Oculus Rift to set consumers back £500, shipping starts in March

The Oculus Rift VR headset is now available to pre-order and its price has been revealed.

The pre-order page features a cost of $599 (410), but going through to the check out page in the UK shows that the Rift headset will set consumers on this side of the pond back 499.

In a subsequent post on the firm’s blog, Oculus says that shipping will begin on March 28th. That said, the pre-order page says that shipping will begin in April (though it did initially say March).

That $599 also does not include the cost of tax and shipping. The headset is being shipped toAustralia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom and the United States.

Currently the hardware is limited to one per consumer.

That 500 gets you a Rift headset, a sensor, Oculus Remote, cables, an Xbox One Controller as well as two games: EVE: Valykrie and Lucky’s Tale.

By launching in March, it also gets out just ahead of HTC’s Vive headset.

"This is just the beginning," the Oculus Team said.

"We can’t wait to share more about the incredible games and experiences coming to Rift this year. Touch will ship in the second half of the year and will unlock entirely new interactions that let people take their VR experiences further than ever before."