Oculus – The Virtuality Headset That Already Hit $1.5 Million on Kickstarter

After being nominated as one of the best devices at E3 2012, Oculus, a virtual reality headset went on to garner plenty more attention. The product has been backed by John Carmack, who is of course well known in the gaming industry for having created some of the best tech available many times over.

Now the device has also garnered $1.5 million on Kickstarter, so it’s safe to say that you can expect to hear a fair bit about this in the coming months.

The Kickstarter page says:

Step inside your favorite game.

Oculus Rift is a new virtual reality (VR) headset designed specifically for video games that will change the way you think about gaming forever. With an incredibly wide field of view, high resolution display, and ultra-low latency head tracking, the Rift provides a truly immersive experience that allows you to step inside your favorite game and explore new worlds like never before.

We’re here raising money on Kickstarter to build development kits of the Rift, so we can get them into the hands of developers faster. Kickstarter has proven to be an amazing platform for accelerating big and small ideas alike. We hope you share our excitement about virtual reality, the Rift, and the future of gaming.

Designed for gamers, by gamers.

The Rift takes 3D gaming to the next level. There are a number of VR headsets out there, but none that deliver a truly immersive gaming experience. Most products either lack the technical features required for believable immersion or sit at a very high price-point ($20,000+) reserved for the military or scientific community.

We set out to change all that with the Rift, which is designed to maximize immersion, comfort, and pure, uninhibited fun, at a price everyone can afford.

We’re working with the best teams in the industry.

• “What I’ve got now, is, I honestly think the best VR demo probably the world has ever seen.”
  John Carmack, id Software

• “Needless to say, I’m a believer… We’re extremely excited here at Epic Games to get the Unreal Engine integrated with Oculus.”
  Cliff Bleszinski, Design Director Epic Games

• “I think this will be the coolest way to experience games in the future. Simply that… that big.”
  David Helgason, CEO Unity

• “I’m really looking forward to getting a chance to program with it and see what we can do.”
  Michael Abrash, Valve

• “It looks incredibly exciting, if anybody’s going to tackle this set of hard problems, we think that Palmer’s going to do it. So we’d strongly encourage you to support this Kickstarter.”
  Gabe Newell, President and Owner Valve

Bundling DOOM 3 BFG with the Rift

We’re including a copy of DOOM 3 BFG Edition, the first Oculus-ready game, with every Rift dev kit on Kickstarter. John Carmack showed DOOM 3 BFG at E3, stunning the press and creating incredible anticipation for the release.