The Oculus Rift Kickstarter is officially live. Here’s the link! Read on for pricing and other details.

Here’s the Kickstarter launch video for the Oculus Rift:

 

There wasn’t a straightforward commitment from Valve about Source integration as I had hoped, but both Gabe Newell and Michael Abrash were on hand to vocalize their support for the project and encourage people to back it. Quite excitingly, Cliff “CliffyB” Bleszinski said that he’s “a believer” and excited to integrate Oculus Rift support into the Unreal Engine! The CEO of the Unity Engine, David Helgason, said that they are behind the project; this comment and the Kickstarter page indicates that Unity integration with the Oculus Rift is comic as well.

Pricing is even better than expected. There are 100 slots (I imagine soon to be sold out) for an unassembled version of the Oculus Rift for $275. This is for serious devs who want to construct the Rift on their own. This version will ship a month earlier (estimated in November) than other versions.

Then there’s the $300 version which has no slot limit that comes assembled but ships a month later (estimated in December).

Both versions include the Oculus Rift head mounted display, a copy of Doom 3 BFG (with native Rift support), as well as access to the Oculus Developer Center, the Oculus SDK, samples, docs, and engine integrations.

Lower tiers offer a post or shirt, signed depending upon how much you contribute, but I’m willing to bet most are interested in getting their hands on this exciting HMD!

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Disappointingly there are almost no details on Oculus Rift specifications except for the mention of a 110 degree diagonal field of view. I have a list of preliminary Oculus Rift specs here, but they may have changed. Expect to see more specific info during Quake Con (starts tomorrow) and once the official OculusVR site goes live.

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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."
  • Mike Wheeler

    Youtube link for those who cannot view the page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxptk8P15TI

  • bf

    thanks to your blog and quick note I’m a happy owner of an early DIY-Kit in november! Way to go! Thanks!

    • Ben Lang

      Very glad to hear you got in with the lucky 100! You’ll have to come back to let us know how you like it!

  • Kit Webster

    Are there any images of the internals?

    • Ben Lang

      Nothing official yet. If you watch the Kickstarter video you can see them playing with some parts but there’s not much to be gleaned that way. Best I know is that they are using a Hillcrest head tracker (subject to change of course). What about the internals are you interested in seeing in particular?

      • Kit Webster

        well id like someone to stick a camera at least somewhere near the screens. I mean this part is much more important than the look of the casing!

        • Ben Lang

          Interesting, so you want to mount a camera for ‘see-through’ capability?

          • Kit Webster

            No, but that would be awesome.

            What I am wondering if there is any video documentation of the eye pieces to attempt to show what the FOV is like. And more footage of the inside area?