Following the HTC Vive delay which pushed the headset just into Q2 2016, eyes turn to Oculus to see if they can deliver on the Rift’s Q1 2016 release date window.

While Valve and HTC’s initial Vive shipping target of Q4 2015 appears to have been too ambitious, Oculus is still on track for their Q1 2016 release window, as far as we know.

See Also: HTC Vive Delayed to 2016, 7,000 Additional Developer Kits Coming Early Next Year

In addition to a stated release date of Q1 2016, the company has also said that the Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch controllers will become available for pre-order starting in 2015. 22 days remain until the New Year, and VR hopefuls are now watching the company closely to see if Oculus can stick to their promise.

We reached out to Oculus to ask whether or not things were still on track but the company declined to comment.

Responding to a comment on twitter asking if Rift pre-orders would begin before Christmas and whether or not the user should thus ask for the VR headset as a gift, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said to “Ask for a raincheck!”:

At least as far as what the company has revealed, things seem to be on track for the Rift’s Q1 2016 release date window. Back at Connect in September, Oculus said that the first Rift headset had rolled off the production line as part of a manufacturing test.

oculus-rift-production-line
Members of Oculus’ hardware team witness the first headset coming off the line. | See Also: The First Oculus Rift Has Rolled off the Production Line

“We set a date out for ourselves for when we wanted to build the first product and we hit that date on the nose,” said Oculus Hardware Project Manager, Stephanie Lue, on stage at Connect. “Our hardware teams are pouring our hearts and souls to get it just right for the experience and for manufacturability so that we can get this out to as many people as possible. It’s definitely worth the wait.”

oculus touch hands on e3 2015 (4)
See Also: Hands-on: Oculus Touch is an Elegant Extension of your Hand for Touching Virtual Worlds

While the Oculus Rift is set to launch in Q1 of 2016, the company gave a more broad release window for their ‘Touch’ VR controllers, which they say will launch in the first half of 2016. Although there may be a mismatch between the launch dates of the two products, the company confirmed that Touch pre-orders would open alongside the Rift.

While Oculus Touch remains entirely unpriced, Oculus confirmed to Road to VR that the Rift would cost “More than $350,” which is believed to exclude the cost of Touch. Each Oculus Rift will come bundled with an Xbox One controller and EVE: Valkyrie.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • P. Pzwski

    This is very very weird. The same behavior in totally different companies suggests 2 only options:

    1) they lied that they have a working product (less possible),

    2) they play some game (possible with game or electronic hardware business) unknown for consumers.

    Fairy tale about ‘mistake’ in calculation in multi-million companies with years of experience on the market, is very unlikely. Maybe someone don’t want that technology on the market yet, because of possible losses.

  • Adrian Meredith

    Why is oculus forcing eve Valkyrie and an Xbox controller on us, surely the rift plus PC is going to be expensive enough.

    • Kristian Brasel

      it isnt practical to use a keyboard with your face covered. plus, the more natural the controller the more immersed you become, which is the overall goal. keyboard/mouse have their advantages, but this is not one of them.

  • This company has somehow managed to master the dark art of infinite product delays, tacked with the ‘oh you liked those half moon controllers didn’t ya, whelp, you’re not getting them now’ cherry on top.

    I question how they manage to stay in business, daily. Actually… yeah, Facebook’s tit is keeping them afloat. Got it. Another company that isn’t participating in the real market. Isn’t like that has never proven futile before.

    It’s understandable of them to be afraid their product will fail. Thing is, it will. The longer they wait, the worse it’s going to look when the inevitable happens (and the harder it’ll be to pivot if they try to stay in business). Solve motion sickness and unique input in truly innovative ways, then get back to me. Until then all you’ll get is a very small niche market that will move on to other things once the lack of interesting titles becomes, well, persistent. Console games are doing extremely well, PC games are doing extremely well… What gap is Oculus looking to fill exactly? They either shake the ground with something extremely new with future potential, or they move aside and die. They ain’t stealing away console/PC gamers any time soon. Specially since the companies behind those games have products to crush the Rift already.

    And that price will sink you.
    Luckey tweeted that “Rift will be sold insanely cheap considering complexity – multiple high end OLED monitors+motion tracking+fancy mechanicals in one device,”
    That statement reminded me of Neo-Geo.

    Try to learn from the past or be forever doomed to repeat it, is what I say.