Iribe said. And while those requirements aren’t extreme, you’ll need to factor in the costs of virtual-reality hardware, too: in the Oculus Rift’s case, that’s $599, £499 or AU$649.

Oculus also said that all backers of the Oculus Rift Kickstarter who pledged for a development kit will receive a free “Kickstarter Edition” of the device. The PC’s precise specifications are not yet known.

Azor said that when he first tried out the Rift, his question to Oculus was how Alienware/Dell could help make it a success.

The specs of the Alienware X51 system that will be bundled with the Oculus Rift have not been announced, but the company claims that users will be able to use the headset with minimal effort directly out of the box. Starting now, if you purchase any Alienware X51 R3 gaming desktop or Dell XPS 8900 desktop, you bundled ith with an Oculus Rift and chop 0 off of the Rift’s hefty asking price.

As a result, consumers and VR fans expressed their frustration and disappointment through social media, hours after the pre-order page went live. Oculus let me try out a couple of demos with the headset and its forthcoming Touch controllers. One feature that hasn’t been flagged up when talking about the overall cost of the device, however, is the integrated audio that will provide a standardised set of headphones attached to the device for everyone to use.