Oculus Touch controller won’t be ready for Rift launch

Facebook’s much-touted virtual reality headset Oculus Rift won’t ship alongside its controller at launch.

Oculus says that more time is needed to improve upon its controller tech, meaning that while the headset itself is due to ship in Q1 of this year, the Touch controller won’t arrive until some stage during the second half of the year.

We’ve made significant advances in ergonomics, and we’re implementing many changes that make Touch even more comfortable, reliable, and natural,” the company said. We’re also implementing changes that improve hand pose recognition.

We’re also outputting larger numbers of pre-production runs, which means we can get a lot more Touch hardware in the hands of developers who need it. There will be a huge amount of ground-breaking new content launching alongside Touch.

The feedback on Touch has been incredibly positive, and we know this new timeline will produce an even better product, one that will set the bar for VR input. We appreciate your patience and promise Touch will be worth the wait.”