Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Gaming in Australia
The Oculus Rift
The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality hardware and software system that allows users to put on a headset and be absorbed in the world of VR gaming, and other opportunities, when connected to a high-end gaming PC.
Facebook acquired Oculus in 2014 for USD$2 billion to asure the development and success of the virtual reality system.
The system comes in a self-contained case that makes it east to pack and carry when you want to show it off at your friends house.
The Rift kit comes with the following items in the case; the VR headset, an Oculus Remote, a standalone sensor (camera), a Xbox One controller with its USB dongle, and all of the necessary USB cables to connect the headset and camera to your computer.
Oculus Rift Games
The life or death of any new gaming platform is always the quality and number of games available for it. The Oculus launched with 30 games and promises 100's more coming soon.
The system has hundreds of developers working on VR titles with over 175,000 devkits in the wild, well before it launched.
Skilled Media have provided a showcase of no less than 25 games developed for the Oculus Rift VR gaming platform and ready to go!
The Oculus games demonstrated in the video below include the follow:
You can do more than just play games with the Oculus Rift, besides coming non-gaming practical purposes, you can right now watch videos, including 360-degree videos and see panoramic images through the headset.
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Oculus Rift Release Date
While the Oculus Rift did start shipping on March 28, 2016, after taking pre-orders online, it will have quickly sold out of its limited existing stock.
Many of the headsets will have shipped to those that backed the project (9,522 backers) on Kickstarter first, leaving the rest of us to wait.
With many new custom parts developed and manufactured for the headset, it will take some time to ramp up production if the system proves popular with the masses.
Some estimate that it will take around 3 months to receive the kit after ordering it online.
Oculus Rift Australia
It's currently unknown when you will be able to buy the Oculus Rift in retail stores in Australia.
For it to achieve mass adoption, that will surely be coming some time relatively soon.
Oculus have no prior retail experience or existing sales and distribution partners, so it will take time to get everything in place.
Oculus Rift Reviews
The Verge give their review and thoughts of the Oculus Rift VR headset and some of the games currently available on the platform.
The guys from Tested go into a lot more questions and details of the system in the following Oculus Rift review.
Oculus Rift Price
Palmer Luckey (Oculus founder) talks about the price, what's in the box and where he see virtual reality heading.
The launch price for Oculus Rift is USD$600 which roughly equates to AUD$835 and that is WITHOUT any tax or shipping expenses added in.
It's been reported that getting one of these to Australia with all of the expenses included works out to about AUD$1,150.00.
This is, of course, provided your PC is up to Oculus VR performance specs, if not, you will need a new computer worth around AUD$1,000.00 or more.
Oculus Touch Controllers
The current kit comes with the small wireless remote and the Xbox wireless controller which suit the current generation of Oculus titles.
However, the newer VR titles in development take advantage of the all new Oculus Touch controllers, which give the VR user the ability to be tracked much more efficiently, using both hands using movements and gestures.
Oculus says the Touch controllers will be released in the second half of 2016, likely around October / November, with pre-orders taking place a month or two before that.
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