An Oculus Rift release date has long been the tech industry’s mythical white whale, but now it appears the VR headset could finally be heading to consumers.
Speaking at the Dublin Web Summit in Ireland today, Oculus CEO and co-founder Brendan Iribe has suggested that the Rift’s consumer release is now ‘very close’.
Although the VR leader has failed to narrow the Rift’s launch down to a specific month or quarter, Iribe’s comments back up recent reports the Rift will finally go on sale in 2015.
“We’re now very close to day one, which will be the consumer launch,” he said speaking with Bloomberg.
Looking to the future of the virtual reality industry, the Oculus head suggested that while gaming will dominate early usage, VR has far grander implications moving forward.
“VR long-term is going to be, I think, in a lot of different industries,” he said. “I think it will affect medical and architecture and military.
“In the early days it’s going to be very, very centred round gaming.”
Oculus Rift is widely considered to be the leader in the emerging VR space. It is not the only player though. In the past six months, Sony has unveiled its own Oculus rival in Project Morpheus while Samsung has out its own Gear VR headset.
Are you holding out for the Oculus Rift release or can you not see the 360-degree immersive hype surrounding VR? Share your thoughts via the comments section below.
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