The virtual reality headset kit, Oculus Rift, raised around ten times the amount it was asking for when the project launched on Kickstarter back in August. Rather than $250,000 USD, the team ended up with a rather more hefty $2.4 million USD. With this increase in funding came an increase in demand; a lot more Oculus developer kits would have to be produced and distributed to the backers.
In a new, detailed update on the Kickstarter page, the Oculus team go into detail about the production process and share some new images (below) of a working factory prototype. According to their updated shipping schedule, the first dev kits will be going out in March 2013.
“We may not have all 7,500 kits in the first shipment, but we’ll continue shipping out kits as soon as they arrive” the post says, adding that “We’re estimating that we can have all the rewards sent out by mid-April.”
Any pre-orders that were placed after the Kickstarter concluded will probably be sent out in late April 2013. For a neat overview of the Oculus manufacturing process, do have a read of the latest update.
