Oculus announced yesterday that their virtual reality headset is now available for pre-order at a price of $600, and will ship to 20 countries starting March 28th. However, according to Engadget, the first batch of Rifts sold out in just 15 minutes, so now it’s looking like April is when we’ll see more of these things distributed.
Quite a few extras are included in the box when you purchase a Rift: built-in headphones and mic, sensor, an Xbox One controller, the games EVE: Valkyrie and Lucky’s Tale, and an Oculus Remote, which is a new device that allows users to navigate the Oculus Store, as well as VR content, like games and other media.
However, before you take the plunge and pre-order a Rift, you have to make sure that your PC can handle it. Oculus has listed the system requirements:
- graphics card: NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
- processor: Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
- memory: 8GB+ RAM
- output: Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
- input: 3x USB 3.0 ports plus 1x USB 2.0 port
- operating system: Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
If your machine doesn’t meet the requirements, Oculus is offering a $1500 Rift bundle that includes an Oculus Ready PC, which will be available for pre-order in February. According to the press release, these PCs will be “certified to meet our recommended system specifications and have been tested by Oculus to ensure they deliver a great experience with Rift.”
Despite the fact that the Oculus Rift is clearly aimed at gaming, there are plenty of applications for it, as well as other VR devices, in the cinematic world. Just in September, Netflix and Hulu announced that they were integrating VR into their platforms by optimizing their menus for immersive, virtual experiences. Fox also announced that they will be releasing over 100 titles from their library into a “virtual reality cinema” called Oculus Video, which will be able to be viewed with both the Rift and the Samsung Gear VR headsets.
Source: Oculus
