Oculus Rift VR Finally Begins Shipping to Consumers

In what can be seen as a milestone in the nascent virtual reality space, Oculus VR (one of the biggest players in virtual reality) has finally begun shipping the consumer version of the Rift. If you were among those who pre-ordered the virtual reality headset, then you could see the Rift delivered to your doorstep as soon as March 28, the Facebook-owned company announced.

Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe tweeted the news on Thursday, along with a photo of the retail box of the Oculus Rift VR. He noted that the first units of the consumer version of the Rift will begin delivering on Monday. Do note that not everyone will get their Rift VR unit delivered on Monday.

It's a big moment for the company, which first demonstrated its product on Kickstarter four years ago. Since then the company has been working on making its virtual reality gear more capable, adding several software features. Earlier this month, Oculus announced 30 games that will be available to play on the Rift VR.

The company began taking pre-orders for the Rift on January 6. The batch of units that was available went out of stock quickly. If you weren't able to purchase one earlier this year, Oculus says that it will hold another pre-order round later this year.

The Oculus Rift is a head-mounted virtual reality gear that allows the wearer to experience a computer-generated world. Over the years, several other companies such as Samsung, Google, and Sony have entered this nascent technology category, but Oculus' $600 (roughly Rs. 40,000) offering has unarguably been the most anticipated. To actually use the Oculus Rift (or other headsets such as HTC's Vive) you will also need a powerful PC to run the software for the headset, and the combined cost of the headset and PC is close to $1,500 (roughly Rs. 1 lakh).