It’s easy to forget, but the Oculus Rift began as a Kickstarter project more than three years ago. Though backers who pledged a minimum amount received the Rift dev kit they were promised years ago, Oculus is honoring its first supporters by also giving them a free consumer version of the Rift.
The consumer Oculus Rift goes up for pre-order tomorrow ahead of shipments starting in Q1. We still don’t know how much it will cost, but those original Kickstarter backers can save their dollars and enjoy one on the house.
The offer only applies to backers who pledged for a Rift DK1 (at the time this was a US$300 minimum pledge). The "Kickstarter Edition" of the Rift will, like the retail version, include the games Eve: Valkyrie and Lucky’s Tale along with the headset. The company didn’t specify whether this special version will ship with an Xbox One controller, as the consumer version will.
For everyone else, Rift pre-orders open up on January 6 at 8am Pacific time. It’s a bit strange to open up pre-orders without advance notice on pricing, but perhaps the company will let that info slip in the next 24 hours.
For more, you can read our hands-ons with the consumer Rift from E3 and again from Oculus’ latest developer conference. And for some historical perspective, you can revisit our coverage of the original Kickstarter campaign and our first hands-on with a Rift prototype from CES 2013.