Dump Your Lawnmower Man Set-up. Oculus Rift Consumer Version Dated

All has been quiet on the Oculus front for many months. Between the news on Steam and HTC joining forces to bring its own flavour of VR headset to market, Sony’s Project Morpheus getting a beefy upgrade and even Microsoft coming at you in a different dimension with HoloLens, poor old Oculus may have looked like its virtual reality headset, the Rift, had been all but been forgotten about (even after the grandeur and spectacle it had generated by inventing an affordable device in the first place!). Worry no more Rift fans as the consumer version is coming.

Announced today the Oculus team have confirmed it will be shipping the consumer version of its product “Q1 2016” and be accepting pre-orders later this year. Beyond an improved tracking system and a new “highly refined industrial design” very little is known of any upgrades from the development kits but chances are they’ll keep this information quiet for as long as possible to allow them to be competitive with the virtual rivals.

Having owned and been very impressed with a DK1 (and spent some time in a DK2) I’m interested to see how the consumer version will turn out – but deep down (as always) Gabe may have my money with the Steam and HTC Vive device.

HTC Vive launches November 2015, Sony Project Morpheus is coming Q1 2016 and HoloLens will be available “sometime after Windows 10 launch”.

More news on the Oculus Rift, such as features and cost, will hopefully be released at next months E3 event.