Early this morning, Oculus opened up preorders for the second iteration of their virtual reality unit, the Oculus Rift. The unit is priced at $350, $50 more than the first.

Oculus showed off a more refined version of the original, earlier this year at the Consumers Electronics show, that wowed those who used it and fixed a lot of the issues that the original had.

This new development kit has improved even more since then, as it has added a different style of lens that has improved image quality. It boasts a “low persistence OLED display” that helps eliminate motion blur and judder. It also “integrates precise, low-latency positional head tracking using an external camera that allows you to move with 6-degrees-of-freedom and opens up all sorts of new gameplay opportunities like peering around corners, leaning in to get a closer look at objects in the world, and kicking back on a virtual beach,” their website explains.

The final version will see even more changes, as Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, has said the consumer product will be a complete redesign that will not be constructed with parts found in the development kits. He proclaims, “We know what we need to ship, we know what parts we need to do it, we know where we can get those parts, and now it’s just a matter of playing the waiting game and putting it together.”

This second iteration is the last before the unit is released, to the public.

The new kit will ship to buyers in July.

My Opinion: 

It’s great that Oculus, coincidentally, had an immediate response to Sony’s Project Morpheus announcement from last night. Oculus is continuing to perfect VR and is on the brink of releasing it commercially. Be excited, I certainly am.

For more information on technical aspects of the device, read Oculus’ official post on the kit here. 

________________________________________________________________________

Jason Patrick is a writer for MONG, who lives within the PlayStation ecosystem. You can follow him on Twitter.