Oculus today revealed more information on their Oculus Ready PC lineup, and announced that PC and headset bundle pre-orders will begin February 16th.
Oculus announced that starting February 16 at 8am PT (click here for local time), you’ll be able to pre-order Oculus Ready PCs and PC/Rift bundles from Best Buy, Amazon, and the Microsoft Store starting at $1,499 USD. Currently only US branches of the partner shops are showing availability.
If you missed the pre-order wave for the Oculus Rift headset back in early January, there’s a chance you may be able to skip the long queue with PC-headset bundles shipping “for a limited time only… in limited quantities to select countries and regions from retail partners starting in April,” though Oculus hasn’t been clear if the pre-order backlog will cause delays for these bundles.
Each pre-order bundle will include the complete Oculus Rift headset with all the trimmings, and of course EVE: Valkyrie Founder’s Pack, and Lucky’s Tale.
Oculus Ready PCs are made to meet or pass the company’s recommended specs (listed below) and come in under $999 (excluding the headset). If you’re not ready to shell out for a whole new rig, and want to throw a few odd parts into your computer, a quick download of the Oculus Compatibility Tool will let you see if your current system is up to snuff.
Oculus Recommended Specs
- Graphics card: NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
- Processor: Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
- Memory: 8GB+ RAM
- Output: Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
- Input: 3x USB 3.0 ports plus 1x USB 2.0 port
- Operating system: Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
Note from Oculus: For those who’ve already pre-ordered Rift, you’ll be able to purchase discounted Oculus Ready PCs in select countries and regions. To claim your discount, check your order status and opt into partner offers if you haven’t already. Offer codes will appear on your order status page February 16.
Developed in conjunction with AVADirect, Road to VR’s Exemplar Ultimate PC is packed with powerful components that go above and beyond the Oculus Recommended specification. It’s also the test platform used by Road to VR for benchmarks and reviews of virtual reality hardware and experiences, giving readers a reference point for high-end VR hardware.