Oculus Rift VR headset goes on sale in early 2016

The much-anticipated Oculus Rift virtual realityheadset will be available to consumers in early 2016, Oculus VR has announced.

The goggles usesophisticatedhead-tracking technology to immerse users in virtual, 3D worlds.Gamers have been waiting for them to hit the marketsince the Facebook-owned company's hugely successful Kickstarter campaign introduced themin 2012.

You'll be able to pre-order the consumer versionstarting later this year, andexpect it to ship in the first quarter of 2016, Oculussaid in a blog post today. It didn't sayhow much the headsetwould cost.

Compared to earlier versions released to developers, Oculus says it will have:

• Improved tracking that will work both when users are standing up andsitting down.
• Updated ergonomics "for a more natural fit."

Versions of the headset for developers were released in 2012 and 2014, priced at $300 and $350. Those developers been creating a range of VR games, apps and even movies for the Oculus Rift.

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However, Oculus is targeting the device mainly at gamers.

"It's a system designed by a team of extremely passionate gamers, developers, and engineers to reimagine what gaming can be," the company said, hinting that it will be revealingmore at the E3 gaming expo in June.

Oculus ran a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign for a developer kit for its headset, raising $2.4 million US or almost 10 times its goal of $250,000.

Facebook agreed to purchase the company for $2 billion in 2014, causing some controversy among Oculus'sKickstarter backers. The creator of the popular gameMinecraft also cancelled a deal with Oculus after the Facebookpurchase.

The Oculus Rift faces a number of competitors Samsung released its Gear VR headset, which uses Oculus software, in late 2014. HTC and Valve are expected to release the HTC Vive in November 2015, and Sony says it will start selling its Project Morpheus VR headset in 2016.