The Oculus Rift head mounted display / VR headset is now available for pre-order from the company’s website for those who missed out on the initial Kickstarter. If you’re late to the party, have no fear, you can pick up the Oculus Rift developer kit for the same $300 price offered through the Kickstarter. Pre-ordering also grants access to the upcoming Oculus Rift SDK which the company is expected to reveal in detail soon.
The Oculus Rift is an upcoming head mounted display / VR headset developed by Palmer Luckey. The HMD has a very wide 90 degree field of view and low-latency head tracking.
The Oculus Rift Kickstarter campaign, which raised a whopping $2.4 million, ran through the month of August and gave developers and virtual reality enthusiasts a way to pledge support by pre-ordering the Oculus Rift. A number of industry heavy-weights, including Gabe Newell, John Carmack, and Cliff Bleszinski, publicly endorsed the Oculus Rift Kickstarter.
The first shipments of the Oculus Rift are expected in December — just 3 months from now for nearly 7,500 backers who ordered the Oculus Rift Dev Kit through the Kickstarter.
Oculus Rift Direct Pre-order for $300
For those that missed the Kickstarter, the company is now offering an Oculus Rift pre-order directly through their site for the same price of $300. The release date for the Oculus Rift dev kit is expected in December for Kickstarter orders, while orders placed directly through the Oculus LLC website are expected to arrive in January.
$300 gets you the Oculus Rift developer kit as well as access to the SDK (software development kit) that will assist developers when it comes time to implement the Oculus Rift into their games. The Oculus Rift SDK will feature support for Epic Games’ popular Unreal Engine as well as the Unity engine from Unity Technologies, among others.
The Oculus Rift developer kit is meant for developers, not for consumers. Oculus LLC wants to give devs time to work out best-practices for virtual reality game development and be sure that the Oculus Rift has some game support before try to reach into the mainstream. An improved consumer version of the head mounted display for mainstream virtual reality gaming (Oculus Rift 2.0) is expected in 2013.
Pre-order the Oculus Rift developer kit here.
Update: Oculus’ official announcement regarding direct pre-orders is now available here. They’ve confirmed that the first 1,000 direct pre-orders will include a copy of Doom III BFG, the first Oculus Rift compatible game.
See: Oculus Rift Compatible Games
Here is the Kickstarter video which gives a good summary of the Oculus Rift head mounted display / VR headset and why it will create a great virtual reality gaming experience:
Oculus LLC Hiring
Earlier in the month Oculus LLC put up a number of job listings to help fill the ranks of the young startup. Their latest call is for an experienced Art Director:
Responsibilities:
- Lead the creative direction and art development process for the Oculus brand, website, and product
- Create great-looking marketing materials, both print and digital (e.g. ads, packaging, emails, brochures, booth design, etc.)
- Contribute to artistic strategy and vision to maintain and improve visual integrity, brand standards, and consistency
- Apply user experience and design principles in the execution of high-fidelity mockups and interaction flows
- Incorporate the Oculus brand and aesthetic in all designs, consistently and efficiently
Requirements:
- 5+ years of creative/design/agency experience
- A strong passion for beautiful, pixel-perfect design and a keen eye for intuitive navigation, information architecture, typography and content layout
- Ability to self-start and self-manage on projects
- Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative environment, while tracking multiple ongoing projects
- Strong attention to detail and exceptional communication skills
- Motion design experience and 3D skills a plus (Cinema 4D, Maya, Max, After Effects)
This position is based in Long Beach, CA.