Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 Starts Shipping to Pre-Order Customers

Oculus VR has started rolling-out Oculus Rift Development Kit 2, or Oculus Rift DK2, to pre-order customers.

The news first broke when one of the pre-order customers posted an email from Oculus VR on the subreddit /r/oculus with the notification of the company had charged the remaining amount to the card on file, essentially completing the pre-order process.

The roll-out of the Oculus Rift DK2 to pre-order customers has since been confirmed by an Oculus VR community manager, cybereality, to Road to VR website, with the statement, "We've started and it's the real deal."

Cybereality added that pre-orders are rolling-out in batches on a 'per-region basis'

Road to VR notes that Oculus VR recently announced it plans to ship 10,000 Oculus Rift DK2 units in July, with the first batch of 5,000 landing on developers doorsteps mid-July. It also confirmed that local fulfilment centres are stocked ready to ship once the SDK supporting DK2 features was done.

The Oculus Rift DK2, according to Founder Palmer Luckey, has a lower latency, higher frame rates, higher-resolution, low-persistence OLED display, along with full six dot positional head tracking, as compared to the first Rift development kit.

The improved positional tracking allows for better 'sub-millimetre' response. The new low-persistence OLED display is being touted as a revolutionary addition, which instead of bumping up the refresh rate to prevent motion blur and judder, instead ensures each frame disappears before the next appears. This, according to the company's research, would lead the human brain to perceive smooth motion even as low as 60Hz (75Hz and 72Hz also available).

The company has also released the latest version of the Oculus SDK (version 0.4.0 beta) for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The Oculus Software Development Kit (SDK) includes out-of-the-box engine integrations for the Unreal Development Kit, Unreal Engine 4, and Unity 4. It also features source code, documentation, and samples to help develop for the virtual reality headset.

Full specifications of the Oculus Rift DK2 VR headset can be found on the company's site, and the development kit can be pre-ordered for $350.