Oculus Rift Pre-Orders Now Open, Priced at $600

Oculus will begin taking pre-orders for the consumer version of the Rift virtual reality headset on Wednesday, January 6 at 8 a.m. PT, it said today. Pre-ordering opened up on Oculus’s site this morning, with a $599 price tag and a March release date for the first orders.

The pre-order page features a cost of $599 (£410), but going through to the check out page in the United Kingdom shows that the Rift headset will set consumers on this side of the pond back £499. The Rift will also be available in limited locations at select retailers starting in April. A free copy of space dogfighter EVE: Valkyrie will also be included for pre-order buyers.

Over 20 other games are being worked on for the Oculus, launching exclusively this year.

Virtual reality is inching its way into our homes in the very near future.

Wow, people really want Rifts.

“When you put on Oculus, you’ll feel like you instantly teleported into adventures like deep-sea diving, piloting a starfighter or playing in a band on stage”.

So what will this high cost of entry mean for the Oculus Rift, and virtual reality technology on the whole? It also includes an Xbox One controller, the wireless adapter to connect it to a PC and the Oculus Remote for simplified input.

Oculus initially made major headlines with its Kickstarter campaign and its subsequent billion acquisition from Facebook.

Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey has revealed the Oculus Rift is due to get more than 100 games by the end of 2016.

Oculus’ VR-specific controller called Touch, which aims to make the user’s hand motions feel natural, is still being perfected.