The excitement surrounding the Oculus Rift reached a fever pitch this week, thanks to the news that pre-orders will open on Wednesday, but we’re not sure anybody outside of Oculus HQ expected the latest announcement from the Rift team.
It’s been a busy week for the Oculus team. First, there was news that the Oculus Touch, a new controller designed to be used with the Rift, won’t arrive until the second half of 2016. Then we got word that pre-orders for the Oculus Rift will begin later this week. Now, we’re finding out just what can happen when one of the most valuable companies on Earth buys your company. And it sounds like it’s going to pay dividends for the virtual reality headset’s earliest supporters.
A new update was published on the Oculus Rift Kickstarter page, on Tuesday morning, outlining plans to send a free consumer-ready Rift kit to anyone who contributed money to the headset’s first round of fundraising. Not everyone will get a free Rift, only those who contributed enough to take home a DK1, but that still leaves a pool of 7500-plus recipients. And the Oculus team says they can all expect a brand new Oculus Rift to show up on their doorstep on Day One. All they’ll need to do is fill out a short survey.
“You were there at the beginning of our journey,” the Oculus team wrote. “We couldn’t have done it without you. Today marks a new chapter.”
If you’d like more information on the newly-revealed plan, and/or need to claim your own free Rift unit, head over to the Oculus Rift page on Kickstarter. Or just take a couple of minutes to check out the video embedded below, featuring Oculus CEO Palmer Luckey.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Oculus Rift coverage throughout 2016 and for however long Oculus supports the Rift platform in the years to come.
