Oculus has announced on its Kickstarter page that their virtual reality headset Rift has been delayed and will hit people who have pre-ordered in March 2013. These are the dev kits and the consumer version of Rift is not yet in production and will take a while, probably end of 2013 to hit stores.
They have said that the headset will be delayed to due to difficulties in manufacturing, and the factory requires a preparation time of 90 days.
“Designing, sourcing, and manufacturing thousands of developer kits is no small feat. Since our Kickstarter, we’ve been up against the wall, working around the clock to produce and distribute over 7,500 units in just 4 short, crazy months,” the update read.
“We’ve had to modify our original design for mass-manufacturing and, at the same time, balance additional features with our tight schedule.”
They have also released a graph which shows the time required for the product to get manufactured.
“All together, preparing the factory for mass production of a product like the Rift takes approximately 90 days and the factory can’t begin until design and feature set has been locked down. Our manufacturer is already underway with the first tooling (T1), which takes roughly 50-70 days.
“Once the primary tooling is complete, we’ll do a series of pilot runs for minor tweaks and adjustments before mass production. Simultaneously, we’ll be testing and certifying the device for public use.”
We interviewed Oculus chief Palmer Luckey recently and you can check out our interview of that here.