The Oculus Rift is one of the most anticipated PC peripherals in recent years. Oculus VR received $2 million in crowd funding for the virtual reality device during an initial pass of its Kickstarter campaign, overshadowed only by a multi-billion dollar acquisition by Facebook earlier this year. The virtual reality headset already has development kits in the hands of early supporters and game developers – the likes of Star Citizen included – though gamers have yet to hear potential release dates for the final product.
Oculus VR has faced numerous hurdles in its development. Worthwhile virtual reality headsets have historically cost in the millions to purchase, typically used in military, government, or medical applications; it's expensive hardware. The requirement of a high-resolution, low-latency screen with specially tuned lenses (to create the immersive screen curvature) has driven costs up beyond consumer use. Oculus VR co-founder Nate Mitchell has already emphasized that the company's target price for its lightweight virtual reality HMD (head-mounted display) is in the $200 to $400 range.
The current model of Oculus Rift is the Development Kit 2 (DK2), which implemented a 1080p display over the DK1's 720p display. The consumer model is slated to have a 90Hz (“or faster”) refresh rate with resolved latency issues, co-founder Palmer Luckey noted, a marked improvement over the 75Hz response rate.
As for the release date, Techradar was allegedly tipped off by multiple unnamed sources that Oculus Rift could launch into a “public beta by summer 2015,” with an alleged optimistic target launch of April, 2015.
- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.